quote:
Originally posted by Barry the Sprout:
Ummm, lets redress the balance a bit here shall we. Here comes socialism...
I basically think, to answer the first question Dreamer, that there is no such thing as human nature. There is an animal instinct when pushed to do what we can for survival. This has been carried into todays world because we have made the mistake of building our moral system around it. The whole of the economic and social foundations of our lives are based on the idea that you have to worry about yourself and not other people. The object of life at present is to "win" the economic race. I don't think that has anything to do with some kind of innate driving force. We are greedy people simply because we have made ourselves greedy by gradually accepting that greed is the right thing to do.
All the people who said socialism doesn't account for human nature are wrong in my opinion as a socialist. Socialism basically states that human nature has been perverted to make us greedy, we weren't greedy first. So now I agree with everything you say Dreamer - the world is in a big mess (to simplify slightly) and we are convincing ourselves that this is the only possible way.
I think your view of the perfect world Rikard is very possible. We have got ourselves to the stage where our only reason for not adopting it is because we think it will never work. That is the primary defence of capitalism, and in my opinion it is no defence at all.
So if Socialism is so workable, how come there has never in the history of the world been a successful socialist government leading the world to true enlightenment? So far the best hope for mankind looks to be a modified form of democracy. Most likely a Representative Democratic Republic perhaps.