Dear ALGOREisRICH,
thank you for your sympathy, though I think I can make a much better case of pitying you. Withal your impassioned bluster, it's doubtful you ever had an original thought. All your ravings on this thread and elsewhere are nothing but the mouthings of ideology--which prevents you from considering any issue outside the magpie appropriations you've fashioned into a narcissistic world-view.
The shop-soiled cliche above, for instance, whereby socialism would mean an homogenising or <'pull[ing] down' approach> to cultural achievement, as though the highest goal we might aspire to is the gloating accumulation of wealth and property--the coveted trappings of 'success' at the individual and cultural level! More modest expectations from the outset might actually free the human spirit from these ignoble obsessions--such is the central theme of Dickens's 'Great Expectations'. Dickens who, like Marx and Engels saw the obscenity of capitalist exploitation before its patronising makeover at home and departure for foreign shores. That you can rationalise the state of affairs in which you prosper with the manifest reality of its depredations--let alone Christ's original teachings!--is a feat, not of your own intellect, but of social conditioning. You are merely a puppet articulated by ideology.

<The failure of socialism in the Soviet Union was not a failure of the system so much as a confirmation of our human condition.>

But the system is also flawed because it does not recognize the true nature of man..>

The soviet bureuacracy did indeed fall early-on to corruption, but its ultimate failure had much more to do with capitulation before the success of the capitalist juggernaut. There is no doubting the effectiveness of laissez fare capitalism--Marx himself theorised its dynamics in a spirit awe--only its ethics and sustainability. Capitalism harnesses and nurtures what you call 'the true nature of man'; it doesn't merely 'recognise', it 'cultivates' those vicious drives you simplistically conflate with antediluvian notions of good, evil, forgiveness and God's grace--more mindless ideology, which absolves the individual and the culture of taking responsibility for their actions, or of thinking for themselves.

Hey ALGOREisRICH, your comment

"...not so shrewd to think you can just take...that which others labored for under contractual conditions which the government itself allowed."

describes PRECISELY the daily behaviour of Capitalists such as Gore and the rest of his Class, whose ill-gotten wealth - in the form of surplus value or 'profits', is expropriated (stolen) from the REAL "wealth creators" ... those who WORK for their livlihood - as opposed to living, parasitically, on interest (USURY) and rents etc., that are also bled from the WORKING CLASS of the world!

Dear Squeers,
When you find Utopia please let us all know for until that day we will have to live together on this imperfect world. We chose which God we follow. Where there is unity God commands the blessing. A house divided will fall, so united we stand, divided we fall. Narrow is the way that leads to life and few there are that go in by it. Broad is the way to distruction and many enter through it. Every seed reproduces after its own kind. Judge not lest you be judged. The measure you use when sewing governs the harvest. Until we acnowledge the owner we are stealing regardless of intentions. Bad things happen to all people. There is only one race under Christ, the human race. Traditions of man divide us. God doesn't see homosexuals, murderers, catholics, prostestants, jews, muslims and other man made divisions only sons and daughters through the blood of Jesus. So your choice whether you follow the right of left or chose the narrow way and put God first and love one another.

Dear Squeers

I note your extremely tight and deep language, but it doesn't actually mean much except "I believe that with the right 'system' we can attain utopia"

Your claim that "Capitalism" embraces all that is 'natural' in man and nourishes it etc.. so... how do you plan to change that nature of man ?

I disagree with your blinkered view of 'capitalism'... there is nothing like true competition to level a playing field. I'ts only monopolies which cause serious problems.

If a man wants to compete with another company making a widget..he can cut his labour costs.. and exploit his workers.. which will last for about 30 seconds until the realize they can get more at the other blokes plant.

Capitalism has inherent checks and balances which socialists seem to ignore.
You are wayyyy 2 deep into 'Marxist theory' to even see the timber for the leaves....

You also neglect to mention that the standard Marxist methods for implementing the utopia they dream of is to KILL the capitalists they cannot re-educate.

An FBI undercover bloke who infiltrated the American Communist Weather underground, reported that they planned to
a) Takeover
b) Re-educat the capitalists.
c) Those not able to be re-educated were to be simply killed.
d) They estimated they would need to kill around 23,000,000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GrCHctYyWA

see from 1.54 on...

horrific..... disgusting.... true marxism.

"If a man wants to compete with another company making a widget..he can cut his labour costs.. and exploit his workers.. which will last for about 30 seconds until the realize they can get more at the other blokes plant."

Al
The employee cannot leave for better wages in times of high unemployment, in fact the better paying company may decrease wages given the opportunity. Or if governments give over to laissez-faire through policies like Work Choices. A worker should not have to live on the edge 24/7 on the whims of the market. This is Third World thinking.

" That people by nature 'want' to work for the benefit of some distant 'other'."

Many people work now in industries for the benefit of others where wages are not always attractive and when they could go elsewhere.

True, we are all selfish to varying extents, and incentives are important. But that is not all we are. People want to work to earn a wage but their lives can often include working for others via voluntary work. It is not all one thing or the other.

There is a big difference between fostering innovation, hard work, risk, creativity but not to the detriment of other considerations like exploitation of labour.

Al you talk about the nature of man and then offer that redistribution should occur only through grace. ie. the poor waiting for handouts at the rich mans table - a table they helped to build while earning less than a living wage working 40 hour week in a factory.

How rich does one man need to be, how important are his/her rights compared to the rights of others. A profit is one thing, obscene profits and unfettered salaries when gained via the hardship of others is quite a different thing.

Soft socialism is better than hard capitalism. What about a compromise - soft capitalism.

A social democracy has to recognise the importance of incentives but not at the cost of other all other social factors.

Dear Richie 10 and ALGOREisRICH (pigeon pair?),

More cliched thinking. The standard utopianism rebuke has always been a simplistic put-down; no-one ridicules utopianism more than the average Marxist. Nor is Marxism anything doctrinal; Marx encouraged his followers to build on and even depart from the ma(r)xims he theorised. Very few Marxists today believe in historical materialism, or the model of 'progress' he inherited from the age of reason, for instance. Marxism today is pre-eminently a persistent recognition of the evils of capitalism, a despairing think-tank on how to bring it down. Capitalism can only be defended by the kind of religious nonsense you two both indulge in; it is otherwise indefensible, yet it prevails. Actually, it's amusing that you and your ilk find materialist notions of utopia risible, while in the same breath you glory in an 'eternal life' vouchsafed you, for heaven's sake; a reward for paying an ancient creed lip service (certainly you don't live by Christian precepts?) and some silly clause about the grace of God!
I should know better than to argue with the likes of you blokes, but I can only hope that lookers on will see the absurdity of the doggerel you trot out on cue and be gob-smacked at the traction it still manages to attain in the world.

Thanks for the link, btw, Al; so Obama's a murderous Marxist too eh? Who'd have guessed!