Best form of government?

[AnonymousRevival]

There is no best form of government, it is about the people themselves. If they are reliable, organized and are amiable to altruism, he/she is the ideal person to be in authority.

Totalitarianism is perfectly alright if the despot is willing to create a change not for his own decadence, but for the people as well. I would say Kim Il Sung is better than Kim Jung Il because people in NK actually are now able to create they're own small shops such as food markets and haberdasheries. And NK is almost classified as 'high human development' having a rating of 0.766/1, which is just a tad bit lower than Malaysia and better than relatively developed Caribbean States such as Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago.

Democracy is also a relatively 'liked' governmental form, as it allows people to voice out their opinion. However, if the people themselves are impatient and aggressive, that is also bad as it does nothing but cause panic and destroys the moral state of the country. For example, Leung Tsun Ying, Chief Executive of Hong Kong hadn't been in his position very long before people protest. Not only was it inconvenient for me as I have to bypass the crowds, but it also shows how unappreciative the citizens are as he didn't 'fulfill what he sad he was going to do', but that takes a long time to be in act. You can't just *poof* and a wizard just magically did it or something. People have to understand that things take time and it is not just for oneself.

Furthermore, a government must not just care for one's own economy, but for others as well. A person in governmental authority must be able to collaborate or else things will be terrible. For example, Greece's financial debt is not entirely Γεώργιος Α. Παπανδρέου (George Papandreou's) fault. As being a part of the EU, surpluses or profits from Germany, France and Belgium should give financial aid to Greece to recover from its debt. Otherwise, overtime, like a pile of dominoes, one by one, each European economy will stumble down. Infact, wealthy EU countries as mentioned above have 'unreliable' people in governmental office as they can't resolve their financial problem (yes they have debt too!) from borrowing money of China.

This leads to the one party state government of China, the entire nation ruled by a few dozen people. While it is a 'confidential' economy such as blocking of FB and YouTube, it is the fastest growing economy in the world and has now become the 2nd largest economy. Before its repression in the 1800s, The Chinese government (then a monarchy) due to the fact they have 'great' kings, have been always the strongest civilization since 2000+ B.C. While the governmental officials of China are extremely patriotic and will imprison anyone who rebels, they are doing really well, infact so well that it keeps loaning money to the US and the EU states and by 2050, it is estimated that the GDP of China would double that of the US.

From this, it can be shown that the different forms of government have different people or forms of people 'in charge', and that it is not neccessarily the governmental doctrine that we should be focusing on, but the people in authority themselves.

[northcity4]

First of all, please re check your facts on Kim Il Sung. Ask people who lived in Korea during his reign, you'll re think that statement.

Secondly, I slightly disagree with your overall claim: There is no best form of government, it is about the people themselves
1) your concluding statement said:  should be focusing on, but the people in authority themselves. You premises do not support this.
2) Government is a 2 way process. It's having a good leader or leaders with people abiding and willing to abide. You have yet to discredit soviet socialism as being the best form of government (please note soviet socialism=/=communism necessarily).
--->You have shown issues with other forms of government, but made no claim as to whether soviet socialism could work if it ever got implemented. Lets assume Russia didn't have the arms race with America and didn't get so depleted over WW2---> they could have implented it. Do you think it would have worked? I tend to think so after extensively researching and learning about it.
3) Focused on really one main issue with each country=made some quick assumptions considering your conclusion.

[cometbah]

1) your concluding statement said:  should be focusing on, but the people in authority themselves. You premises do not support this.
2) Government is a 2 way process. It's having a good leader or leaders with people abiding and willing to abide. You have yet to discredit soviet socialism as being the best form of government (please note soviet socialism=/=communism necessarily).
--->You have shown issues with other forms of government, but made no claim as to whether soviet socialism could work if it ever got implemented. Lets assume Russia didn't have the arms race with America and didn't get so depleted over WW2---> they could have implented it. Do you think it would have worked? I tend to think so after extensively researching and learning about it.
3) Focused on really one main issue with each country=made some quick assumptions considering your conclusion.

I don't think you understood what AnonymousRevival wrote.

(S)he did not show issues with the theories of any particular form of government; (s)he gave examples of some issues in implementing certain theories, and concluded that all of these issues stem not from flaws in the theories, but flaws in the person/people responsible for implementing the theory.

(S)he did 'discredit soviet socialism as being the best form of government', as you put it, by the following argument, albeit not explicitly:

(1)
No form of government is the best form of government.
(2)
Soviet socialism is a a form of government.
THEREFORE
(3)
Soviet socialism is not the best form of government.

You seem to be making the assumption that Soviet socialism has never been implemented.

Arguably, Soviet socialism has been implemented in its entirety. A complete system should include rules for overcoming various situations, and should account for, e.g. bad leaders, wars, economic depression, deviation from initial conditions/theories, and so forth. It was historically inevitable that Soviet socialism reacted to the arms race and the world war exactly as it did.

[northcity4]

no, you don't understand. Don't mix up my words. I stated she made no claim about soviet socialism and that I wanted her thoughts on it.

Also, her thoughts do not discredit the form of government. There is for 1) the possibility that it woud work fine. 2) not all her claims were about bad things. Her comments on China seemed ideal at worst. 3) how can you say soviet socialism was implented in a country without providing evidence? All I have is your comments and you do not count as a valid source.

Please re check your comments.

[cometbah]

no, you don't understand. Don't mix up my words. I stated she made no claim about soviet socialism and that I wanted her thoughts on it.

(S)he made general claims that are intended to be applied to all forms of government.

Soviet socialism is a form of government.

Therefore (s)he made claims about Soviet socialism.

Also, her thoughts do not discredit the form of government

(S)he claimed that no form of government is a best form of government.
Soviet socialism is a form of government.
Therefore, she claimed that Soviet socialism is not the best form of government.

By 'discredit', you meant 'discredit soviet socialism as being the best form of government', not 'discredit Soviet socialism as an effective form of government'.
In other words: there is no need to show that it is necessarily ineffective, but only that it cannot be 'the best'.

His/Her answer was:
Soviet socialism would work exactly as well as fascism, communism, libertarianism, etc., if practised by the same sort of people.
Reason:
The system practised is irrelevant to how well any of them would work. The true determining factor is the sort of people practising the systems.

[northcity4]

Her claims do not stand by themselves. You are taking her statements and treating them as facts. Maybe she is wrong. Maybe there is a perfect government out there.

Secondly: soviet socialism is much different from facism and communism and liberalism. Do you even know what it is? It is very extensive, but the main goal: be the perfect government that can actually work. You guys have yet to discredit it or claim there is fault in it.

1) she made general claims that are intended to be applied to all forms of government? No she didn't. She simply pointed out some problems with a few governments, that is it. Her conclusion was just faulty in that it made a universal statement from particular premises (fallacy of deriving a universal conclusion from particular premises: real fallacy by the way).

2) I made this topic to see if there was a best. There is need to show if it is the best and possibly the 'perfect' government.

3) Again, you compared soviet socialism to the other forms of governments listed. Soviet socialism is like communism with the errors fixed and you have yet to show me a country (Cuba example is a bad one since they don't have a lot of big businesses owned by themselves) that actually uses soviet socialism. You type here and say it's being used in many countries and fail to even state one. Are you going to or not?

[AnonymousRevival]

Alright, allow me to clear things a bit here.

It is true I didn't mention soviet socialism specifically because I did not study 20th century history a well lot so placing facts, quotes for it can be misleading and be proven to be fallacious.

Secondly, I live in China, so I actually experience the government and I can give further examples or information to further support my claim(s) if required.

Thirdly, I was trying to justify that there can't be a "perfect" form of government, it has to depend on the people itself. The reason why many kingdoms now become countries is because of corrupt officials and aristocracy which caused people to rebel.

[cometbah]

Her claims do not stand by themselves. You are taking her statements and treating them as facts. Maybe she is wrong. Maybe there is a perfect government out there.

I did not say his/her answer is a correct answer. I merely said that (s)he did provide an answer, because you claimed that (s)he failed to provide an answer.

However, (s)he did provide evidence, with the intention to demonstrate that the same political theory, under different leadership, yielded different results.

Secondly: soviet socialism is much different from facism and communism and liberalism. Do you even know what it is? It is very extensive, but the main goal: be the perfect government that can actually work. You guys have yet to discredit it or claim there is fault in it.

3) Again, you compared soviet socialism to the other forms of governments listed. Soviet socialism is like communism with the errors fixed and you have yet to show me a country (Cuba example is a bad one since they don't have a lot of big businesses owned by themselves) that actually uses soviet socialism. You type here and say it's being used in many countries and fail to even state one. Are you going to or not?

Soviet socialism is defined as the sort of socialism practised by the Soviet Union.
Therefore, at least one state practised Soviet socialism: the Soviet Union.

You are treating Soviet socialism as if it was a completed theory even before attempted implementation, which is false.
No one came up with a complete theory of 'Soviet socialism', and then tried to implement it.

Instead, a bunch of people tried to implement socialism in the Soviet Union, and after they have all tried, we looked at what actually happened, discovered that it was distinct from the sort of 'socialism' proposed before the Soviet Union, and attempted to distinguish the two by calling one of them 'Soviet socialism'.

Soviet socialism is not 'communism with errors fixed'.

There is no systemic 'fault' with the theory of communism, or Soviet socialism, or any other system, however different they are from each other.
The 'error' is the attitude of the people practising the system, regardless of the system they practise, be it socialism or moon-cheesism.

1) she made general claims that are intended to be applied to all forms of government? No she didn't. She simply pointed out some problems with a few governments, that is it.

The claim intended to be applied to all forms of government is this:
'Every form of government is a not-best form of government.'

So:

∀x∈G : x ∉ B
Where 'G' is the set of all forms of government, and 'B' is 'the best form of government'.

There are at least two ways to arrive at this conclusion:

1. Identify every x, and prove, independently, that each x is not 'the best form of government'.

2. Justify that B is an empty set (i.e. that there is no best form of government), and, therefore, no x can be an element of B.

AnonymousRevival used the second method.

2) I made this topic to see if there was a best. There is need to show if it is the best and possibly the 'perfect' government.

AnonymousRevival's answer to your question is 'no, there is no 'best'.'

[northcity4]

For someone who says they don't treat her claims as facts, you really seem to do so.

I will say this: soviet socialism is not a government practiced by the soviet union. Lenin was the first to try it (and you still have not shown me you understand soviet socialism) and he died before he could fully implement it. It was attempted again later, but the arms race stopped it (turned to war communism).

In philosophy, we refer to Russia not because they are the soviet union but rather this is the place of origin of the theory. Every country that has tried to implement it has gotten shut down quickly. There is no country that currently or has ever run by this theory to even 70% of its extent. Capitalist countries always seem to find it quickly and shut it down.

Let's make this clear: soviet socialism is not a government practiced by the soviet union. You obviously don't understand the theory. It is a completed theory and can be correctly defined as communism without the errors. When I made this post, I asked: if soviet socialism ever got implemented, do you think it would work? I asked this because no country has ever implemented it without opposition because of it. If you disagree, give me a country already and start making a good argument. The only thing you have stated really is: 'Soviet socialism is defined as the sort of socialism practised by the Soviet Union.' That tells me nothing.

If we agree there is no country that has used it...do you think it would work?

By the way, I get revival thinks there is no best form of government...and please read her last post...how bout you give me your claim because I don't agree with revival (see my earlier posts).

[OldTrees]

Let's make this clear: soviet socialism is not a government practiced by the soviet union. You obviously don't understand the theory. It is a completed theory and can be correctly defined as communism without the errors.

It sounds like you have made 3 errors
1) You failed to explain what you meant by soviet socialism (even the quoted post was insufficient for me to distinguish it from Soviet Union socialism). This results in people misunderstanding you.
2) You are giving off the appearance of not listening to the other people in the discussion. This results in increasing hostility towards you and your position.
3) You are biased towards soviet socialism to the point that I am not sure if you are still able to rationally critique it. (Query: Assuming you are referring to Leninism as cometbah thinks: How does it solve the problems of direct democracy?)

[cometbah]

I will say this: soviet socialism is not a government practiced by the soviet union. Lenin was the first to try it (and you still have not shown me you understand soviet socialism) and he died before he could fully implement it. It was attempted again later, but the arms race stopped it (turned to war communism).

We usually refer to that as Leninism, not 'Soviet socialism'.

You are correct; I don't know what you mean by 'Soviet socialism', as you seem to be using an unorthodox definition.

My definition of 'Soviet socialism', and the definition usually used, as far as I know, is the one I have stated earlier: the sort of socialism practised and/or encouraged by Soviet leadership, including, but not limited to, Lenin.

Trotskyism, for example, is an element of 'Soviet socialism', but differs significantly from Leninism.

[northcity4]

Trees: calling me biased is a fallacy (ad hominem abusive-so next time watch what you say) Most people here do not understand what soviet socialism is.

But to answer you and comet:

yes my definition is the theory trotskey gives.
it works in this way: there are tons of small businesses, but if your business gets too big, the power is then divided so you don't too powerful. There are no charities: everyone works (solves the laziness problem). Give and reward according to need, not work. Example: a pro athlete will recieve more food than I, not because he is better, but because he needs it. If I become a pro athlete, I too would get as much as he/she. This is a summary. Again it is like communism with fairness as long as you are not lazy. Another way of looking at this is capitalism without the capitalists.

Other ideas in the theory: those who know their job the best should create protocol for it. (too much to really get in detail on this part)