Humanity and Public Welfare

Note- I use quotes around words and phrases to distance them, I don't seek to be as literal as possible, but rather evoke the sense of the word.

First off, this is not necessarily a thorough examination of broad "political" concepts, but intended to be a thought-share about the relationship these have through intent, aside from additional effects and ideas they carry.  This may be broad at times(as intended) and is obviously based on my understanding and experience, so with that in mind, let's go forth.

Among all the other things, I believe there is a common intent that helped shape the concepts of Socialism and Communism, and that's what I'd like to explore.  Here's the thought - the intent to encourage a society in which the good of the whole is an acknowledged and supported concept.  One of the biggest aspects of both of these systems that is a symptom of this, is the attempts to redistribute wealth.  While Communism and Socialism are in many ways very different, they both include mechanics which effectively redistribute wealth in more... "authoritarian" ways, perhaps.

Here's where my thoughts continue; when discussing things that pertain to public welfare and social programs as aspects of "government", this tends to cause subjects of the conversation to become "Communist" or "Socialist".  When discussing the idea of the government taking a larger role in public healthcare, the conversation has a difficult time avoiding the label of Socialism, and this is not just limited to healthcare, but rather is limited to the aspect of "government".

I believe the idea of government came about to help enforce and shape societal tendencies and "rules", in some occasions with the hopes of the broadest sense of good.  Socialism and Communism approach their intent by using government as a means to shape and enforce, through laws and/or taxes, a society which focuses on the "good of the whole" - which I won't get into but has a ton of ugly arguments as a concept, so it's not a blanket "good" argument.  Again, there are many many differences here between Socialism and Communism, but that is it's own discussion as well.  There are many ideas of what is "good" and "right", and while government is arguably a symptom of "cooperative intelligence", I feel it fails to address range effectively by focusing more heavily on average, and thereby fails to accurately address the needs and will of the governed.

What gets lost is the intent, the wish, the hopefulness - where it came from, a positive place, even if it's "naive".  If our culture as humans was to think about humans and humanity as a whole, and to invest in our species as a whole, these ideas would seem arguably unnecessary.  We are becoming more and more of a global entity as humans, and our image of humanity and identity as a species is becoming more important now than ever.  Our success as humans may very well rest on our ability to work together as a species and overcome our greatest obstacle - ourselves.

Trot On Everypony,
Alturiigo