Socialism 2014 Official Promo
Socialism 2014 is a four-day conference bringing together hundreds of socialists and radical activists from around the country to take part in discussions ab...
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Socialism 2014 Official Promo - Video
From New World Encyclopedia
Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which the ownership of industry and the distribution of wealth are determined by the state or by agents of the state or the collective. In its most general sense, socialism seeks the co-prosperity and common cause of all people, which could be accomplished without force in religious and utopian communities. But, in general practice, it refers to the use of state force to redistribute wealth.
Socialism developed as a political ideology in the nineteenth century as a reaction to industrial injustice, labor exploitation, and unemployment in Europe. For Karl Marx, who helped establish and define the modern theory of socialism, societal problems were rooted in an economic system which relied on the private ownership of property, and led to wealth remaining in the hands of a few and at the cost of the laborers who were the source of wealth. Marx advocated a revolution of the working class which would lead to collective ownership of the means of production (property and capital). This control, according to Marx's successors, may be either direct, exercised through popular collectives such as workers' councils, or it may be indirect, exercised on behalf of the people by the state.
Currently, there is a diverse array of ideas that have been referred to as "socialist," from forms of "market socialism," which advocate achieving economic justice through taxation and redistribution through state welfare programs to the hardcore communists who advocate total state control of all property and the economy, to a unique Asian and unclear variant known as "socialism with Chinese characteristics."
"Socialism" has often been used as a slogan by unscrupulous leaders seeking political power. They prey on the frustration and sense of injustice of low-paid or unemployed people. Both the National Socialism in Germany under Hitler and the Soviet-style developed by Lenin and his successors became totalitarian states that denied personal freedom to citizens. These totalitarian political systems had no checks and balances on power, which human civilization has learned is necessary to control the human tendency to take more than what one produces.
As an economic system, the command economy failed because it lacked understanding of human nature and economic incentive and rationally organized people as parts of a giant machine. People are unmotivated when they are asked to give whatever the state requests and to accept whatever the state decides to give. Further, no centralized system of rational distribution of goods and services can account for individuals at different stages of growth, or for biological or intellectual differences. As such, a rational command economy cannot understand what each person needs and provide true economic justice. By the mid-1980s, both Russia and China gave up on their experiments with a command economy. Today, some socialists propose selective nationalization of key industries within the framework of mixed economies. Others advocate "market socialism" in which social control of economy rests on a framework of market economics and private property.
In the history of political thought, elements of socialism long predate the rise of the workers movement of the late nineteenth century, particularly in Plato's Republic and Thomas More's Utopia. These theories are based on an ideal that everyone will live together with the best possible peace, prosperity, and justice in one mutually supportive human communityco-prosperity and common cause. Plato's Republic even advocates the sharing of wives and children. Aristotle criticized the idealism of Plato's Republic in his Politics,[1] saying that if all things were held in common, nothing would get cared for, and that if people had no property they could not host a guest or perform charitable acts that create community and give life meaning.
Early Christian communities aspiring to the social ideals of a caring and committed "body of Christ" are said to have eventually won over the Roman Empire by their attitude and exemplary concern and love for each other. However, once they attained power they were often accused of abandoning their idealism and becoming more Roman than Christian.
The term "socialism" was first used in the context of early nineteenth-century western European social critics as mass society was beginning to develop with the modern bureaucratic state and the mass production of goods through industrialization. The ideas were rooted in a diverse array of doctrines and social experiments associated primarily with British and French thinkersespecially Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Blanc, and Saint-Simon. These theorists were reacting to the excesses of poverty and inequality in the period and, like young children who notice inequality, advocated reforms such as the equal distribution of wealth and the transformation of society into small communities in which private property was to be abolished. Outlining principles for the reorganization of society along collectivist lines, Saint-Simon and Owen sought to build socialism on the foundations of planned, utopian communities. At the same time, utopian socialist religious communities like the Amish and the Shakers were developing in the United States.
Early socialists differed on how socialism was to be achieved or organized, and they did not agree on the role of private property, the degree of egalitarianism, and whether the traditional family should be preserved. While many emphasized the gradual and modern transformation of society through small, utopian communities, a growing number of socialists became disillusioned with the viability of this approach, and emphasized direct and immediate political action.
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Socialism - New World Encyclopedia
JUDY WOODRUFF: In March of last year, the 14-year rule over Venezuela by the controversial and charismatic Hugo Chavez came to a dramatic end when the leader died of cancer.
His handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro, was elected president soon after. As Maduro marks the end of his first year in office tomorrow, divisions have deepened in a country that has become violent in recent months.
Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner reports.
MARGARET WARNER: Late last week, after more than three months of sometimes deadly street protests throughout Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro met with his political opposition.
The six-hour televised session brokered by the Vatican and three South American foreign ministers attracted record ratings on Venezuelan TV, reflecting the nations anxiety at the street violence that has killed more than 40 and posed the biggest challenge to the government in more than a decade.
The alternative to finding an accommodation, said Maduro, is a dark one.
PRESIDENT NICOLAS MADURO, Venezuela (through interpreter): Imagine, it would be the beginning of an armed, violent civil confrontation, bloody, bloody, and no one would win anything.
MARGARET WARNER: What began in January as demonstrations against rising crime mushroomed in February into massive marches, with hundreds of thousands protesting the scarcity of goods, insecurity and the arrest of demonstrators.
Today, there remain smaller, but fervent localized protests in neighborhoods fortified with barricades. The target of all this? President Maduro. Maduro has struggled to maintain Chavezs aura, but he is being swamped by an economic slide that has brought this oil-rich country 57 percent inflation and near empty store shelves, and a further explosion in Venezuelas rampant crime, creating what the U.N. says is now the second highest murder rate in the world.
This has made life unbearable for 19-year-old student Christian Alejandro Martinez. He never protested before, but after having his house robbed, his car keys and car stolen, hes taken to the streets. He and his fellow students feel their future is slipping away.
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Socialism after Chavez: Political divisions deepen amid unrest in Venezuela
Socialism
Crash Course World History is now available on DVD! Visit to buy a set for your home or classroom. In which John Green teaches you abo. Much of the history o...
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Socialism - Video
Pyongyang, April 16 (KCNA) -- Foreign newspapers dedicated special write-ups illustrated with portraits of smiling President Kim Il Sung to his birth anniversary.
The March 25 issue of the DR Congolese newspaper La Prosperite allotted one whole page to articles titled "The great ideo-theoretician", "Great victory in two revolutionary wars", "For building Korean-style socialism" and "Kim Jong Un, great leader of the Korean people" under the headline "Kim Il Sung, eternal sun of the world progressive humankind".
The paper praised the sacred revolutionary life of the prominent leader and peerlessly patriot who decorated the 20th century as one of the victorious advance for accomplishing the cause of independence against imperialism and the cause of socialism with his outstanding ideas and theories and rare leadership for many years from his teens to the advanced age above 80, saying that Kim Il Sung's exploits will be everlasting along with his august name.
The Ugandan newspaper Sun Rise carried an article titled "Eternal sun of Juche" under the headline "On the occasion of the 102nd birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, eternal president of the DPRK" on March 28.
The paper said that Kim Il Sung will always live in the hearts of the people desirous of independence as the sun of Juche.
The March 28 issue of the Nepalese newspaper Arpan in its article titled "DPRK's socialism is based on the Juche idea" introduced the essential contents of the Juche idea and Korean-style socialism based on it.
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Kim Il Sung's Birth Anniversary Observed by Foreign Newspapers