It failed because that wasn't socialism. Socialism isn't equal pay. Equal wages means equal slavery. How is that a goal of the masses of people if it means everyone lives equally poor? Under a socialist society, you receive the full fruits of your labor. The more productive you are, the more money you make. The same can't be said about capitalist society. You don't earn more for being more productive, you don't earn a percentage of the value you produce, you earn a wage by how many hours you work, regardless of how hard you worked. You don't get paid for your labor, you get paid for your time. Higher productivity actually drives wages down, causing overproduction, and employers are forced to lay off workers in order to maintain profit. Under socialism, the more productive the workers are, the more money they make. The prices for products continue to go down, and soon money becomes unnecessary completely. Secondly, socialist society is democratically controlled. All aspects of society are controlled from the bottom up, by ordinary people. Not by voting for an elected official every 2 to 4 years, but by actively debating and deciding through participatory democracy, with workers councils and all the sort. All this is possible. This kind of life should already be available, but capitalism stands in the way of true progress.
What the hell does equal grades and equal wages have to do with Obama? Are you saying that everyone is getting paid equally? Where have I been all this time. ____ The only thing Obama means when he says a "new era of responsibility" is when the capitalist class's profits are restored to great depression levels. They're achieving this by cutting wages, laying off masses of people, and facilitating a permanent reduction in the living standards of the working class. They're trying to restructure companies where workers have made great gains in the past, and rolling back all those gains. They don't care about the livelihood of the people, they only care about the profitably of the capitalist class. That is Obama's only goal, and there is nothing socialist about it. But with so many people impoverished, unemployed, and getting their democratic rights taken away, massive social explosions are bound to erupt in the coming years. We will see a revival of the true revolutionary spirit the American working class possesses.
Who says "socialism" needs to be something on such a large scale. Can't there be individual communes? If you don't do the work, you get kicked out; simple as that. You choose who you want to live with, instead of just being throw into a society you are forced to help.
No. Socialism cannot work in one city, or one country. We have seen so many examples of this in the past. A city has a revolution. The working class revolts and takes control over everything, and attempts to create a socialist society in that one city, instead of encouraging the working class in other cities to revolt. They face all kinds of problems, the economy crumbles, and they are either forced to integrate capitalism into their system, or they are crushed by the surrounding capitalist powers. Such was the case for the Paris Commune, where the workers of Paris revolted and set up their socialist utopia. But they faced many difficulties, and in the end the citizens were dragged out into the street, lined up against the wall, and massacred by the French military, backed by the United States of course. And likewise, socialism cannot work in one country either, the same rules apply. The workers' state either degenerates into a bureaucratic dictatorship and collapse, like in the Soviet Union, or the pressure of a global integrated capitalist economy forces them to integrate themselves into that capitalist system as well, as with China. A socialist country must focus on encouraging the international working class to revolt as well, because the fate of socialism in that country depends on the fate of socialism throughout the entire world. Socialism can only be a global system. "The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis in capitalist society is the fact that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. From this follows on the one hand, imperialist wars, on the other, the utopia of a capitalist United States of Europe. The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word; it attains completion, only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet." - Leon Trotsky
Hey, Industrial... What do you do with the people that are smarter and better than you, and don't want to be cut down to your size? Do you line them up against the wall and massacre them? Or will you preserve an island somewhere in the world for them to be free? You are faced with a dilemma, because a bastion of freedom would attract all the best producers of your utopia! So I guess I'll see you at the wall?
You mean the executives, politicians, factory owners, bankers and financial speculators? They will have to make a choice. To be liquidated into the classless society, or rebel or emigrate and face the music. Their property will be confiscated, their jewelry will be melted down, and their military machines will be decomissioned and turned into scrap. We'll find every last penny in those swiss bank accounts too. If they try to burn crops, destroy equipment, or anything else that any sane person could regard as a crime against the people, of course we'll throw them into the prisons that they once threw us in.
I started my business in my garage, i busted my ass, sacrificed everything i owned and lived below poverty level for 10 years. Them one day it took off and i was finally reaping my reward for all the financial and personal sacrifices my family and i indured. So why again am i an evil fucking factory owner? Oh and what gives you the right to take my property?
Ah, so that's why the Paris Commune failed. The great professor in the sky gave them an "F". What a ridiculous "experiment".
Do you exploit the labor of hundreds or thousands of workers simultaneously? Or are you just a petty-bourgeois who hasn't been devoured yet? At any rate, no one is saying anyone is evil here. This isn't an issue of morality, it's an issue of class interests. The working class must sell their labor hourly in order to make a living. The capitalist class employs the labor of hundreds of workers, pays them a small fraction of the profits, and collects the rest. As soon as a capitalist "takes off", he no longer has to work, he just collects the profits of the workers labor and gets richer and richer, while the wealth and living conditions of the workers stay at the same level, and even continue to decline. So, who's interests does capitalism serve? The tiny minority of capitalist elites who rule over society, or the broad masses of working people? It's obvious over the last 250 years that the only interests capitalism serves are the capitalists themselves. It's time for the majority of the population to end this ridiculous system, and establish a system that benefits everyone. No one gives them the "right" to do anything, they just do it.
You don't seem to understand what capitalism is. Let me tell you that I too hate the wage slavery that is happening today. I also hate that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I also hate that people are given fewer and fewer choices and control about their work environment. I am a capitalist. Sounds strange, right? It shouldn't because all capitalism is is a free market. It has nothing to do with control or abuse of a working class. It has nothing to do with hourly wages, it has nothing to do with being kept in poverty. If a capitalist society is nothing more than a free market, do you think that massive corporations who use theft, fraud, and force would exist? These things are products of giving people control, which is what socialism is trying to do, give power to the people. Capitalists want no one to have power over anything, other than their own lives, their own destinies, which sounds to me like what you were explaining. In a capitalist society there is nothing stopping you from running things exactly how you explained it, except for the fact that what you explained wasn't voluntary. Imagine a world where people decided. If the best choice is to have unions, then there will be unions. What do unions do? They restrict the amount of hours you can work and charge you outrageous fees to be a member. If that wasn't enough, some jobs require you to pay into their union. To me that sounds like a limitation of choice, a limitation of opportunity. Have I convinced you?
You're creating your own definition of capitalism here. The person who coined the term capitalism, Karl Marx, has credit in defining capitalism, obviously. Capitalism is the socio-economic system where social relations are based on commodities for exchange, in particular private ownership of the means of production and on the exploitation of wage labour. It has nothing to do with the free market. While in the early days of capitalism, a free market did exist. As the means of production began to develop, the petty bourgeoisie flourished. Small businesses were opening everywhere, and capitalism was extremely progressive. But as the means of production became more advanced, a free market economy is unthinkable. The capitalists are already too powerful to be left to their own devices, and social unrest would quickly follow, leading to a revolution. That is why the government must interfere. Not because they are socialists, but to protect capitalism from socialism. The State is not simply a neutral arbiter that favors no class, its very existence can mean nothing else but the fact that society is divided into two antagonistic classes. The state is the instrument of class domination. It is the organization of capitalists into an apparatus of coercion and control. The military, the police, the government, all are measures created by the capitalists to protect themselves and their wealth. Capitalism can exist in many forms. Free market, social democracy, liberal democracy, state capitalism, imperialism, fascism. All are different forms capitalism has took throughout the world. But they are relative to historical development as well. A free market economy can be seen as capitalism's start, before the means of production are developed. It is a means of developing those means of production. Imperialism is the a later stage of capitalism. When a capitalist nation no longer bases its economy on manufacturing, and instead turns to financial speculation, the creation and shuffling of fictitious capital, and the exploitation of the working class else where in the world where capitalism is less developed, marks the era of imperialism. Social democracy can be seen as capitalism's temporary savior. It gives the working class certain meager gains to extinguish social unrest, but places an enormous burden on the capitalist class. Moreover, as Social Democracy saved the bourgeoisie from the proletarian revolution, fascism came in its turn to liberate the bourgeoisie from the Social Democracy. Fascism can be seen as capitalism in decay. All these are examples of capitalism. It's a very broad term, but it's important to understand what it is. Capitalism isn't a form of government, or a form of economics. It's a globally integrated socio-economic system that affects all nations. No socialist country can survive in the face of a global integrated capitalist economy.