Real socialism

Thanks for that Stuart.  Posted this in the comments:  http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2016/no-1346-october-2016/what-could-socialism-be

For some reason it wont accept my comment.

 Absolutely!  This particular section of the article caught my eye (and reminded me of our contributor, LBird) And that is the real reason why ‘real socialism’ has never been tried: even if it could be done logistically (which I doubt), it would be an absolute pain in the neck. Voter turnout would soon drop to rock-bottom levels. The economic planning process would become dominated by vocal single-issue groups, not ‘ordinary workers’. Eventually, all the heavy lifting would have to be delegated to expert committees The long shadow cast by the centrally planned model of socialism has done incomparable damage to the socialist  cause and – lets face it – this is what lies behind this grotesque caricature of the "economic planning process" in socialism – that all decisions affecting the production of goods will be made democratically by the population as a whole on a society-wide basis and hence in a centrally planned manner This has become a stick with which to beat the socialist cause – to demonstrate its alleged impracticality – and the Leninists and their ilk have conspired to give crediblity to this ridiculous accusation with their loose talk of a "planned economy".  As if the totality of production can ever be planned  in advance. I am more and more convinced that there is much mileage to be made for socialists to emphasise instead that real socialism must of necessity be a self regulating system of production in the same sense that a capitalist market economy is self regulating – except of course that a socialist system will be completely devoid of any kind of market transaction.  Sure, there will be a role for democratic decisionmaking within the vision of socialism and no doubt it will be much enlarged by comparison with today but we should not make the mistake of confusing the part with the whole 

Not sure it was a good idea to appear to defend Stalin.

I thought I would try and bait them first, looks like that failed. Who was the picture off? I though it was one of young Joei thought

 Socialism is not evil, and it is not a state either. You do not know what you are talking about