Does it take a village, or self-dedication?

[Zerstiren]

From a glance, the Libertarian ethic is obviously entwined with the utterly selfish ethos of Ayn Rand philosophy, so any average-Joe hoping to make it from scratch within this sort of paradigm, would die almost instantly.

But Socialism, on the other hand, offers little room for a person's own roots to grow, i.e. you couldn't fully customize a satisfactory life; of course, "you can't always get what you want" sung by the Rolling Stones will always be a true proverb. I might be exaggerating how constrictive true Socialism is, but after reading many threads from hardcore tree-huggers, I'm reminded of "save the world" themed acoustic-guitar songs. I understand the basic premise though: when everyone's needs are met, all that is left is the pursuit of happiness.

A crude, but practical, way of explaining my thoughts is comparing the world to an aspect of MMORPGs: everyone wants to be a warrior (business owner, Nurse-Practitioner, author, entrepreneur), nobody wants to be a healbot (floor staff, Certified-Nursing-Assistant, Huffington Post blogger, berry picker). I understand the world works when people fulfill society's needs; but I don't want to be told what to do, and I only want my own limitations to hold me back from getting what I want.

So here are my questions:

1.) Can we invest in basic social services for everyone, i.e. healthcare, education, food, housing, without impeding on individual potential and goals?

2.) When must we set aside our personal aspirations for the greater good?

 

[aba1]

I think this belongs in the Religion and Politics forum.

OT: I feel that when you have an advantage over others it is your personal duty to make sure you share it with those who need it most.

I also think that to many people consider money to be the same as personal success. People need to take more pride in there work there is nothing wrong with doing something that you enjoy and if you make some good money doing it all the better just be happy with what you do. This is one of the things I loved about Clerks not only was it funny as hell but it brought up a interesting insight many people over look everyday.

Contrary to my previous comments however I always felt you shouldn't try to scrounge off others if they offer that is fine but if can do something yourself you should.

Of course there is always the odd exception but for the most part I try to live by these rules and obviously believe in them.

 

[spectrenihlus]

A crude, but practical, way of explaining my thoughts is comparing the world to an aspect of MMORPGs: everyone wants to be a warrior (business owner, Nurse-Practitioner, author, entrepreneur), nobody wants to be a healbot (floor staff, Certified-Nursing-Assistant, Huffington Post blogger, berry picker).

Well here is the thing there are some people who do want to be healbots ,who love to be healbots.

 

[Realitycrash]

A crude, but practical, way of explaining my thoughts is comparing the world to an aspect of MMORPGs: everyone wants to be a warrior (business owner, Nurse-Practitioner, author, entrepreneur), nobody wants to be a healbot (floor staff, Certified-Nursing-Assistant, Huffington Post blogger, berry picker). I understand the world works when people fulfill society's needs; but I don't want to be told what to do, and I only want my own limitations to hold me back from getting what I want.

So here are my questions:

1.) Can we invest in basic social services for everyone, i.e. healthcare, education, food, housing, without impeding on individual potential and goals?

2.) When must we set aside our personal aspirations for the greater good?

It isn't going to be true socialism if you are forced into a position that you can't handle. Even if you are GOOD at it, if you can't actually deal with the job (you are miserable and break down), then obviously it isn't the most efficient placing for you in society (as miserable people ar far less efficient than happy people).
Not that this has anything to do with socialism.

So; 1: Yes, we can. It's called taxation. And if you want to make sure that EVERYONE gets it, then it's called heavy taxation. Welcome to Sweden, you'd like it here (though it's less so now than how it was before).

2: Unless we are talking "sacrifice to the volcano-god for the greater good", I'd say..Never? Look: A society works better when people think they are free, and can chose freely what to do and pursue. It's simply more efficient than trying to order millions of people around.
What you can do is nudge them, though (tax-breaks where you want people to go, state-funding, etc).

 

[manic_depressive13]

It blows my mind that some people think having the potential to aquire stupid amounts of wealth is worth denying people healthcare, education and sanctuary. The issues you raised reveal both a fundumental misunderstanding of socialism and of human psychology. I'd explain it all but I have to go play MTG right now.

 

[FalloutJack]

{1} I don't see why not. Some people never get anything, even if it would be highly-deserved.

{2} Considering how little the greater good gets served in this world, I would say in quite a few places. Business, for one. Too much done on the sly with people trying to get massively rich at all costs instead of being satisfied with a decent lifestyle and the world turning a bit smoother. Law, for another. It serves no purpose for someone who is a dick and barely observing even a letter of the law to go unpunished. This kind of thing wouldn't even change the political outlook of the country. If people just weren't greedy fucks all the time, the economy would work in accordance to what they teach you in economics courses. If others weren't always looking for ways to get away with shit while trying to look innocent, we wouldn't have to waste time on this shit.

 

[Hoplon]

Like pretty much anything I have encountered it doesn't need just one ideal, but many.

Selfish and Selfless, uncaring and empathetic, at peace and angry at the world all as a situation requires it.

It takes a village to raise a child, but they need a male and female role model. Only the group can provide health care that looks after everyone but individuals to do the jobs.

 

[TWRule]

Such a system should be based around communities - a community of communities. And those communities unified by a singular purpose.

However, the transformation that brings about the singular purpose has to happen *before* the system is put in place to work.

 

[Zerstiren]

I suppose I should have defined what an acceptable level of wealth is: it would be appropriate if a single person has accumulated very large assets, i.e. a mansion, yacht, lamborghinis, etc., provided they are not sitting on top of a silo of money and not doing anything with it. The 1% should have their money tied into the world like the rest of us.

 

[Thaluikhain]

1) Yes. There are plenty of nations where this happens.

2) This is a tricky one, with no clear answer. Generally, though, people are supposed to, or at least supposed to pretend to, work for the betterment of their society.

 

[Zerstiren]

Realitycrash

I'm intrigued by your response. If I understand correctly, the rich in Sweden are taxed in appropriate proportions to the lower classes, yes? So this does allow everyone the opportunity to work towards acquiring enough wealth for their ideal lifestyle?

 

[Zerstiren]

manic_depressive13

I couldn't agree more, in regards to accumulating wealth. What I didn't make clear, is my belief in which their money should be tied into the world, not amassed in an undisclosed bank, not doing anyone any good.

 

[rutger5000]

One your first question:

1: Can we invest in basic social services for everyone, i.e. healthcare, education, food, housing, without impeding on individual potential and goals?

Surely not without impending everyones individual potential and goals. For instance take Bill Gates (before he started with charity), his potential wouldn't have come to full bloom if he was forced to invest in others social services. He needed everyone penny he got to make Microsoft as big of a company as it is today. You could say he won the capitalistic game, and he might not have done so if he was forced to invest in basic social services.
Then things get even more difficult. For a sane man's goals are formed by the world he/she lives in, and his/her potential is defined by it. Perhaps I'm extremely gifted with a sword, and would have made a great Knight. However the world I live in made it so I have neither the potential nor the desire to become a Knight.
Thus if you would force everyone to invest in everyones basic social service, then you're changing everyones individual potential and goals. Simply because you changed the world.
A better question would be: "Would the shared costs needed to guarantee health-care, education, food, housing etc etc for everyone be so high that individual desires and potentials can't be explored anymore?"
This is still a rather tricky question. As a socialist and a believer of human resourcefulness I would say no. None of those things need to be costly (with possible exception of education), so the shared cost need not be great. Also I would say that good education ought to help with exploring individual desires and potentials. So by providing good education, you'd be stimulating individual exploration.

On to your next question.
2)
When must we set aside our personal aspirations for the greater good?
That one is easy.
We must set aside our personal aspirations for the greater good, when it's necessary.
and
We should to set aside our personal aspiration for the greater good, when we can.

I however consider myself to be an evil person. So I need not to worry about the fate of others.

 

[TWRule]

Here's an idea: All extremes are bad. Both socialism and Ayn Rand'ish libertarianism sucks. Only pragmatically constructed mix forms of all philosophies are going to work.

No offense but that strikes me as the least likely thing to work; especially since there are many "philosophies" that are specifically opposed to that very idea...

 

[Zerstiren]

Here's an idea: All extremes are bad. Both socialism and Ayn Rand'ish libertarianism sucks. Only pragmatically constructed mix forms of all philosophies are going to work.

No offense but that strikes me as the least likely thing to work; especially since there are many "philosophies" that are specifically opposed to that very idea...

I agree: nothing in politics can be easily reduced to simple explanations and solutions.

I appreciate what everyone's said here, especially those who do live in and evidently enjoy their socialist countries.

I want my personal success to be directly correlated to the effort I put into my endeavors. And we have Conservatives, Libertarians, and Socialists all claiming to offer the same opportunity. But which one is right?

edit: and if I'm capable of accumulating lots of money, yes, I would want this. I wouldn't mind being taxed 70-85% of my income. But I want money.

 

[theheroofaction]

There is nothing in politics, especially economics, wherein there is a universal best solution, Therefore, one can only answer to this question: Both or either.

 

[Gennadios]

So here are my questions:

1.) Can we invest in basic social services for everyone, i.e. healthcare, education, food, housing, without impeding on individual potential and goals?

2.) When must we set aside our personal aspirations for the greater good?

The majority of the OP seemed to be running under the assumption that everyone is created equal and has equal potential to accomplish their goals. That is simply not the case. To answer the questions:

1.) I wouldn't wish "basic" social services on my worst enemies. Well, actually, I would. Nobody with any potential would even want to be under that umbrella. There are competent people who hit rock bottom, not everyone can deal with failure. There are also people with extremely limited potential who will likely be dependent on those services the majority of their of lives. Such services don't really "impede" on anything, they either keep people in the temporary downturn from falling too low or provide a minimum standard of living for people that just aren't functional in modern society. I'll leave the definition of "functional" open.

2.) There will almost always be people more competent at one's given aspirations, and there will always be limited space within the field. It makes economic sense to set aside those aspirations when one realizes that they can't survive on them.

 

[godofslack]

I have a few ideas on the subject, the largest of which would be the elimination of taxes and the business-state. Instead of running the government in a traditional sense it, you'd run it more or less like a business, you then start to nationalize industries, largely prostitution and narcotics. You bring about new job opportunities, destroy organized crime (they now lack income). The way the math comes out, for Canada, you save 2.3 billion in enforcement, and are expected to turn a profit of 7-18 billion. So you save around 10 billion dollars, Canada, in the same year, received from taxes around 220 billion dollars. When you factor in all the things that can EASILY be nationalized you can potentially eliminate taxes without lower the quality of life of the average citizen. It's not perfect, if it was I'd make sure to run for office somewhere, but I think it has potential.

As for number 2, it's hard to truly see the greater good, but the best way to do it is the encourage good actions.

 

[Gilhelmi]

Pure balance is the answer. It does take a village, I was raised by my mother, father, aunt, and Church. I had 100 relative only 5 of them were by blood, 95 percent were by spirit.

But at some point a person has too stand on their own. Staying near the village for protection and support. Helping the Village grow and flourish. But also living their own life, Making their own way.

 

[Ruedyn]

Not going to answer, I feel there is going to be a flame war for some reason. I don't want to be involved.