OP
OP
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Why don’t we just start with socialism for our children?
- Thread starter Blue Skies
- Start date
I'm going to be blunt here, this thread is strong evidence that you aren't very experienced with politics or economics. This isn't a bad thing, but when you try to play the very serious person at the same time as suggesting this kind of incoherent platform it makes you look silly.
What are you actually proposing here? Should someone run on a platform of lessening childhood disparities in education, healthcare etc whilst saying they won't change anything for those over 18? Should they propose universal programs for all ages but go even further for children? What do you mean by "same opportunities"? Children in rural areas have longer commutes to their schools than some urban children, which can impact things like sleep time, homework time, access to extra-curriculars etc... How would you address this and other similar factors in a way that doesn't rapidly balloon in scope and costs? Your "5 times more expensive" figure for Sanders' platform is, as far as I can tell, pulled out your hat, because you don't even know what you're actually proposing.
Then to go beyond this, what makes you think that your plan would somehow result in equality for all children who go through it once they reach adulthood. There are still going to be better and worse jobs. "Sorry, your results show you clearly aren't capable enough to be worthy of a job that offers decent health insurance, because you had the same opportunities as everyone else?" Are you going to put a 100% tax on inheritance? How will you stop nepotism and other network effects, or implicit biases in hiring, higher education program admission etc...? Do you not want reforms to student loans, so that family wealth remains a significant factor in both educational attainment and post-educational earnings?
EDIT: "Honesty if we could just make sure we all started at the same level, then fuck it, let's go full on capitalism after 18 years old. Maybe the bootstrap theory holds if we all start at the same baseline." I hope you're young and overconfident.
OP
OP
What makes you think "free college education" is so much simpler tho?
Because that's a massive misunderstanding of what socialism and communism is. Both ideologies are centered on historical materialism i.e. the conflict between labor and capital through the ages and the vampiric nature of capital. Thus, the end goal of any proper Marxist movement should be on the transfer of the means of production (i.e. capital) to the productive sector of society (labor) not the amelioration of class relations. There aren't two societies that people live in, where they can freely move from being affected by capitalism to not being affected by it.
This isn't at all at odds with capitalism, you might even call it Benevolent Capitalism or some such. The fact of the matter is that capitalists aren't incentivized to do this *but* would absolutely do it if it would help them keep control of the market.
This would then behold children to the same coercive forces that shape society today. The point of communism is to free people from the slavery of capital; with basic quality of life assured, people are *truly* free to choose what they want to do. Productive work would no longer be measured through profit. Needless to say, a Socialist/Communist society does not preclude the existence of a market.
This proposal would change the shape of the superstructure but does nothing to dismantle the base. Capital would still shape most of our lives and even these changes in policy are ways to maintain the coercive power of capital over society.
I'm glad that people are having much greater appreciation for policies that were born out of the labor movement and forwarded by leftists! Nonetheless, they're much different from a socialist/communist imagining of society.
This isn't at all at odds with capitalism, you might even call it Benevolent Capitalism or some such. The fact of the matter is that capitalists aren't incentivized to do this *but* would absolutely do it if it would help them keep control of the market.
This would then behold children to the same coercive forces that shape society today. The point of communism is to free people from the slavery of capital; with basic quality of life assured, people are *truly* free to choose what they want to do. Productive work would no longer be measured through profit. Needless to say, a Socialist/Communist society does not preclude the existence of a market.
This proposal would change the shape of the superstructure but does nothing to dismantle the base. Capital would still shape most of our lives and even these changes in policy are ways to maintain the coercive power of capital over society.
I'm glad that people are having much greater appreciation for policies that were born out of the labor movement and forwarded by leftists! Nonetheless, they're much different from a socialist/communist imagining of society.
so this is not really about children but rather OP putting Bernie in place... better stick to the topic as the shitting on Bernie makes little sense in the context.
Good starting point.
They can form the executive committee
A good summation of why people are being harsh on the OP
Honestly, I think the only chance of having a real shot at equal education would be to improve online educational options (possibly with use of VR classrooms), but those being feasible would require a lot of improvements in internet infrastructure across the country as well as dramatic tech improvements to the systems being used, as well as that tech being made affordable enough to be distributed to everyone. Obviously until then we need to do what we can in the meantime to improve education across the board, but a lot of the issues just aren't going to be solvable without improved tech imo
I mean among other things, because it's a single, easily definable goal and so the main thing to work out is just funding whereas what you're proposing is at best a vague concept that would require multiple goals to be met, many of which are incredibly vaguely defined and where what the correct way to actually implement the goal is unclear and highly debated even among experts?
OP
OP
HEALTH: Set kids up good by 18, with great eating habits, and overall good healthy habits, pays dividends. Give them the option to continue on the government plan after they turn 18. Also: mental health services.
EDUCATION: Kids in different states have different textbooks. Why? Aren't math, science, technology and history the same regardless of your location? Fix that first of course.
Pay teachers more. Have more teachers.
HOME: Fix the foster system, (more financial incentive to become foster parent, more oversight, and more general care of the kids)
More tax deductions or straight up allowances to new parents to ensure their success.
And, fuck the state. This is a federal program.
EDUCATION: Kids in different states have different textbooks. Why? Aren't math, science, technology and history the same regardless of your location? Fix that first of course.
Pay teachers more. Have more teachers.
HOME: Fix the foster system, (more financial incentive to become foster parent, more oversight, and more general care of the kids)
More tax deductions or straight up allowances to new parents to ensure their success.
And, fuck the state. This is a federal program.
OP
OP
Every school dostrict in this country is funded differently and treated differently
obviouslylower income kids getting stuck with the worse shit.
Title says START
OP
OP
How do you propose this would be handled, logistically speaking? Poverty affects everything- to give all kids an egalitarian treatment you'd essentially have to tear them from all circumstances of their birth, which includes family.
what you're discovering right now is how many posters on this board have children
The first one is pretty much covered by existing free healthcare plans, and I see no reason those should be limited to just children
The second is obviously something we should fix, but there's issues like who decides what the standard textbooks should be? And before you say a panel of experts, how are those experts picked?
Increasing the amount of teachers is a more complicated issue than you think as well, since you also need to ensure the quality of teachers and there aren't an infinite number of quality educators. And you need a way to even measure teacher quality in the first place which is in and of itself an incredibly difficult problem.
Both Bernie and Warren have proposed policies that would directly benefit young children, including universal childcare/pre-K/headstart, expanded school meal programs, extensive parental leave, etc. There are already existing programs in place like CHIP (children's health insurance). They might not be as discussed on this site as policies for young adults, but that's a function of Era's demographics. The candidates actually discuss these issues on their campaign pages, BTW, so you might want to read up.
E.g.:
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Socialism is a good idealistic goal that does not work in practice.
That doesn't mean we can't borrow what is good from it and what is good from capitalism and combine the 2.
In reality, almost every system of governance and production is based on a mixed market economy that is some combination of 2.
I'd argue that getting the balance right is the real goal. Right now in the US, we are far too biased towards the capitalism side of the spectrum. Pushing left is necessary to make the system more fair, equitable, and cooperative (i.e., societal-level focus to achieve complex goals); it's already arguably detrimentally competitive in that winning at all costs (i.e., cheating, anti-competitive practices, short term profits over long term sustainable growth, etc.) take precedence over winning while playing by the rules and contributing to the greater good of society.
At the end of the day, a Social Democracy that is capitalistic but which has a robust welfare state and a sustainably and scientifically driven industrial policy seems to be the sweet spot to aim for. The Nordic Model gets close to this ideal in a lot of ways.
That doesn't mean we can't borrow what is good from it and what is good from capitalism and combine the 2.
In reality, almost every system of governance and production is based on a mixed market economy that is some combination of 2.
I'd argue that getting the balance right is the real goal. Right now in the US, we are far too biased towards the capitalism side of the spectrum. Pushing left is necessary to make the system more fair, equitable, and cooperative (i.e., societal-level focus to achieve complex goals); it's already arguably detrimentally competitive in that winning at all costs (i.e., cheating, anti-competitive practices, short term profits over long term sustainable growth, etc.) take precedence over winning while playing by the rules and contributing to the greater good of society.
At the end of the day, a Social Democracy that is capitalistic but which has a robust welfare state and a sustainably and scientifically driven industrial policy seems to be the sweet spot to aim for. The Nordic Model gets close to this ideal in a lot of ways.
Yeah, as I said before, this stuff was always on the candidates radar, it's just not the big thing they're blaring in campaign ads and slogans because unfortunately it's harder to get voters to rally behind this type of stuff
You also said "Honesty if we could just make sure we all started at the same level, then fuck it, let's go full on capitalism after 18 years old. Maybe the bootstrap theory holds if we all start at the same baseline." Either way, you're needlessly framing this as an either-or and inaccurately framing it as a simpler/easier/smaller reform than "social democracy for adults", because your motivation doesn't seem to be "here are my ideas for addressing the social determinants of health/wealth that start in childhood, let's discuss" but some kind of weird grudge against socialists.
OP
OP
I have a grudge against losing in 2020, and I'm terrified about when people start saying "hey, how ARE we gonna pay for all these things? Also, my taxes are gonna go up?!"
also I stand by my thought that a quality K-12 education is way more important than free college for all.
I guarantee you people are going to ask that same question about every single proposal you've put forth in this thread. As for what's more important, we're back to this false dichotomy, because no-one is saying we should ignore one to focus on the other. Why don't you look at the plans Sanders, Warren and the like are putting forward and see where you think there's room for improvement?
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In America socialism means "free stuff for other people" that's just what it means, doesn't matter how much online leftists make distinctions between socialist democrats and democratic socialists, etc.
Idk, I'm sure my thread just seems like rambling and I guess it was
No, it's not rambling, and it's a great thread because it lightens another real problem. Many of the low level "socialism", is self financing. Making someone better of, makes the whole economy grow and everyone wealthier then they where before. The world is not a zero-sum game.
If we want to break the social barrier, then you got the point, it's by ensuring equal opportunity, and not equal outcome.
Let's us take education as an example. In Denmark, school is free, and you even get paid doing so. It's not much, but it's enough for making you independent from your parents, breaking that social barrier. And that is the goal, to break the social barrier.
At least link to the actual article when you post small images:
This is it. None of what anyone is mentioning in here is socialism. It's Social Democracy with a strong welfare state.
Socialism is literally defined as the workers owning the means to production. No one has really pushed that standpoint in this thread. Americans really have a hard time identifying and advocating for what it is that they are talking about.
It's the first step to effectively persuading others.
The distinction matters because the other side knows that Social Democracy with a robust Welfare State is in fact within reach in America. True socialism never will be and so no one is worried about people advocating for it being taken seriously.
In fact, the rich have been waging a coordinated class war since the mid-70s, systematically chipping away and dismantling America's existing welfare state apparatus.
Most of us here have been engulfed in a subversive class war since we were born, and yet, most of the general public are unaware of this fact.
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OP
OP
There's really no way to ensure every child gets the "same" education. Teachers are different. Homes are different. Classmates are different. They all have huge amounts of impact.
Standardizing textbooks just seems like a bad idea to me too, but I don't really mind standardized testing. Make sure everyone gets the same knowledge, but forcing them to all learn the same way seems like overkill (tying funding to tests is has proven a failure, but I don't mind the tests themselves).
Standardizing textbooks just seems like a bad idea to me too, but I don't really mind standardized testing. Make sure everyone gets the same knowledge, but forcing them to all learn the same way seems like overkill (tying funding to tests is has proven a failure, but I don't mind the tests themselves).
The only way to do what you propose is take children away from their parents at birth and have them raised by the state.
You cannot otherwise separate the experience and values of the children from their parents.
You cannot otherwise separate the experience and values of the children from their parents.
I know that but isn't this considered a socialist act for the merefact that is provided to the public?
And I do wish we went full socialist here in the US.
My family was poor as shit. Government cheese and pork poor. So I experienced what little was left of socialism as I grew up. Anyone else here who grew up poor in the 90's and remember the pork in a can that had a cow on it for some reason?
That said, we used to have socialism in the US but Republicans slowly dismantled it. Boomers lived through the glory years of it and now defame it.
That said, we used to have socialism in the US but Republicans slowly dismantled it. Boomers lived through the glory years of it and now defame it.