Socialism

Socialism is an economic system of public ownership and management of production for the good of all citizens. It uses a controlled market where prices are set by the state.

If we could get past the negative emotional response to the term "Socialism" that many North Americans have, most people would agree that the goals of Socialism are good:

 - it wants to make sure that all people have access to the basics of life, food, clothing, shelter, medical care
 - it intends that no one would ever be out of work, since the state would control production, there would always be jobs for everyone
 - it would control production to ensure that there was always enough of everything for everyone
 - it would set up a system where everyone could give 100%
 - it would set up a system where everyone could receive what they need

Socialism is a system that promises the poor that they will no longer be poor as everyone will work together and share together.

Historically, it has been a popular system in many places before it is tried, but it seems to have a  very bad record in regard to how it works out.  Instead of everyone being rich together, the result is that the common people becomes poorer together. Why?

I believe that people are NOT basically good. We are basically selfish and we all know it from experience even if we want to hope for something better. That does not mean that we cannot ever do good things, but if you take a group of people without controls, they will tend to drift downward.

Under Socialism our selfishness manifests itself as laziness. If everyone is supposed to work their hardest but then they all get the same share, it doesn't take long before the hardest workers notice that the person next to them aren't pulling their weight and yet they still get their share. So the hard workers slacken their pace too. "Why should I work hard and not get anything extra for it?" they think.

This is the fundamental flaw of Socialism. It would work great if the whole group of people were inspired to keep working, but it cannot motivate them and within a few years it starts to show cracks. Within a generation or two, it colapses completely.