Democratic Socialism is currently working in many European countries. Communism does work very well on a micro scale in willages of less than 200 people. However communism doesnt' work once anonymity starts to be a factor. Marxism will never work, because societies won't be able to change cultural norms via a revolution. A revolution means you just change leaders, but end up with basically the saem situations. Cultural change happens gradually. Granted a revolution can cause a change in leadership to love things in a new direction, but it takes tens of years to implement cultural changes. It never happens overnight... or immediately after winning a "revolution".

@MissKathleen Man exploits?

@MissKathleen It's the opposite of both of those.

@MissKathleen Communism or cooperative societies always break down once the number of people exceeds 200. You can't have cooperation that works and anonymity. In a rural tribal village it works, (that is pretty much humans evolved) but not in a society that values privacy.

@snytiger6 Quoting from one of my favorite libertarian works, the Illuminatus! trilogy, "Are you willing to turn an engine lathe eight unfucking hours a day for something that calls itself a workers collective? If so, then 'the people' just becomes another form of tyranny!"

Or, as I like to put it, in every society someone has to shovel the shit.

@Paul4747 Whereas I view the world as a community. You can either contribute to make it a better place for everyone, or you can choose to exploi9t the labor and ideas of others for your exclusive benefit... the latter one is what capitalism is all about. I think people should get the lions share of their own labor and ideas, rather than it going to a very small percentage of the population. Life and the world isn't fair, but that is because we allow it to be that way.

My experience with libertarians is that they seem to want all the benefits that government brings them, but they just want someoen else to pay for it and to be free of nonrestrictive unregulated government regulations that make society work. I always poihtn out that Somalia has the very kind of government that Libertarians say they want, but so far none have decided to move there when I pointed this out. They want the safety of living in a regulated society. wihtout i8t beign any kind burden on themselves. It's just an unrealistic fairytale.

Democratic Socialism has pr4oven to work in many European countries, but so far, no libertarian government has been able to keep the peace or made for a desire place to live. While the Democratic Socilist countries are rated to have the happiest people in the world.

@snytiger6 Democratic Socialist economies, however, are technically a regulated form of capitalism. I don't object at all to a measure of socialism in my capitalism, but so far few things have been shown to beat the profit motive for getting things done.

Am I a cynic? Yes. An idealistic cynic. I want things to get better, I'll work to make things better, but I doubt they will get better.

@Paul4747 Hmm. We seem to be on the saem page.

Yes, I know that Democratic Socialism is a highly regulated form of capitalism. It is sort of middle road between the extremes of the economic models of collectivism and capitalism.