(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); OK, this is a conversation I've wanted to have for so long, and hopefully I'll find a few Democrats, Liberals, perhaps even a Republican (I'm hoping for Americans because they practically invoke the word Socialism there like it's Voldomort).

I am a Socialist. I have actively been a Socialist for a few years now as my understanding of politics has grown and matured. I used to be simply Anti-Conservative. I didn't know what exactly I supported but I knew the Conservatives where ****ing it all up so I didn't want them. I've since become quite a vocal Socialist, however the Socialist Party in UK is pitifully small.

Still my question is this. What is it that scares people so much about Socialism? Why do the American Public largely see Socialism (and Communism for that matter) as such big threats? Why do so many people view these political stances as evil?

I just personally can't understand how a eco-political position based, to put it painfully simply, on sharing, can be so bad in so many peoples eyes.

I don't know too much about the whole Socialist, Communist, Right Wing, Labour, Conservative Agenda's. But I stumbled across this video:



Kleptocracy is a term applied to a government subject to control fraud that takes advantage of governmental corruption to extend the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats), via the embezzlement of state funds at the expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest service.

TornadoCreator, is that flag at the end a Communism flag? I don't know what that's all about but surely there isn't a large Communist following in the UK due to the history of the past century.

In Australia currently there is a Carbon Tax trying to go through Parliament with a Minority Government - Labor. Which aims to tax the big guns of the mining sector, steel industry etc and business owners for aims to lower carbon emissions. Personally I think thats good because the future is important, but it makes me wonder are there different views for Socialists/Communist's on those issues? IF this is off topic I apologise. But it came up today in my class so if anyone is willing to explain it, in depth if possible, that would be greatly appreciated.

An interesting video, thanks for sharing.


The UK is much less Capitalist than people realise and there is actually a strong support for Communism here. The flag at the end was the USSR flag, used by the Soviets during the cold war before they split up and become the Eastern European States and Russia. All in all it's considered to be a sign of support for Communism yes.

People seem to think that because UK is a leader in the world stage, being the 5th richest country in the world despite it's size, being one of the 5 nuclear peacekeeper nations and a founder of the United Nations, that it must therefor be in support of what people consider "western values" which are really just American values.

1. UK is not a Capitalist country. We heavily tax the rich using a progressive tax system. We have a socialised welfare system that ensures that all people are given a home and enough money to live off, with aid to help people to get back to work if able. We have a free college system for all students, and a government subsidised university system. We have a totally government run socialised healthcare system. We have subsidised train and bus services. Government run emergency services, maintainance services and more. We have gas, electric, water and television companies all run by the government. In actual fact, it's estimated that 41.5% of all jobs in UK are provided by the Government, which is why when the Government loses money we lose jobs in UK. Compared with USA who supports the idea of "small government" where many things, even things with the word "Federal" in the name, are not actually government run and the Government jobs account for about 7% of the jobs there (and Americans still claim Government is too big).

2. UK is not a Democracy. Democracy is actually largely misunderstood, it's actually a system in which normal people from the public are invited to stand and are voted on for a position in government. Nowhere uses that system. USA runs a Corporate Oligarchy, where only a small number of people have the chance to stand and rule, usually dictated by the Corporations. This is why the Bush and Clinton families are so powerful, to the point of having multiple members standing (and in the case of Bush succeeding) in becoming President. This could change over time to become a full blown Plutarchy where the people with the most money directly decide the contries politics. The UK however is a Constitutional Monarchy with a Representative Parliament which is not democracy in the slightest. For a start, and this is a good thing, the average persons vote is meaningless. Parliament is (in theory) filled with intelligent people who will make better choices than a full nation-wide referendum and for this reason we have them rarely here. This means that logically we have scientists, lawyers and educated people deciding the direction of the country, which is the way it should be. The problem arises because, while this is the case, large parties are becoming a major issue for UK with a turn towards "tactical voting" causing this countries politics to become a three party system, in danger of becoming a two party system. Currently, the system is broken and working only somewhat, but it's still better than a Democracy and fragrently refuses to adopt true Democracy as it would cause less cohesion in Government.

All in all, during the Cold War, UK was heavily divided, which much of the country backing the Russians. The UK only supported USA because they were our international ally since World War 2, but then... so was the Soviet Union eventually. In much of UK particularly in the North there's a great reverence and respect for Russia actually. Whilst Communism itself is much more extreme than people in the UK are looking for, the original platform of the Labour party is that of a party for Workers, socialised healthcare and welfare and of nationalistic interests (without a pertainance for racism that nationalism seems to be lumbered with these days). Nowadays the Labour party has shifted to the right and become very similar to the original platform of the Conservative party. Meanwhile the Conservative party has shifted further to the right as well and become scarily right wing to the point of Americanisation.

After Margret Thatchers terms as Prime Minister for the Conservatives, the "class war" became much more evident, with traditionally Labour voters feeling Labour isn't going far enough and countrywide riots and strikes causing major issues as Margret Thatcher, being very much in support of American ideals, tried to privatise many of the socialist programs in UK (and succeeded in many cases), in order to become more appealing to American investers and businesses. In the end UK was pillaged by corporate leeches and bled dry. Thatcher sold this countries strongest industries and most profitable resources for way under-price in order to gain favour with Capitalist USA which then proceeded to drain us of money with it's corporate greed. Thatcher is practically universally hated in UK amongst Labour and Lib Dem supporters and is the main reason so may people are polerised against the Conservatives. All in all, Thatcher was UKs first major glimps at a Capitalist Britain and we got mugged... for this reason, many people in UK are socialism supporters but not to the extent that I am. They support Socialist programs and ideals, but not enough to give the Socialist Party a decent share in votes and rarely will people be full blown supporters of Communism, but there's enough that they're important. Let me put it this way, there are more Communists in UK than there are Muslims, and you never hear the end of Islam here.



For a Socialist or Communist, this is a non-issue. Environmentalism is a neutral position for Socialist parties who are more interested in workers rights, wealth disparity, equal pay for all etc. however, in my experience most Socialists and Socialist parties are pro-Environmentalism and would likely support this bill to lower carbon emissions however they would probably stipulate a caveat that makes it illegal for the companies to recoup their losses by lowering the wages of their standard workers, either making them lower the management and executive wages or taking the costs for environmental measure out of the company profits. They would also likely regulate the companies to prevent them from needlessly downsizing due to these environmental measures and thus firing workers, and may well offer to subsidise companies as an incentive for making efficient changes if these changes cause more jobs to open up such as the hiring of environmental chemists at a steel works.

Thanks for that post was highly informative and sparked my interest.

There seem to be a fair amount of pro's for a socialist way going about things. A lot of the things you mentioned sound very similar to tactics to that of the Paul Keating Labor Government back in 1991 to 1996. The free university system was in place for two years before getting trashed and other issues that sent Australia into a recession. It seems he may of been before his time!

Personally I think that many of watered down views are morally correct, and logically the full on policies make sense. It really just comes down to how they are portrayed.. no? A lot of people seem to be very close minded about these topics due to "the history", in Australia that is anyway. I mean that should just indicate that yes there are things that could do with tweaking to better the overall result.

Also you said the key powerful families get power in the USA, how did Obama do it then? That surely was a good step forward America. Wasn't rigged?

I had a conversation with my Granddad about this and he was around at the time, fought in WWII and his father, Jack Cowarn was a communist speaker or leader, something, in Liverpool during that time, fought in the Spanish Civil War etc. I've been trying to find anything on the internet but it seems its all filtered out. I'll bring more information next time I see my Granddad, he's also on the hunt for information.

I'm glad you saw value in the posts, it's nice to see people getting something out of them (even if they can't +rep me anymore ggrrrr). Honestly, when it comes to Australia I have to claim ignorance. I know practically nothing of Australias history and politics so I can't really comment on that.


Obama was very lucky yes, but he's hardly your average joe now is he. His father was an important political figure in Kenya, he enrolled at University of Hawaii studying ecconomics on a scholarship as a foreign exchange student where he met Ann Dunham. He got married and had a child (Obama Jr, the future President) and then went on to Harvard University to do his masters, but had to leave before he got his PhD. Obama's mother was the daughter of a wealthy businessman from Kansas but she lived all over USA, from California to Texas. When Hawaii was accepted as the 50th state she moved with her father who was expanding his business empire. After giving birth to Obama, Ann became a student at University Of Washington in Seattle. When Obama was 6 years old, Ann (a single monther as his father died in a car crash), moved to Jakata in Indonesia. At age 10, Obama was sent back to Hawaii to attend the Punahou Prep. School (a very expensive and exclusive school at that). Ann moved back to Hawaii herself where she did a Masters Degree in Anthropology at the University Of Hawaii, returning back to Indonesia to do research in her field. Barak Obama decided to stay at the boarding school in Hawaii.

Obama then went on to more and more pretigeous things. He went to Occidental College in Los Angeles once he finished school, a private and expensive college. He went on to Collumbia University in New York where he got his degree in Political Sciences (which I'll point out isn't a science, but we'll leave the Americans to their daft subject titles). Remember Collumbia is the third ranked university in USA after Harvard and Stanford, and before Yale (where George Bush studied). Not content with already being damn impressive, Obama went on to Harvard to study Law (yep, that Harvard, the first ranked university in USA). He then took a fellowship in the University of Chicago and two years later after writing his first book, became a professor of law where he taught for 12 years. With such a backing he became a State Senator for Illinois, a job he held for 7 years, and became the US. Senator for the state of Illinois in 2005, which was a position he held for 3 years... then he became president.

PS: Any American who has read all that and doesn't feel at least some pride in this man is f*cking dead inside.

All in all though, while Barack Obama had a lot of determination and worked hard for where he is, he was the son of a rich family with a history of going to prestigeous universities. He's not just some guy who became president, he had a major advantage in life and it's helped him no end.

<rant> Oh and one futher point to anyone listening. Will people please shut up about Obama being black. The guy is more white than he is black. His mother is white, his sister is white, his entire living family is white, he was raised in a white family in a largely white populated school. Pretending that Obama is some kind of foreign influence or some "hommie from the hood" is just sad. It's got to the point now where everyone seems to forget that when a white person and a black person make a baby the white doesn't dissappear. I say Barack Obama is white, if you disagree with me you're simply wrong. He's also black sure, but everyone ignores that he's BOTH! and it pisses me off. Someone having a black grandfather but the other three grandparents being white get's labelled as black just because the dark skin is passed on. Quite frankly people need to ignore the skin colour. Barack Obama is not the first black president, he's the first multiracial president, but most people don't acknowledge that. </rant>



Well, I look forward to future conversations with you then.

Follow the UK Socialist Party on Twitter.

We are capitalist because as humans we want to fulfil our 'unlimited wants'
America fear socialism as they do during the cold war because if one country changes ; as big as the uk, then more countries will become influenced etc.
Also there is no incentive to work or invent stuff so as a society we produce less and our economic growth decrease and the budget deficit increases as we spend more to improve economy as we don't get the money from tax as much.

It's indeed a bad thing!

Nationalism ftw !!

After reading some of your posts Tornado, I'm not entirely sure why socialism is hated on either. It seems to be a fairly reasonable system. There however is one thing that I don't quite get, and I think you said something about it, but it didn't clear much up for me. The main flaw that I see with the system is the lazyness. America already has how many people who are trying their best to not have to work (not trying to target the ones that CAN'T work due to a lost job), truthfully, I don't see it working well unless I'm missing something. Is there anything preventing people from not working? I wouldn't put it past some people. Then as a side note to that, how would the government distinguish between someone who won't work and someone who can't work?

Other than that though, I think it's a pretty good system. I know America would never switch to it because that would mean huge salary cuts for CEOs, professional athletes, actors, singers, and most importantly, politicians and lawyers. Not only would many upper class people not like it even if it does get passed, a sizable chunk of them have the power to help stop it from being passed in the first place.

That being said, I think it's a load of crap that the previously listed jobs get paid a gross amount more than the "commoners," the only ones that I think could even be remotely justified in their greater salaries would be lawyers and politicians, but we have athletes who are complaining about their multi-million dollar salaries being cut to lower multi-million dollar salaries, it's ridiculous! Why on earth should they be paid that much money when we have people who are FORCED to quit working real jobs and need to resort to living on the streets? It's stupid. When I look at all the issues America has and then at what we pay people, I can't help but wonder: "What the **** are we doing?" Are our priorities that messed up that we pay basketball players more than we pay our president? More than we pay people who actually do useful things for a living? Sure, entertainment is a vital role in the human psyche, yada, yada, yada, but seriously? Worst case scenario, the ones who are only in it for the money stop playing. In that situation, it would create spots for people who actually enjoy the game for what it is to play it, people who appreciate the chance to play for money, no matter how much it is. Same with actors and musicians.

I have no issues with socialism (aside from that one thing I mentioned earlier) but I don't think America's social structure would be able to handle it.

As for the negative connotations associated with Socialism/Communism, I'm not entirely sure what the logic behind that is. Sure, maybe it would make sense during the Cold War, but now? I think at this point it's just propaganda, politicians trying to keep us from realizing what socialism would entail.

Off-topic, Tornado, your strong opinions never cease to amaze me. You're not half-way on any issue, you seem to be a very decisive person, and for that, I respect you.

I'm sorry but this argument really bothers me. Are people really so pathetic, so greedy and so lazy that the only reason they can think of for justifying someone having an idea is money. This is a sad example of how people see human kind, it's also blatently wrong. Let me explain, this could take a while.

The Renaissance... are you all familiar with the phrase. There are multiple times know as The Renaissance, there's the 12th Century Renaissance, a time where scientific learning became revitalised and the intellectuals rose to power building great halls, galleries and universities in western Europe. This came to a slow crawl for a while in the 13th Century due to the Crusades. Then the great movement most commonly referred to as THE Renaissance happened.

Unlike the 12th Century Renaissance, which was largely in modern day Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and UK, this one started further south. The mediterranian sea saw little change in the 12th Century due to the crusades. It was more of a warzone than a time of enlightenment. With Islam holding the African Coast, Spain, Turkey, The Middle East and the Caucasus while Catholicism held France, Italy, Greece, Byzantine (modern day Romania) and Northern Europe, there was a clear divide. With the Reconquista in Spain and the Muslim Archives passed on though Catholic Europe there was a great influx of knowledge. Spain now largely Catholic, and extremely devout it took the work of Muslim Scholars who had preserved classical sciences that Catholicism originally deemed heretical. These old texts flourished and found their way to Italy.

Italy at the time was a great time for artistic expressions. The independent states that make up what is now Italy where quick to try to develop their own cultures and identities. Florence was the most important of these, with Milan and Avignon soon taking the same ideals. Soon it spread to Paris, Rome and further. From the 14th to the 17th Century science, art and music was cultivated, some of humanities greatest works and persons lived in these times. Leonardo Di Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Abū Bakr, Sir Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal (although his wager concerning theism was laughable), Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Nicolaus Copernicus, William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake, Johannes Gutenberg... these people all lived during this time, which later gave birth to the 18th Century Germanic Culture boom with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to name just a few of the composers that later came from that period.

Do you know what ALL those people had in common. They all lived in a pseudo-feudalistic time. A time where it was considered in poor taste and an example of a bad character to attempt to earn money. This is where the concepts of Usury comes from and where the Jewish found there niché, who where considered outside of the Catholic teachings of the time (which although there where some deists, the Catholic teachings where often still followed). All of the people I named above, did their art, invensions, scientific breakthroughs, discoveries or teachings during a time when Capitalism was looked down upon as something done by brigands and pirates only, with the only country actively engaging in commerce, the Dutch being seen as uncultured at the time.

How many modern inventors, scientists and artists names would you recognise today. How many would you recognise from the Ancient, Classical or Industrial age... very few. In honesty, the biggest boom in scientific and cultural advancement in the world happened in a time of feudalistic ideals concerning ecconomics and if you can honestly say that reverting from Capitalism would prevent advancements you're outright denying history.

The fact is, if we didn't have the profit motive people with a true love for art, science and discovery would project us forward. We as a species are not capable of stagnation, we change and grow, we're naturally curious. We want to learn. It's the human condition at it's finest and to claim that we need the profit motive, another way of saying we need greed to make us progress is to sell yourself, me and every other human short. Don't downplay our achievements as humans as being something for personal financial gain. Enlightenment is it's own reward and I guarentee without corporate interests taking the reigns, within a socialist system, the love of learning and the desire to progress as a species would win out, after all it did so for hundreds of years.

PS: Anyone who didn't recognise at least 2 out of 3 of the Renaissance names I gave is severely under-read or ignorant of history, art, science and of the cultural growth of humanity. You should be ashamed if you don't recognise them. If you recognise, most of them, or even better all of them then well done. You're proof that some people appreciate knowledge still in this world.