"Two Progressives on an Escalator" from iOwnTheWorld.com

What Would Progressives Do Without The People They Disdain To Do Their Dirty Work?

Progressivism is a political attitude favoring or advocating changes or reform through governmental action. Progressivism is often viewed in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies. The Progressive Movement began in cities with settlement workers and reformers who were interested in helping those facing harsh conditions at home and at work. The reformers spoke out about the need for laws regulating tenement housing and child labor. They also called for better working conditions for women.

In the United States, the term progressivism emerged in the late 19th century into the 20th century in reference to a more general response to the vast changes brought by industrialization: an alternative to both the traditional conservative response to social and economic issues and to the various more radical streams of socialism and anarchism which opposed them. Political parties, such as the Progressive Party, organized at the start of the 20th century, and progressivism made great strides under American presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.[1]

Despite being associated with left-wing politics in the United States and Canada, the term "progressive" has occasionally been used by groups not particularly left-wing. The Progressive Democrats in the Republic of Ireland took the name "progressivism" despite being considered centre-right or classical liberal. The European Progressive Democrats was a mainly heterogeneous political group in the European Union. For most of the period from 1942--2003, the largest conservative party in Canada was the Progressive Conservative Party.

Socialism is an economic and political theory advocating public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.[1][2][3] A socialist society is organized on the basis of relatively equal power-relations, self-management, dispersed decision-making (adhocracy) and a reduction or elimination of hierarchical and bureaucratic forms of administration and governance, the extent of which varies in different types of socialism.[4][5] This ranges from the establishment of cooperative management structures to the abolition of all hierarchical structures in favor of free association.

As an economic system, socialism is the direct allocation of capital goods (means of production) to meet economic demands so that production is oriented toward use and accounting is based on some physical magnitude, such as physical quantities or a direct measure of labour time.[6][7] Goods and services for consumption are distributed through markets, and distribution of income is based on the principle of individual merit/individual contribution.[8]

As a political movement, socialism includes a diverse array of political philosophies, ranging from reformism to revolutionary socialism. Some currents of socialism, often referred to as state socialism, advocate complete nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange as a strategy for implementing socialism; while social democrats advocate public control of capital within the framework of a market economy. Libertarian socialists and anarchists reject using the state to build socialism, arguing that socialism will, and must, arise spontaneously. They advocate direct worker-ownership of the means of production alternatively through independent syndicates, workplace democracies, or worker cooperatives.

Modern socialism originated from an 18th-century intellectual and working class political movement that criticised the effects of industrialisation and private property on society. Utopian socialists such as Robert Owen (1771--1858), tried to found self-sustaining communes by secession from a capitalist society. Henri de Saint Simon (1760--1825), who coined the term socialisme, advocated technocracy and industrial planning.[9] Saint-Simon, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx advocated the creation of a society that allows for the widespread application of modern technology to rationalise economic activity by eliminating the anarchy of capitalist production that results in instability and cyclical crises of overproduction.[10][11]

Socialists inspired by the Soviet model of economic development, such as Marxist-Leninists, have advocated the creation of centrally planned economies directed by a single-party state that owns the means of production. Others, including Yugoslavian, Hungarian, East German and Chinese communist governments in the 1970s and 1980s, instituted various forms of market socialism[citation needed], combining co-operative and state ownership models with the free market exchange and free price system (but not free prices for the means of production).[

Category:

Education

Tags:

• progressives
• morons
• libtards
• do-nothings
• limp wristed
• feckless
• useless.

[theominousthey]

Literally the first thing IOTW has done that has approached funny.

Baby steps, I guess.

[IOTW2009]

The Sarah Palin remixed video that you favorited. That was the funniest thing we have EVER seen. Truly gutbusting. We can't stop thinking about it. Me? I can hardly type I am guffawing and convulsing so.

You, my friend, have one helluva sense of humor.

[MrEmesis]

I think that an escalator tax should solve the problem.

[starvedsanity]

2 progressives 1 escalator :D

[DerBlitzStag]

I'm a 'Progressive' and I walk when the escalator works.

Stick with your stereotypes though, might be easier.

[manz125]

negros should go back to the plantation. Vote for Bachmann!

[pj4today]

that was funny.

[KarmicOmen]

Ill prepared and not self sufficient ... about sums it up I think!

[Althing79]

I'm sure Blowbama will quickly appoint an escalator czar at our expense to rectify this awful, awful problem.

[dontlikenumbers]

I wonder if they are still there. Oh well, if anyone sees 2 skeletons on an escalator we'll know what happened.

[inflateyourtires]

Who will they sue?

The maintenance man?

The owner of the building?

Oh right!

The manufacturer of the escalator.