Does Socialism Make People Lazy?

1. Clearly didn’t read Antony Sutton. The USSR defeated Germany due to massive help from the West. They built a nuclear weapon because of espionage not inovasion.

2. Yes!

3. This guy is making it up as he goes.

4. "The useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of the Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. That’s why my KGB instructors specifically made the point: never bother with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. They serve a purpose only at the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States: all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed any more. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power—obviously they get offended—they think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot. Unlike in present United States there will be no place for disssent in future Marxist Leninist America. Here you can get popular like Daniel Ellsberg and [fils riche] like Jane Fonda for being dissident for criticizing your Pentagon. In future these people will be simply "PFFT." Squashed like cockroaches. Nobody's going to pay them nothing for their beautiful noble ideas about Equality .”
   – Yuri Bezmenov 1984

5. Yes, socialism makes their mentality lazy and motivation is low. He is talking about the old times where the mentality was we have to rebuild after the war. They had pride for their country and had more morals and hardships than today's generation who are entitled and want every thing fast because of technological advances. When he said that ussr was the first to go to space is true but it was because they had more money of government because they were the government and they don't have to ask for money to Congress like United States. United States has a budget. Americans don't have to pay taxes forcefully, first they have to propose it to Congress to for the money but they think about the future of taxes as they will be higher.

6. Excuse me, but the motion picture industry was birthed and developed in the west under capitalism. Communist Russia pirated far more tech than it ever developed. Socialism has never worked anywhere, and those countries that have tried it have eventually abandoned it, to one degree or another, in favor of a free market economy.

7. The USSR put the first man in space and launched the first satellite in orbit….of course they lost the space race but still….capitalism doesn't necessarily mean innovation. Scandinavian countries have free healthcare and free college, so why can't the USA? Isn't the USA the richest country in the world, by nominal GDP? I mean if you do it right, nobody in America would be complaining about healthcare bills and student loan debt and low wages, etc…but America is in another level capitalism, where greed, envy, and narcissism move the economy while the lower and middle class suffer. Wanna be rich? The odds are against you. Why not be comfortable and live a modest, debt free, healthy life? You don't need a fancy car or a mansion. Trust me, being rich doesn't not equal happiness, but the "American Dream" gives you the illusion that if you work hard enough you'll become rich. That's completely bullshitt….poor/middle class work very hard and the rich get richer.

8. 7/20/2020

   The millionaire Paul Jay of the Real News Network pontificates over a subject over which he lacks actual class based experience nor even a much less reliable academic study of.    But the interview raises some important questions, which I hope to address below:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fypT5l4SsV0

   "Throughout the Stalinist period, most Soviet workers had been paid for their work based on a piece-rate system. Thus their individual wages were directly tied to the amount of work they produced.

   "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_reform_in_the_Soviet_Union,_1956%E2%80%931962

   We should dismiss capitalist propaganda that under the Soviet Union all workers got paid the same amount and thus they had no incentive to work harder. They only lack the disincentive of being fired in mass like in capitalist countries to this date in the US and many other capitalist economies. Which results in their mass starvation, ultimate premature extinction and replacement.

   Socialism does not make workers lazy. To the contrary, working in a society in which they control politically and benefit without being exploited, creates in them incentives to be productive far above any productivity that has ever existed. Being forced to work and being exploited creates resistance by workers to work less. When you cannot be fired due to some historical fragility of the respective class dictatorship, you have the luxury of being lazy. No such right exists among American workers.

   There has never been Socialism in any country, ever.  They have been all left wing Social Democracies.  Of which is the most progressive form of dictatorship possible by the middle class.  Where revolutionaries bullied and forced workers into working hard for the "revolution". Middle class revolutionaries of which a few of which were honestly attempting to represent and address the long term interests of workers like Lenin and Trotsky, but ultimately failed having no real experience as workers to really understand the working class.

   There were also middle class opportunists who grew to become the majority of the party like Stalin who actually had contempt for the working class, who were as crude and brutal to the working class as any capitalist. Middle class dictatorships are inherently weaker and more unstable then the dictatorship of the bourgeois, which explains the current capitalist regimes in all these former so called Socialist revolutions, even those who still call themselves socialist.

   We should always talk in terms of class dictatorship, for no other form of government is possible in a class society. Specific forms of governments whether that of Democratic to Fascistic are to be understood only strictly within the class in power. It matters little to the working class what form the dictatorship dominates them, takes. Their respective wages and all other material benefits and rights are always a function of their ability to organize themselves and their respective resistance against the exploitation of their class enemy. This is true whether the government is democratic or fascists, etc…

   The dictatorship of the proletariat is the final form of this class system. Only a dialectical transformation occurs as the dictatorship of this class is no longer that of a minority over the majority. In its essence, it is a democracy. Its dictatorship is strictly a defensive mechanism of the working class against foreign countries in which minorities still rule over majorities and against domestic possessors of capital who can still bribe large sectors of the working class to betray their own interests and that of their class as a whole.

   Richard

   PS:  I understand that some comrades may interpret this essay as an attack on Lenin and Trotsky.   I prefer to look at it as an historical reassessment of the mistakes of fellow comrades and not of actual betrayals of the working class.    Lenin had some inkling of the domination of the middle class in the party, in his "better fewer, but better", essay.    However he failed to understand the vital importance of the primacy of of the middle class in the party starting with himself.   There is no substitution for actual experience as a proletariat.   This does not negate the importance of a theoretical understanding of the society itself.    But the character which forms the will of the leadership is dominated by one's experiences and not by one's studies.

9. Yes, yes it does. It does. Thank you.

10. not when you have a boot on your throat! you can convince anyone to do any atrocities…

11. Germany reached space first with the V2.

12. Socialist policy doesn't work, and neither do their constituents.

13. I would be a socialist ! I work basically the same today as back in 2003 my wages was $ 6 65 a hour now it's $ 16 a hour my best years probably 2007 to 2010

14. The biggest socialist program in the world is the United States Military. Period.

15. IF THE SOCIALIMS MAKE PEOPLE LAZY,THE CAPITALIMS MAKE ONLY THE BANKS AND RICH PEOPLE MORE THIEVES AND MORE RICH,AND THE WHOLE AMERICAN SICK TO ALL THI$> ALLIGATOR KIPAR MAFIA EAT THE AMERICAN TAXES AND THE ECONOMY,

16. Individuals make up all companies, individuals at every workplace are lazy, take away the perks and improvement opportunities and watch their motivation die.

    Alternatively look at how successful the US has became in such a short amount of time through capitalism, its not perfect but cant suggest it doesn’t work.

17. Absolutely- only a complete brainwashed fool would believe otherwise

18. 2:51 Paul's hungry

19. Fascinating

20. Gulag Archipelago

21. They love to trot out all the failed socialist states,the ones we did everything we could to destroy them with embargoes/boycotts/sanctions etc.,and then say see,socialism doesn't work!

22. You don't have to pay everybody the same wages,you can make everything better,capitalism only works because of the social safety net that holds it together.

23. Law enforcement is a socialist activity. So is fire protection, EMS, hospital emergency room service, public school K-12 education, libraries, etc.

24. How would you know if socialism makes people lazy or not if you never tried it! How lame.
    People see in Russia and China today another way toward industrialization and modernization and in a shorter time period than capitalism because there is no class system, everyone works, how much they work is question of available resources relative to the population. That's all they care about. Raising their standard of living is what socialism accomplishes. Here we are ten years in from the last crash pushing 2.2% GDP, American standard of living falling despite working more. Who's pocketing the wealth? A billion Chinese can out produce the GDP of Great Britain. Russia can produce the GDP of the US if it can devote what it devotes to an arms race to modernization instead. 

    If it comes down to a choice and it does…the younger countries will look at the eastern model of modernization, because news of how people live and work in America has traveled across the seas and only the poorest of the poor, the disposed can find a life better in America, the others more fortunate will likely take the socialist road to development. Now that this road is shut off thanks to the American president the work will have to be done by Americans. Americans clamored for more jobs and they got it. Married to the Job. Next time ask for a better and consistent standard of living and won't be given two jobs to work to equal the standard of living of your grandparents during the Great Depression. The one thing about capitalists is that they are very specific and tunnel visioned they will give you nothing and if you ask for something you will get no more than exactly what you asked for, a very linear and literally mentality. So you must ask 100 times more than you need to get it all or settle for 99% less and without and amor social backing you'll get more indignant work and misery thrown on your desk. Come Friday your gone, employers always choose Fridays to fire people at will legal in 22 states. To further your delight in social discriminatory behavior toward each other for perpetrating a discomfort and low standard of living and health options to people Ohio will turn you into a criminal if you do not become a parent, i.e., 1950's. When you do become the parent of an unwanted child the other side of the law permits employers to discriminate against you and family is not the highly esteemed social value alleged in the spirit of the law but a sham to corner you into poverty, need, isolation, dependency.

    Sudan is the youngest country in the world that just overthrew its autocracy. It comes into the world as a new born infant and it will be looking at the socialist model after watching for the last 20 years the way capitalism in the US has managed itself and the affairs that contributed to Sudan's decades long repression in that region under that despicable man. So self-interested, so short sighted, is capitalism that it cannot, even if it tried, to nurse young countries to take the capitalist road when they come to the fork in the road. There are still many young countries out there. North Korea is a tiny place and it has an economic power stymied is to all the other little ones out there a role model.

    Americans are the only people in the world sheltered from socialism as an alternative to capitalism. The elites think what you don't know won't hurt you.
    As for Paul Jay, that summary on socialist history he laid out was weak and is a product of the forever sequestering socialism from the American public as a censored subject in all Academia at every level of education. When there is a professor hired for the job of educating kids about socialism its usually some person who speaks way over their heads, confusing, rendering the subject like a butcher cuts meat, lifeless.

25. I'm Lithuanian, born and raised in the Soviet Union. USSR collapsed because Russia occupied surrounding countries and those countries just waited for a chance to get loose. 4:54 Scientists were paid much less than workers. How it correlates with science being very productive? They didn't produce blue jeans, because it was an American symbol and short time after start of producing and lifting media censorship USSR collapsed. 5:32 People were paid differently. It was in depending on qualification, years of service, they were getting premiums for meeting targets. Majority of people were not lazy. People could be fired, but it was not straight forward process like in the US. But the same applies to EU, people cannot be fired with no reason in EU and in case of making redundant serious compensations are paid.

26. This is a big issue that was not handled very well by Paul Jay. Both socialism and capitalism can lead to laziness and a stifling of initiative. A system that locks people into bullshit jobs, whether it be under communism or under capitalism, can lead to lives that are unfulfilled – less creative or innovative. That's what happened in Russia. And that's what is happening right now in the U.S. For any 'system' to work there needs to be a sense of upward mobility. Something America is quickly loosing. We can do so much better than what we call capitalism and socialism. Every country is a mix of both anyway. Let us all just move ahead and go beyond all this ideological dogmatic thinking. Call it democracy if we must.

27. In soviet union during early time there was a law that can be loosely translated as "laziness" . And people would be picked up by police and placed in "work" camps. Most of the labor camp population were drunks, vagabonds, etc. People there received money for their work and were in this way were educated. This was the theory and people went along with it as crime and poverty in cities was a huge problem. Most camps were fine, but some were pretty bad. Unfortunately we will return to this model in near future.
    Laziness and socialism are not same categories and should not be compared. Laziness is produced by lack of accountability. When you are accountable, you are able to account for failure. There is a risk of failure. Avoidance of risk is laziness. How do those hedge fund managers make their money? They "manage" risk. They are selling a promise of no accountability for investment. And when there was absolute failure in 08, who was held accountable? American people. We champion these vampires, what do we expect?

28. The despair of current capitalist hell is creating a profound depression into all things dopaminergic – drugs alcohol and ultimately complete productivity IMPOTENCE.
    IT'S NOT WORKING.
    Capitalism makes rich people the laziest of all.

29. Hybrid

30. Where is the economist to tell these people that socialism is not an economic system
    Where is the psychologist to explain to these ignorant what is socialism.
    Where is the Entrepreneur to explain to these ignorant that standard must be set to achieve success; as a person,as a family as a business, and as a nation. All hustlers.
    Socialism is simply the governmental demand of its citizen.

    Socialism has benefit and demands.

    There is no democracy in the world: Demagoguery yes.
    The European and American either do not know or pretend not to know the heinous things their country has done and is doing to the rest of the world to maintain their democracy.
    All countries need a social social and an economic system in order to be peaceful and productive.

    Investigate Latin America Latin America; they are all oligarchical demagoguery; with the demagogue being the politician and the oligarch being European, American, Canadian and now the Chinese are entering. Why do you think, 'they are all shit house countries', Donald Trump.

    Look at the people pushing this demagoguery calling it democracy.

    Great nation were built by socialism and destroyed by democracy/ demagoguery.

31. Socialism never made lazy people. Socialism + The Party (with its own card) broke the system. And the KGB using lead to drill out the backs of skulls helped kick the broken system all over the country. Using your military on your own citizens also never works long term (hint hint america).
    Taya – learn to let your guest finish their statement. Your constant interruptions as Paul got to the main part of his statements was / is VERY annoying. A good part of the video was wasted on his need to reiterate because you would not let him finish.

    And reeducating USA about socialism is a 2 part 2 hour (total) special. Dont reduce it to sound bites or you will lose viewers. Look at the intelligence in the comments here.

32. The opening says continuing talk when Paul jay, could you help me with the video showing the beginning on this talk please?

33. You do not understand the difference between socialism and state capitalism. Even Lenin realized (stated and wrote) that the now demised Soviet Union had "not achieved socialism" but rather had to stop at government-run capitalism. (You might want to work on those definitions.)
    The reason for the diminishing productivity was the lack of rewards for hard-working people. All productivity gains went to the party-apparatschiks. See the parallels? All productivity gains flow into the pockets of the 1 %, working folks can't make a living. Now, the 1% usurp the government.
    You misinterpret the real parallels.

34. Socialism, only works with the participation of the masses. Not only in labor, but in the whole running of society. How is that being lazy? Political, economical, judiscial, federal, local governments and trade unionism. It will open up Millions of job opportunities for all to take part in and at the same time, building positive self-esteem which eliminates depression and other social ills that discourage people from being involved in managing our society. Cadets will be formed in local townships, confronting illiteracy, and other learning problems such as poor writhing skills,improving mathematic skills and other challenges facing the community. Health cadets, too would be formed to aide in bring healthcare to those shut in. No, not by a long shot that socialism makes people lazy, it does the opposite? There will be so much to do? Everybody plays a part, that's how it works.Participation.

35. Homer Simpson is a victim of capitalism

36. In the USSR, GIRD (Group for Study of Reactive Motion) was created on 15th September 1931. GIRD was the world's first large professional rocketry program. Sergey Korolev, the future leader of the Soviet space program, was the over-all director of GIRD, and dreamed of travelling to Mars.
    Friedrich Tsander transferred from the Institute of Aircraft Engine Construction (IAM). Tsander had begun to consider rocket-powered interplanetary flight as early as 1907.
    On 18th August 1933, GIRD launched the first Soviet liquid-fueled rocket Gird-09, and on 25th November 1933, the first hybrid-fueled rocket GIRD-X. In 1940-41 another advance took place: the development and serial production of the "Katyusha multiple rocket launcher".
    It was no accident that the Soviet Union launched to first Satellite into orbit; and then the first man and the first woman into orbit. The V-2 rockets of Nazi Germany terrorised civilians, but had no effect on the outcome of the war. The "Katyusha Rockets" of the USSR gave them a definite tactical advantage.

37. working 80 hrs+ a week and then recovering to go back the next week leaves very little room to build the next big idea.

38. The premise of the question is stupid. Paul now I know your an asshole, or a half wit. May I recommend Dr. Michael Parenti to you, you surely could learn something. Your level of sophistication and knowledge of the former USSR is child like, and shows you have done well under capitalism and as a capitalist manager drank the kool aid.

39. Capitalism makes rich people lazy 😶 And stupid.

40. Never, EVER have a discussion about "socialism" without defining what it is. Both the left and the right NEED to stop doing this. As it was originally conceived prior to Lenin and Marx and all that, socialism meant an economic system in which the workers own the means of production, perhaps what we in modern times would call economic democracy or something like that. That socialism has anything to do with the government is Cold War propaganda, historically ignorant, and a tired right-wing talking point. You're better than this TRNN.

41. Need is not equal to want.
    Water, food, shelter, healthcare, education, fire protection, justice system, freedom are needs.
    Nicer, better, more, how many kids are wants.

42. I think we should all be a whole lot lazier. Laziness is a good thing.

43. Paul, thanks for growing your socialist beard back. It's coming in good, keep up the good work

44. Lenin advocated for organized competition.

    However evolutionary socialism is debunked. It’s debunked more thoroughly than revolutionary socialism.

    When the working class has exclusive economic and political power, we can utilize a mixture of democratic planned economics and a market, understanding the pitfalls of markets.

45. @The Real News Network : Excellent, Paul and Taya. You both did a very good "job" with this episode, and I'm going to want to listen to all of it again, for personal memory. I'd say that I fully agree with Paul's answers, his explanation. I don't really perceive any real flaw in his answers. And, you, Taya, did a fine hosting job. Keep up such good work. Ok, I've now listened to this for the second time, it now being nearly 8:30 p.m. on April 9th, and it's great to have such a healthy, say, explanation about socialism. I don't see any reason to disagree with that explanation. At 0:27, you show an article by Patrick Reichert and entitled, " Socialism is disguisting, leads to laziness in business and the workforce and has literally never worked anywhere. Are ou people daft? ". Well, it's clear that he's both daft and lazy, for he clearly didn't do any serious homework on the topic of socialism. THINKING, I guess, is a little too difficult for him, so he uses a lazyman's approach. I wonder what he thinks about capitalism and the evident fact that it produces totally criminal wars of aggression, they're based on lies, so deceit, and so on. That's not happening due to socialism, and from what I can tell, it also isn't due to communism.

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