Please define socialism for me and explain how it works

@TheCaptain7777 said in #40:

Do y'all realize that getting into the "ruling class" can be done by hard work?

With all due respect, this view of the capitalist system is too simplistic. A factory worker can work for 40 or even 50 years, he will not have more "power" than at the beginning and will have a humble salary, despite the fact that he has undoubtedly built objects useful to society. However, he worked hard, with the sweat of his brow and tried to feed his family, and once every 5 years, to take his wife and two children on vacation for a weekend. You are talking about risks. Risks like investments, loans and other attempts without guarantees to make his business profitable. Except that the factory worker did not have a golden youth to allow himself to risk money, he learned to save the little money he had to allow his family to have a gift or a vacation and he already has to pay the credit over 15 years that he took to buy his appartement or house. When he started working, he didn't have $5,000 in crypto or $1,000 to risk investing in the stock market. Because if he loses all that, where will he find the money to live?

The only difference between the "ruling" class and "working" class is how risky and hard working a person is. Entry into the "ruling class" is open. Capitalism rewards work ethic and grit. I knew a guy once who grew up on a farm. He skipped college. He is now a multimillionaire who employs hundreds of employees at age 25.

Entering the ruling class takes place in different ways, but generally they share what I consider a form of bureaucracy: contacts and various gears in the capitalist system allow a person to climb the ladder. This is what is called "smart work" in capitalism. Diplomacy, a network of contacts, and sometimes, coming from a wealthy family already established in small- or large-scale business can help. Especially when it comes to investing a lot of money to start a business that will employ the worker of the beginning of my message and hundreds of other workers. And for those who don't come from a wealthy family but have succeeded : it's because they have accepted capitalism and understood how it works, and thanks to intelligent networks of contacts, they can become directors of a company. But a worker can manufacture 15,000 car doors, but no billionaire who owns the car brand whose doors the worker produces will come and say to him: "I like your car doors, I'll hire you as director of my company's department!"

Because capitalism doesn't like it when classes mix. So those who want to make the capitalist system work try to respect this logic, whether they are bosses or workers.

stockwell asks about russia in the 1920s , and how workers did not control the society they had won by popular mainly peaceful revolution ,
by 1920 edit ,,,1921,,, pete russia found itself invaded by western govts backed "white army "
this alongside a "braindrain " as the £"intelligentsia "left the country russia sought to keep them by paying them 4 x what the worker got , creating a new higher in income social class
and then there was stalin , hew turned "the workers state " into a dictatorship of the communist party over all , and this led to many crimes against humanity be it pogroms against jews or starving ukranian farmers
and all gains for the working class from October 1917 , was lost

if youve ever read "animal farm " by George Orwell you will understand what happened in Russia , post revolution , Orwell summed it up very well

noflaps , you have tied yourself into word knots , the phrase is simple and self explanatory ,
"to each according to need from each according to ability "
what does a human need to exist ? food warmth shelter ,
what can a human offer society ? to their ability , they could farm they could teach they could do a million things what is within their ability ,
we cqn take into account that some humans have less abilities (disabled ) but even they have skills that society can gain from , its finding what they can excel at and give them the opportunity to do just that
all of these words are they necessary to explain what is a simple idea , ?

love betternebers post , i see myself as a bee , but ants work hard for all in their society too
ive never read this quote before but i like it , i dont agree with it but it is one that makes me smile ,
we are similar , we have a hive mentality , too , at the top is the royalty below the army then the workers but i do wonder if in the ant world there are picassos or beethovens or einsteins
or are some bees better dancers ,,, perhaps in one incarnation i might find the answers

@CSKA_Moscou said in #38:

Regarding the percentage of the peasant population at 1917, I remain a little skeptical about the "majority". It should not be forgotten that during the time of the Russian Empire, a solid mining industry had developed almost everywhere since the 18th century, from western Siberia to Donbass (which is also the origin of the region's name) for coal, to the Urals, particularly for iron. To a lesser extent, Altai, with its silver and gold deposits.
. . .
So, unless you have any figures (I'd appreciate any specific information on this), I'm a bit cautious on this point.

It is not easy to get exact numbers on Russian demographics during the revolutionary period. Wikipedia has this page on the first Russian census completed in 1897. If you scroll down to the table you will see the total urban population given as around 17 million people and the total rural population given as 109 million. So, at that point, the urban population was less than 15% of the total. That percentage would certainly have increased by the time of World War 1 in 1914, but the peasantry would still have been by far the largest group in Russian society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire_census

@CSKA_Moscou said in #38:

Thank you for your reply. I agree with what you said in this message, but I believe that Stalinism could only have succeeded in the USSR because of a bureaucracy already being established under Lenin, with his agreement or against it. People like Dzerzhinsky had already begun to lay the foundations for the ruthless political repression and its insane administrative speed that would inspire Stalin.

The point is that the new worker's state quickly became bureaucratised because of the situation during the civil war. The country was virtually wrecked and industry came to a standstill in many places. The soviets (worker's councils) could not function properly in these circumstances. The establishment of this bureaucracy was not a desired policy of the Bolsheviks, it was the unintended consequence of western military intervention, without which the White counter-revolutionaries would have been easily beaten.

This issue is covered by John Rees in "Defence of October", which was written in 1991 . . .

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/rees-j/1991/xx/october.html

@sabotuma said in #42:

stockwell asks about russia in the 1920s , and how workers did not control the society they had won by popular mainly peaceful revolution ,
by 1920 edit ,,,1921,,, pete russia found itself invaded by western govts backed "white army "
this alongside a "braindrain " as the £"intelligentsia "left the country russia sought to keep them by paying them 4 x what the worker got , creating a new higher in income social class
and then there was stalin , hew turned "the workers state " into a dictatorship of the communist party over all , and this led to many crimes against humanity be it pogroms against jews or starving ukranian farmers
and all gains for the working class from October 1917 , was lost

if youve ever read "animal farm " by George Orwell you will understand what happened in Russia , post revolution , Orwell summed it up very well

Yes, I agree with this analysis. I was asking the question to another poster who appears to be a supporter of the Stalinist (Soviet) system. I think you have to understand what happened in Russia in the mid 1920s as counter-revolution. The right wing of the Russian Communist Party, led by Stalin, abandoned revolutionary politics and internationalism and embarked on a new course which they called "socialism in one country" (first announced in December 1924).

I have an interesting question. Do you believe a common worker's wage to be unfair in America? Please explain why or why not without comparing to another person. Personally, I'm not concerned that some people are richer than me.

@TheCaptain7777 said in #48:

У меня есть интересный вопрос. Считаете ли вы, что зарплата рядового рабочего в Америке несправедлива? Пожалуйста, объясните почему или почему нет, не сравнивая с другим человеком. Лично меня не беспокоит, что некоторые люди богаче меня.
an ordinary worker? this is not a strategy))

so when an ordinary person who works for a living finds themselves sleeping in a car because the price of accomodation is beyond their ability to pay that they are being treat unfairly
when an ordinary worker cannot afford to eat regularly , then they are being treated unfairly
you ask about america captain , and there the working poor face this situation , many having to rely on charity ,
i live in the uk , here many in work really struggle to get by , my wage most of it goes on bills and often i struggle , but im an ordinary worker which means im an extremely proud person i hold my head up high knowing ny my effort i gain an income ,,, i just could do without going hungry on a monthly basis , not much to ask for but just another wish that aint coming true ,,,yet