Question

What did people like about socialism?

Answer 1

"If you think about what is required to build and maintain a great society, you'll soon appreciate that socialism is at its very center. All of the aspects of our own society that make life tolerable are about socialism at work. It's crucial to understand the extent to which socialism is endemic to our well being. Everything from the street in front of your house to the sewage and water lines under them is socialism at work. Your police and fire department, the public school down the street, the public parks, national forests, air traffic controllers, the people who inspect your meat, the vaccination you received in school, public hospitals, public libraries, interstate highways, it's ALL socialism.
If you believe that Sweden and Germany are lands devoid of innovation populated by complacent cow-like people without motivation, then there is no further point to this discussion. The truth is that the United States itself is an example of democratic socialism, and you will notice that those who shun the European models as defective, can only stammer when asked to list ANY example of an ideal capitalist counterpart. Their argument is always that EVERY social program that has clearly benefited our country is another step toward godless communism.
Now the inherent evils of capitalism are readily discerned in the workings of its greatest and most successful proponent in the history of the world-- the United States. The basic flaw with predatory capitalism lies in the fact that it a system based on greed and exploitation. This is the ONLY reason that vast swatches of endemic poverty are tolerated or even POSSIBLE in a nation with the wealth of the United States. In fact, the current assault on the nation's safety net is direct evidence of greed and exploitation at work in a country rapidly on its way to outright plutocracy. The gaping and growing inequalities in wealth in a country where the rich grow ever richer (even in the worst of times) while everyone else either treads water or sinks, demonstrates that there is a ruling class in the country that effectively owns the government. As these folks accumulate an ever larger share of the nation's wealth, the rest of us are told that "we" can no longer afford a safety net, and that the expectations of Americans regarding the largesse of their government are unrealistically high. In other words, its those being robbed who are told that they are asking for too much. Thus the arguments about the "nanny state" and "big government" stifling economic growth. They are arguments designed for the simple minded and those unwilling to make the effort to imagine the possibility of a nation the size and complexity of the United States without big government."

Answer 2

thank you