Socialism doomed to fail?

For decades now the birthrates in Western Civilization have been declining dramatically. What that means is the potential to have a large, aged population with not enough workers to support them. Since Socialism depends on income from workers, is it doomed to failure? If not, what are potential solutions that do not include tyrannically forcing people to have more children?

 

Raise income tax slightly, raise the cap on income that can be taxed for social security, make some rational military cuts. That alone would solve a lot of the shortfall. That's for the US though, Britain and Europe as a whole already has a much more extensive welfare state with a bigger demographic problem coming up than the US does, so changes would obviously have to be tailored to fit individual countries.

 

Agreed on all points, but in fact I was specifically referring to Europe, and even Japan (I should have made this clear, my mistake... especially since Japan isn't a western nation...). From what I understand the United States still maintains a rising birth rate, and with generation Y having been something of a baby boom in and of itself, shouldn't be having any problems in the near future.

Europe and Japan (and some others I believe) however will come to a dangerous threshold much sooner for two reasons, 1.) As you stated they (Europe, anyway)already have a more extensive welfare system, and 2.) their birth rate is already set to cause decreasing populations.

In many western European nations where a great deal of the national budget goes toward health care, for example - what happens when a majority of the population is elderly and no longer works and receives government pension? In a situation like that, I'm not certain even raising income tax to %100 would be enough. This goes back to my original question - doesn't this mean Socialism is doomed? If not, what are viable solutions?

 

in a moneyless society, no

 

I also worry that in a situation as described is those that work essentially exist to provide for the elderly; I don't mean to throw around buzz words but isn't that slavery? Honest question.

 

people used to do that without being asked

[or forced to, if you prefer]

what would you like to see done with the elderly?

 

I would like to see them cared for. Ideally society would care for those unable to care for themselves. However often times charities do not do enough, so we rely on government. But if the government is destined for destitution due to a system that goes a long way to solve many social problems, I see this as an unwinnable catch-22.

I have no answers to the questions that I'm asking, however. They are very real questions that no one seems to be asking, and as a result, to my knowledge, no tenable solution exists.

I agree that in a moneyless society this wouldn't be a problem, but that's kind of like saying if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass when it jumped. Perhaps we might genetically engineer a frog with wings, but that isn't likely to happen.

 

Immigration is a touchy subject in the US, but for a lot of people it's the issue of illegal immigration(because they have no idea how the actual immigration system works despite the fact their parents came over on a boat, had papers stamped and were told welcome to america). In Europe though after spending so long as a land of emigration, the recent change of being a land of immigration seems to be an explosive(literally it would seem in some cases of riots) topic, while in Japan it's essentially a non issue considering how low the immigration rate there is. But really both Europe and Japan either need to embrace immigration or stop worrying and learn to love their decay. The US's natural birthrate is at the replacement rate(it's actually right below it, but still higher than Japan's or the general European rate) but our growth in population is expected to be fueled in large part from immigration.

Either that or start offering some damn good incentives for people to have kids. Some countries are seriously fucked over there, Italy is expected to lose possibly over 1/4 of its population in the next 35-40 years.(To put that into perspective for Americans, 1/4 of our country's population is about 75 million people, actually more than the whole country of Italy which has about 60 million)

 

but that's the goal of socialism, is it not?

so if we actually had socialism then these things would not be a problem

 

If the goal of Socialism is to eliminate the need for currency then I think you make a legitimate point... I just never thought of it that way. That means socialism is even more noble than I first imagined.

 

So for better or worse we are looking at the death of western culture.

 

^^^ note that i confuse my isms a bit, the differences between socialism, communism and anarchism seem to bewilder me and i tend to view the first two as different paths to the third

someone once told me that i 'had an aesthetic rather than a philosophy' and i think they were right . . .

 

what is "western" culture and why shouldn't it die?

the greeks and romans seem less and less appealing . . .

 

To be perfectly honest, I don't have a clear answer to either question. Personally I don't have any real problems with the Greeks or Romans; historically they didn't seem to be any more savage than their eastern counterparts. However, I think both have made a great deal of positive contributions in literature, philosophy, theology, mathematics, etc. Not that eastern cultures didn't have a good grasp and their own versions of some of these. I just don't think I'm ready to condemn the west to death, despite its flaws and mistakes. Anyway, I hope this makes my position on your questions fairly clear.

 

i guess i mean that maybe it's time to move beyond them

 

Socialism looks good on paper, but it doesn't work in real life. Socialism = bullshit and anyone who believes in Socialism can go eat shit and die!!

 

please provide an example of when real socialism has ever been tried

"go eat shit and die" seems to me to be a somewhat typical capitalist approach to solving the problems of poverty, no?

 

B-b-b-but socialism is evil!!!!

 

so is anime

 

I know you jest, and 90% of the time I would agree with that statement, but if it was made in response to my signature, then you are not aware of the vastness of your ignorance.