[geeks] Common Unix knowledge

[Mike Meredith]

On Saturday 08 February 2003 8:30 pm, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> Oh goodness no!  Socialism, when uncorrupted by innate human nature,
> *can* work - I don't know that it ever *has* worked tough.

It all depends on how you define success doesn't it ? I can't think of 
any kind of government that has been totally successful. As an example 
of how socialism has worked, the UK had a socialist government after 
WWII which managed to implement a free health service for everyone in 
the UK.

The NHS certainly isn't perfect (although if you spend as small a 
proportion of GDP on health as the UK does, it's hardly surprising), 
but it's a damm site better than what went before. You could probably 
point at examples where non-socialist governments have done similar, 
but that won't get around the fact that a socialist government 
successfully did something that I think is important.

Successive socialist governments in the UK managed to change the balance 
of wealth without doing anything too drastic. It's possible to argue 
that this is the wrong thing to do, but that's besides the point ... a 
socialist will say that it's the right thing to do.

(Of course since Mad Maggie Thatcher the Snatcher, the gap between the 
poorest and richest has widened again)

Large parts of Europe regularly experiment with socialist governments 
and it doesn't cause the end of the world.