I recently learned something about selective breeding of chickens:
If you repeatedly select for the individual chicken that lays the most eggs, generation after generation, then egg production goes _down_. This is because the chook that lays the most eggs is the dominant chook, and selecting for dominance results in a flock of chickens that are hyper-aggressive and waste a lot of energy fighting.
Conversely, if you selectively breed chickens at the level of the flock, selecting for flocks that have overall better egg production, then you select for _cooperative_ flocks of chickens and this is the best way to optimise overall egg production*.
I think that humans have been selected-for at the group level more than the individual level, and this is why it's so critical to preserve tolerance and teamwork at the societal level. Groups of humans that can't cooperate are out-competed by groups that can.
* I'm not advocating for chicken factory farming
TLDR; #Socialism is superior to the axe-mule-bag-of-beans-ME economy model.
@n_dimension I'd argue for "Social Democracy" (eg. 1950s USA) instead of "Socialism" (eg. 1950s USSR).
I think two important things are:
1. redistributionist economics that provide a robust welfare state while not disincentivising private effort, and
2. individual liberty, including movement, ideas, assembly, and money (as long as the needs of point 1 are met)
Social Democracy still maintains capitalist exploitation through the extraction of surplus value from the workers' labor due to private ownership of the means of production still existing. Collective ownership of the means of production (i.e., Socialism) is the only thing that will eliminate this exploitation.
@Radical_EgoCom, the problem with Socialism is that it requires that the Party administer the means of production, their authority comes to be based on violence, and you get a ruling elite in a different way. I think it's possible to create a movement similar to DFR's, that redistributes the wealth throughout society. I think that could be called Social Democracy @n_dimension
Technically (the best kind of correct), it's not "THE PARTY", it's the Community that administers the means of production.
This could be, as you say a political party, electronic plebiscite, a nominated/elected committee, WORKERS, or even Anarcho Socialism.
There are also different flavours of "Owning the means of production".
You could have the USA style of Socialism, where Space Craft Development, Military Development, Road system is owned by the taxpayer () or a more mainstream Socialism where say Industry is Socially owned and Small retailers and Trades are private.
The major problem with Perception of Socialism in the USA specifically (and it's vassal states like Australia), is that the Communists perception of Socialism is used. A transient state before full Communism.
While there are various different kinds of socialism, the USA does not have any version of socialism, if socialism is to be defined as "The collective ownership and control of the means of production by society either through the state or directly." The USA has social services that any state is required by necessity to have (road systems, for example), but those aren't examples of socialism. Those are examples of government social services, which isn't socialism. 1/2
Also, when it comes to a system where industry is socially owned but small retailers and trades are private, that also isn't socialism, but a mixed economy model akin to Social Democracy, which is capitalism. 2/2