Socialism unable to work in current society

Sociologically speaking, Homo sapiens have come very far in administration and government from our first days of the biggest, strongest alpha male claiming the title of chief to the rest of the tribe gathered around the fire. We've taken great steps in the directions of equality, human freedom and social welfare.

Yet for all of our accomplishments we've made as a species, we have not grown beyond anything much more than our alpha-male chief system. Though it may be true that leadership isn't chosen by physical prowess anymore, our American government is still a system of the very few controlling the very many—oligarchy to the extreme.

So what's wrong with that? People are still happy, right?

A big problem with capitalism is that when someone gains wealth, it has to be taken from somewhere. For someone to become richer, someone else has to become poorer.

Our predatory governmental and economic system of capitalism is based on individual drive and rewards over the general well-being of the populace. So is there a system that does care about the well-being of the masses? Yes, it's called socialism. Or, it's called communism or Marxism. They all have the same basic ideas, just under different names.

Now, I'm no history, philosophy or anthropology major, but I've lived in this world long enough to know a few things about socialism. Dictionary.com defines it as, "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole."

This means that everything that is yours actually belongs to the state, which, in part, belongs to you. Though I learned in economics class that socialist countries produce less overall than capitalist countries (thank you Professor Janssen), it is my personal opinion that the populace is happier when no one has to worry about survival.

But, with socialism, we come to the problems that George Orwell described in "Animal Farm." The primary problem is that we are indeed individuals and while we will work hard to better our individual lives, it is significantly harder to find the same motivation for doing the same work for a community or even an entire country. This is also why socialist countries produce less.

The proletariat works and works while the bourgeois sits back and enjoys the fruits of labor. Boxer breaks his back while Napoleon gets fatter.

It is because of this factor that I do not agree with socialism. It is within our nature to compete and rip out the throats of our enemies and, even if we're not supposed to, we always will. This is a theme in Orwell's "1984"; that even though we can grow beyond our system in name, there will always be the proles, the bourgeois and the elites and this is a part of nature.

This rings true in countries like the former Soviet Union and Cuba (a very communist country, but still it has a leader). Socialism at its purest does not have the need for a leader, all of the people work for each other. Basically, true socialists should be like ants, but even ants have a hierarchy of work.

Don't get me wrong, though. I think, if we could properly implement it, socialism would be better overall than capitalism. I just don't think we can do it on a large scale. A smaller community is easier to work with, as the hippies of yore did, because you actually see, work and live with the people you are toiling for. But, for a nationwide system to be utilized, entire cultures would have to change.

If you bring any Cuban from their usual diet of rice and beans (thank you too, Professor Emmer) to America, land of the Big Mac, then it is pretty obvious which place they will prefer, even though they will never starve in Cuba.

Truth be told, I love the idea of socialism, it's just not realistic at this point in time. Perhaps over a few hundred years, with the right technology and if social welfare of all sorts keeps improving, proper socialism will be more than an illogical dream.

But I still don't quite believe that. The systems that communist countries have had prove only one thing to me: Orwell was right, individualism is something innate in all living beings. Competition is hard-wired into us, and to initiate something like communism onto something, like a country, that isn't truly ready for it is just covering up lies.

So maybe someday we will all be truly equal in a utopia of true socialism, but I sincerely doubt it.