Oxford Union: Jeremy Corbyn- 'Socialism Does Work'

Source:Oxford Union- UK Labour and Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn.

"Jeremy Corbyn addresses the issue of healthcare saying that the socialist and communist thinkers of the 19th Century had a vision that healthcare should be available to all people, this had lead to the NHS today and is something we should be proud of. He concludes by saying the chamber should vote in favour of equality. 

Filmed on Thursday 28th November 2013

MOTION: This House Believes Socialism Will Not Work.

RESULT: Motion Defeated." 

From the Oxford Union

Wow! My first opportunity to blog about Jeremy Corbyn, who may end up being the next Leader of the Opposition in Britain next month. I’m really only interested in democratic socialism when it comes to socialism. Marxism, I see as another ideology and an extreme form of statism as it relates to social, economic and political policy. 

Democratic Socialists, are not Marxists, otherwise they would be Marxists. And when you think of socialism, you should think of the European Union, especially the Anglo-Saxon states like Britain and look at the Nordic states in Scandinavia. When you think of Marxism, look at the old Soviet Union. And look at North Korea today.

For me at least, it’s not a question of whether socialism works, not, but how far you go with it. How much do you want centralized with the national government. With the state, or provincial government’s doing less, as well as the local government’s and private sector doing less. Because every developed democratic country in the world has a level of socialism in their national government at least. 

Democratic socialism, is really about having a big welfare state and big centralized national government, to see to it that no one in society has to go without. And that the central government is responsible for a lot of the basic human services in life. But that the welfare state is essentially funded by a large private sector. Yes, capitalism and private enterprise.

This debate is not whether you should have a command and control Marxist state-owned economy. Or do you want the entire economy to be left in the hands of the private sector. With government only being left with national security, foreign policy, national reserve and law enforcement. 

This is a debate about how much do you want government doing for the people. How big you want the central state to be versus the state/provincial government’s, local government’s and private sector. But that there is a private sector, because even Democratic Socialists know that Marxism doesn’t work. If it did, the Soviet Union would still be in business today. Cuba, wouldn’t have started privatizing parts of their economy and North Korea, wouldn’t be the hell hole that it is. 

You can also see this post at FreeState MD, on Blogger.