DING DONG THE BITCH IS DEAD!!!!

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LOL what. Aye because all the people who organised no payment of the poll tax who where there were also clueless. We didn't live through, but the north of the uk still wont cons so her legacy speaks for itself.

If Cuba had more freedom and allowed some capitalism with high profit taxes then surely they would be achieving well for themselves ? Good education, good medicine, people grow their own food, there is a basic system of rations ?

As for alcohol, it should be rationed and those who can't handle their drink should have tighter limits.

I wasn't alive when Hitler and Stalin were in power but I know they were a pair of complete barstewards. Don't underestimate the ability of the younger generation to learn about evil. You don't have to have lived through it to understand.

YEH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkMMIGPD10A

What's laughable about this topic is, the fact that you are too young to have lived through the worst of Thatcher's years in power, so you're making comments about a time of which you have no, or very little, knowledge.

I don't understand the obsession with rich and poor. I'm relatively poor as I hardly own any assets but I've got skills that make me very employable. What is wrong with people who provide highly valued services or products to other people through voluntary exchange? Many capitalists got rich only because they figured out a way how to produce for millions, not just the rich nobility as was the cause before industrial revolution.
You don't get accurate report about the state of health care on Cuba from their government or Michael Moore. My friend's wife's family comes from Cuba. They ran away to Florida. People can't send money to Cuba, let alone anyone going there to study medicine. The least wealthy suffer the most and they're not allowed to better themselves through offering services to tourists, not the mention the State banning the trade in and out of Cuba.
Banning alcohol - not only is it a gross violation of the right of people to put whatever they like into their bodies as long as they're not harming anyone else, it also doesn't work - see prohibition in US in 1930s or War on drugs right now (it's mostly poor people locked up for possessing pieces of vegetation or gun related crimes). It is highly paternalistic of you to declare a common man stupid or nasty because they enjoy drinking, perhaps sometimes too much. You care about the poor but at the same time don't want them to be able to put whatever they want into their bodies and punish them when get more successful, how do you reconcile these positions? It's a by-product of all powerful State - if it gives you healthcare, it can also take away your drink or hamburger.
What you're proposing are your personal arbitrary preferences, not a system based on either rights (ethics) or utility (economics). I.e. I don't take drugs nor want other people to take them, I sure wouldn't want the State to ban them though. It's the difference between rape (locking people up for drinking) and seduction (convincing them not to abuse alcohol). Anecdotal evidence cannot be a base for a societal order.
We can speak of morality only as long as people are allowed choice. We should indeed learn from the previous attempts at socialism - millions of dead, killed directly by their own governments because they had their own personal ideas about how to live their lives or through famines caused by central planning and forced collectivisation.
"It is only thanks to the market and voluntary exchange that some of us enjoy the ability to waste bread while worrying about those who don't." ~ Jonathan M. Finegold Catalan

Well, you may want to check Saudi Arabia or Yemen. True, they're very hypocrites because expats can get drunk in their compounds and nobody cares (not to mention that Saudi Arabia has about the worst human rights record in general worldwide).
However, if I must say 1 good thing about these places: the chances that a crime influenced by alcohol is gonna happen, is extremely small.

I think the golden in between would be to allow a 3 or 4 beers or 1 bottle of wine a day per person. Now with these electronic ID cards, a scan to see how many you've consumed already is easy to do.

I wouldn't mind going totally dry though, I don't drink alcohol myself. I don't want to be nasty on the fellow people though, but alcohol makes those fellow people nasty. So a sort of in between (alcohol allowed but in limited dosage) seems reasonable to me.

"I totally support banning alcohol overall, I've lived in some countries where alcoholism was omnipresent."

The point is: we have just as many alcoholics in Sweden as anywhere else, total control doesn't work.

"In countries where private healthcare is allowed the healthcare quality is higher, as competition drives improvement. They can also make decisions based on best practice, instead of being slave to a budget set by politicians."

Competition is nice as long as the product is available to anyone. Private clinics means the richer class get all the best Healthcare why the poorer class has waiting lists in a less well equipped hospital. The State has the duty to look after its people. If taxing the rich to an extreme percentage allows the poor to enjoy the same quality of Healthcare: go for it.
By the way, the idea that lack of competition means quality drops, isn't necessarily true and examples of that exist. Cuba has about the best Healthcare in the Americas, and students from far away countries come to Cuba to study medicine because of its high quality of Healthcare. Just one example of the many.
Something as important as health, food, housing, electricity, ... should never be competitive. It should be available to all.

"The state also controls selling of alcohol - you can only buy it in state-controlled alcohol shops (or in bars, of course). It's basically an attempt at total control."

I totally support banning alcohol overall, I've lived in some countries where alcoholism was omnipresent. If people cannot handle their toy, take it away from them. I wouldn't mind living in a totally "dry" country, and I definitely think a system is needed to subject EVERYONE to a limit of for example 1 bottle of wine or 3 beers a night. May sound harsh, but the campaigns that have been tried didn't work. In that case, the State has to interfere.

"Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's by far the best economical system we have. Communism, nazism, etc, are utopian dreams and ideas that are impossible to achieve, and they're equally as bad as each other."

Well, just like you said you lived in a socialist state and it didn't work at all... I'm from a country with a mixed economy, but lived in some very free market countries. Just like socialism didn't work in your place, capitalism was a bubble that was bursting more and more every day in the places I've lived. A free market can never work, because it puts the emphasis on profit rather than on human values such as solidarity. If people cannot stop their urge for more profit and cannot be solidary by choice, again the State has to assure that solidarity even if it restricts freedom in economy. I see capitalism as soulless: the moment money becomes your main drive, we're in a very bad state as a society in general.

I'm all for a planned economy but I realise this has not worked out as yet, although I believe strongly that it will succeed someday. As for now, the best functioning system I've experienced is a mixed economy with the nuance that the core industries were state-controlled. Economical liberalism and a free market are recipes for disaster, but usually as long as the upper class isn't the victim people have the impression things are just fine.

I realise it has not been properly applied as yet, but I strongly believe in the principe of a socialist state, previous failed attempts should be learned from to not make the same mistake again but they are no excuse to give up on a system that could be a blessing for society once we do apply it as it should. I also do think the State has to control ongoings, not because of anything like "totalitary state policy" but just to keep an eye on things. Those privatised businesses have to be controlled, that is the only way I would trust a privatised industry as much as I do trust the ones that are currently nationalised. A strong government is needed until people put selfishness and greed aside spontaneously.

The problem with the state running things is that without healthy competition, quality drops. I know this because I'm from a country where the state tries to control everything. The state provides "free" (through taxation, so not free at all) healthcare, which results in long waiting periods and below-par healthcare where most decisions are based on a yearly budget. In countries where private healthcare is allowed the healthcare quality is higher, as competition drives improvement. They can also make decisions based on best practice, instead of being slave to a budget set by politicians.

The state also controls selling of alcohol - you can only buy it in state-controlled alcohol shops (or in bars, of course). It's basically an attempt at total control.

Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's by far the best economical system we have. Communism, nazism, etc, are utopian dreams and ideas that are impossible to achieve, and they're equally as bad as each other.