Re: Number 4

For starters, I never assumed that non-workers didn't deserve essential services. It's my contention that all human beings deserve essential services without a price tag.

Secondly, as I have stated many times before (to seemingly no effect), I am not a utopian. I do not believe a totally perfect system is possible. I contend that a better system is possible, one that will be the most efficient and equitable type of system based on what modern technology makes possible. I am not going to slavishly limit my support for only the types of systems that have already been tried, because sometimes humanity has to expand its horizons and seek out new frontiers, especially of those already thread have proven wanting.

( Though one wonders how it will prevent itself from devolving into the fate of every other theoretical version when it came into practice? )

Original socialism, which I support, has effectively nothing in common with Leninism (and its variants, such as Trotskyism and Maoism) and all other systems which have taken on the label "socialism." As such, it's entirely unfair to judge how well it would or would not work on the basis of other systems that resembled it in name only. We cannot eternally limit our discussions to only the types of systems that have been tried, especially when those systems have not proven efficient. If something does not work, and all attempts to fix it have failed, we sometimes must move onto something else. Change and the need for it at certain points in history are a part of reality, and it shouldn't be assumed that all future systems will be entirely based upon systems that we are already familiar with.

The present system has not made only a few people starve; there are over two billion people across the world who have an insufficient amount of food to eat in a world where more than enough food is produced to feed everyone, and that is because under the current system food is a commodity that is sold for a profit and is rarely distributed based upon need. That is how original socialism would differ from all systems that have been tried within recorded history; production would be based on needs and wants rather than the profit motive.

You didn't actually answer any of my questions, but simply derided socialism by critiquing its alleged utopian ideals (it doesn't purport to create a perfect system) and the fact that it has not yet been tried.