Stalinism was not a new ideology. It was Lenin who established the dictatorship. Lenin's Cheka murdered people because of their class identification which is not very different from murdering someone because they are a Jew or a Gypsy. Lenin founded the first gulags a few months after he took power. Lenin brought back censorship which Kerensky had eliminated. Stalin was merely a more extreme Leninist.

A command economy simply does not work. It was a great opportunity. The Marxists had an immense country with great natural resources. They were able to build an impressive military establishment, but they had to import food and other goods from the capitalist world. Aside from their military they remained a third world country.

They had their chance. Like the Christians who hope for a seond coming of Jesus to make everything fine and dandy the Marxists want another go.

It was not Stalinism that was the problem. It is Marxism. Lenin was a dictator who did his best to follow Marx's prescription.

A good mix of both capitalism and socialism is the way, some things need to be in Govt hands.

So let’s get this straight. No-one is to have any claim on the fruits of his labour but through the polis. The directors of the polis will thus rule the masses. But this elitist and statist arrangement is necessary for true human liberation – by abolishing freedom except to ask one’s political overlords for permission to do anything productive?

And the socialists *still* don’t get it.

Those who say the ideal is a mix between private and public ownership are merely calling for communism as to telephones, or hospitals, or railways, or whatever they arbitrarily decide should be under political direction.

The basic economic problem is the need to use scarce resources for their most important uses. No-one ever explains how common ownership or political direction is supposed to achieve this protean task.

When you point this out, they say public ownership going to be ‘democratic’. But this only means that the same people who were supposed to be incompetent to use scarce resources for their most important uses in the first place, and to need governmental direction, are supposed to direct the government.

If it were true that government had this superior competence or virtue as to any given part of the economy, it would be true that it has it as to the whole. Obviously, according to the part-socialists themselves, the only thing making part-socialism viable, is the existence of the private sector.

But the part-socialists *still* don’t get it.

The fact is, liberty and property are two sides of the same coin. No-one can reduce one without reducing the other.

The only system that shows any hope is one where there is more direct democracy and one that makes corruption difficult (if not impossible) and where there is accountability both in the private and public domain.

The only way you get that is a mix of public and private ownership and via some regulation. I don't know why people are so scared of that possibility especially when it comes to universal needs (health etc) as opposed to 'wants'. The wants can easily be delivered by the private sector, it is for the essential services that tax is paid, that ideally should not be placed in the hands of profiteers.

I don't share John's faith that a grass roots socialist state won't turn into 'more of the same' historical experience. Socialism works well in small groups of interested and focussed parties but is more unwieldy in larger populations and historically has involved force. However, that said, local grass roots collectives can achieve all sorts of good things for communities and we should not dismiss the idea of greater participation from citizens.

Why do we still persist in the old labels like 'capitalist' and 'socialist' - they distract and distort any movement or ideas about systems that will better serve communities.

People start fleeing under their beds at the mention of anything publicly owned with a blind faith in private ownership delivering the goods which is at odds with what we are actually seeing in our modern global economies. There is a tendency to turn a blind eye to the socialisation of debt while still deriding the sharing of profits.

A system that better delivers to the greater majority and less to a small elite is what we should be striving for, where wars are not waged purely to advance the interests of the minority who are advantaged only through the demise and diadvantage of others.

Unlike Peter Hume suggests it does not have to be all one or the other.

You only have to have a look at USA to see you can go too far the other way.

Only the state can provide for universal needs like broadband and handouts to corporations, as opposed to mere wants the private sector supplies like food, clothing and shelter?