Getting back to the intent of the thread…
The Good: The intentions of socialism are to care for and cooperate with our fellow man: A noble sentiment.
The Bad: In practice, one needs to follow a policy that uses more base instincts than the altruism that is the hallmark of socialism. When power is concentrated in those who decide what is good for us, then that power corrupts. That centralized power structure decides many things that are not based on the best economic sense. When an individual has responsibility for his own existance, he has more self worth, more control over what happens in his own life and faster response to changing conditions. In a tribal society, socialism is a viable system. When we became industrialized, we require capital, and that is most easily developed by capitalism.
The Ugly: When the socialist system fails, as it is destined to do, much hardship ensues. Russian Mafias, corruption, starvation, etc. all are most easily built in the breakdown of the society that occurs when the economic system fails.
The Reality: All systems today are some mixture of capitalism and socialism. The portions of that mixture and the freedom of the populace to elect its leaders are the variables. The USSR was not a communistic society, as pure communism would have trusted its populace to a much larger degree than the dictatorial system of the old communist bloc.
The best economic system would be closer to the capitalistic side of the spectrum, with a minimal socialist side to help people recover from setbacks, and get back into the productive workforce as quickly as possible.
Holden’s Ursa Theory of Human existence.
For man to achieve his utmost, he needs to be challenged. People can be analogous to bears in Yellowstone. Feed the bears, and they become problem bears. They live at the landfill, getting fat and lazy, then they raid the campgrounds, and develop “criminal” behavior. If not fed, and challenged to live the hard life, they dine on wild berries, elk, and venison.
