is there a parliamentary road to socialism?

Question

can one achieve a socialist society through the house of commons? is a revolution needed?

Answer 1

If you are a socialist and don't like it here, you can go to live in North Korea or Cuba.

You'll never get it in the UK or US.

Answer 2

Technically it is possible to achieve a Socialist society in the House of Commons. However it would require the support of a large number of the electorate to make a Socialist party the majority Party in the House of Commons. It can be argued that earlier Labour governments (particularly Clement Attlee 1945-49) and Harold Wilson's first Governments (1964-70) introduced a large number of Socialist policies - nationalising much of industry, creating the NHS, universal free education, strenghtening trade union rights, etc. However most of these achievements were undone during the 1979-97 Thatcher/Major governments, and Tony Blair, being a self-styled "Democratic Socialist" has made little effort to reintroduce them.

Answer 3

I don't think you quite understand socialism. To the answerer before me, North Korea and Cuba are not socialist, they are dictatorships, not at all the same thing. Sweden is a socialist country. It simply means that what you do is more for good of the nation as opposed to just yourself. So for your question, yes, socialism can be acheived through the house of commons and a revolution is not needed. In addition to the first person who answered, Tony Blair's party in the UK is a socialist party. Look it up, they just don't have very socialist views.

Answer 4

Yes there is but it needs policies that the people will accept and support. It needs to engage the people and show them the possibilities that could could lie before them. Without the involvement of the people it can only fail. Revolution cannot work in this country only persuasion, and you can only do that if you are doing it for the right reasons. Simonavit tells it as it is.

Answer 5

I wasn't going to answer this but ----
It is a dream, a dream of the masses looking for compassion in what they see is an unbalanced life and values. Poverty generates it and desire to change life fuels it. Often logical or purposeful thinking is used to explore, it but only the poor can really experience it.
I class myself in the poor in my young life in London's East End where two down and two up with an outside lavatory and one water tap constitute relative prosperity. Housing my mother and father one grandfather and his two sons with overnight guests on most nights it was my birthplace where I had a drawer in the dressing table. Wendon Street
The family were religious, loyal to King and Country and scrupulously clean in personal hygiene and domestic cleanliness.
I flicked the pages of my first borrowed library book at the age of two.
As I progressed though Kipling, Jack London and others while attending Mission led lantern slide evenings on Africa, I listened to George Lansbury outside of the hall he was lecturing in.
I listened to Gandhi in Devons Road in 1935 and all of this now added to my life's experience made me a genuine socialist at the age of eleven.
My heart and behaviour coupled with my beliefs made me so.
My environment and poverty made sense out of the words I read or heard. My long experience and the many theoretical examples I lived with, and what I considered normal, confirmed the rhetoric.
It was me, it was me and I was living it.

I read Marx, Quite Flows the Don and stopped there and went back to socialism. I could do something about this but Marxist doctrine was too big and beyond my possibilities.
By the time I started manual work at 14, I was equipped mentally and physically to change things. I had already attempted to do so as an individual but that was limited to my spare time and strength, where helping people was a ten times a day good deed, as I called it.
Bryant & May Phossy Jaw victims were the recent past for me that Parliament approved of for over 20 years. More women died in Bow-Old Ford than did people on the Klondike that year.
Phossy Jaw, the slang name for it, made into the Oxford Dictionary and Labours first chance to come to power in 1924 was sabotaged by the State.
A falsely manufactured a letter purporting to be from Mr Zinoviev, a senior member of Russia's new Communist party, encouraged workers to revolt.
In 1994 it was released under the 70 year rule.
I became the youngest shop steward in the AEU and was active at socialist meetings. Alas my socialist attitude and leanings were snuffed out by my fellow workers.
I was a giver and they were takers who thought that belonging to a union gave them their paid for protection.

I could write a book on this subject but what would be the use.
Mankind does not recognise the other species let alone his own brothers.
In the war they had a saying, I'm all right Jack.
I guess that sums it up for me except I am no Jack.
And me?
I am a born carer a helper and an understanding human being, and always will be, but no instrument of state will ever recognise socialism
Revolution needs dedication and today the 4 by 4s have it along with kitchens to die for that heat up processed food.

Answer 6

Who needs the House of Commons when there is globalisation?

The rich nations are losing their shirts and the poor nations are getting all the investment in manufacturing jobs.

Answer 7

If you are not satisfied living in Great Britain go and live in a country which suits your requirements.

Answer 8

vote liberal