Socialism doomed to fail?

Real socialism in effect for a couple centuries...

 

i admit it, truer words were never spoken

 

Beyond them as in "don't worry about it", sort of thing? Maybe I'm being xenophobic here, but I do think it detrimental for say... if the French received so much immigration from the Middle East and the Far East that their culture begins to fade. Insert any western country whose culture you respect here so that the point may become more salient.

EDIT: I mean in terms of the artists and minds it has produced and will continue to produce.

 

On the subject of socialism though, I must maintain good sirs that it has never been attempted in the full intention of it's original integrity, and that now it may never receive the chance as it apparently is an outdated ideology born out of sympathy for the 18th century peasant's suffering. Of course their modern day equivalents still exist in the poor, but no one cares anymore, we've all become fine capitalists, we are all very good materialists and consumerism has won everything, everything I say.
It may never truly be tried, and instead we all preach the virtues of competition, while the winners sit on piles of meat so vast that it rots before they can eat it and while the losers starve in the streets, for not having tried hard enough.

 

Cultural regionalism is slowly becoming a thing of the past. We've are slowly becoming a more global species.

 

Raise the retirement age...

Consultation on the future of Retirement announced in the budget ...

24 Mar 2010 ... Consultation on the future of Retirement announced in the budget ... Removal of the default retirement age is the only answer, ...
www.efa.org.uk/.../consultation-on-the-future-of-retirement-announced-in- the-budget

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/05/raising_the_retirement_age.html

Sarkozy follows Europe in raising retirement age

 

what's wrong with non-european artists and minds?

+ agree with what neodude said

 

There's no mention in any of those articles in regards to declining birth rates; it doesn't seem it was factored into their calculations at all. Perhaps this could be part of the solution, but by no means a singular tonic to the problem itself.

 

Nothing wrong with non-European artists and minds, what I do see a problem with is having no European artists and minds.

In regards to neodudes statement, while I agree that the more we become globalized is the more we see and interact with other cultures, I'm not convinced that means all regional culture is destined to obscurity, unless I see some scientific data on the subject.

 

N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

you want more "dignity of labor under capital"?

perhaps if less people had useless jobs such as "investment banker" and more useful jobs such as "caregiver"?

 

key word, "slowly"

a lot of regional culture became static and this has changed already

as soon as i heard hoomei with a disco beat i knew it would never be the same . . .

 

I think overall the birth rate within europe will increase by 6% by 2020.
If this is not enough europe will probably turn to Africa as a new member.

 

Communism and Socialism are too much alike. Eventually socialism will just turn out to be communism...just saying, I see it happening.

 

MayQueen, the Second Red Scare ended in '57.
Please tell me your political passions are not influenced by half-century old propaganda.

 

what's wrong with communism?

also never practiced except in-name-only

 

OK, for the sake of argument lets say you're right, that eventually human culture slowly over time becomes essentially one Earth culture - that means that in the mean time we don't care about the regional cultures that we currently have? To my mind, just because something is going to happen anyway, if the thing is not desirable (and in my opinion it is not in this particular instance) I don't think that justifies expediting the process - just the opposite. So essentially I still view the solution of vast immigration to have some major unwanted consequences.

 

Interesting thought - of course that is assuming the African Union and non-member African states want anything to do with Europe. My hope, and I would think theirs as well, would be that African nations become self sufficient and join the, dare I say, 'civilized nations club'. Having said that, how many western Europeans emigrate to the US and Canada, and vice versa? Some, but not many - because they already 'have' in their own countries.

So in that sense, I think planning to turn to a different continent for membership may be precarious.

Also, why do you think European birth rates will rise?

(PS: I know their are some African nations that do fine, I don't want to generalize. I trust you know which troubled ones I speak of.)

 

forgive me if i'm misrepresenting anything here, i'm getting a little lost

i might agree with you that i personally prefer the cultures of the past - both eastern and western, unmixed

but an attempt to stop the movement of people in order to preserve cultures seems to me to be mildly inhuman

and i also think that the modern and post-modern movements in the arts, and advances in communication such as the internets, have done vastly more to erode cultural differences than immigration

 

I see your point - if people are needed in a country and the only way to get them is to increase immigration, yeah - it just needs to be done and not allowing individuals in because of their nationality or culture is actually kind of fucked up. I think we are coming to a consensus here. So next time I hear an Englishman say something derogatory about 'Pakis', perhaps I will bring to his attention that the welfare of his nation may very well rest on those very same people.

 

"Western" culture since about the start of the Edwardian era in the early 20th century has been dominated by America from when ragtime began to first go big, to the rise of American poets, jazz music, the flappers, and essentially the birth of the first generation focused on youth culture with movies, radios, ect in the 1920's in the US. The US has always been a land of immigrants and has been a giant melting pot of cultures so tell me exactly what "western culture" is. "Fall of western culture" seems to be a pretty big catch phrase I see out of Europe these days. Western culture generally seems to be often used as a euphemism for white people.

It's pretty hard to say there's a threat to western culture when no one can really define what western culture is, especially given the fact the good deal of places around the world have embraced McDonalds, baseball caps, rock n roll and action movies.

Europe is just paranoid their culture(by which they mean white people since the days of one country having a specific culture have been over for about a century) is under threat since for the first time in its history since they're not use to seeing brown people. Like really you can see it in the elections, parties based solely around imigration(i.e. stopping it), have held the cards in making the government in the Netherlands and Sweden, Britain elected 2 BNP members to Brussels because non white immigration is such a huge issue in a country that is 91% white.

Like really, I need to know, what part of European culture is being threatened by immigrants. Or the question everyone is thinking but no one is saying, what culture left does Europe have to be threatened. Europe historically has been renowned for its culture because:
1. The Renaissance
2. The supreme place of the major European powers in global affairs till the early/mid 20th century
3. The fact numerous countries, ethnic groups and cultures existed in such a small place. Lack of transportation before the industrial revolution, and the fact European nations often distrusted each other meant these cultures for hundreds of years developed basically independently of each other.

But tell me what massive cultural things are under threat in Europe. The fact I have to use the term Europe. There are none. Europe is so intertwined with each other now, especially in the west, "culture" is something people refer to when thinking back to the 18 century. It's like asking to list the cultural differences between the US and Canada, sure there's some, but even in their respective countries there's cultural differences in various geographical areas. The western world has been far to interconnected in the past 70 years to really think there's any kind of culture left in specific countries that is under threat.