RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of the above?

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RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of th... - 4/5/2006 5:37:23 AM

michaelGA

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i wouldn't know anything about histroy, since i purposely skipped that particular course in school due to the lack of relevency to the workplace.

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RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of th... - 4/22/2006 2:44:12 AM

kommune

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ah, the bane of all polite conversation...

at the core of the issue, we are the plague that ravages our world. humanity, with its many flaws. that we need government in the first place is a sign that we failed, and still fail, to work and live in the best interest of our society as a global whole.

decades of corporatism has corrupted the principles of capitalism, centralising the world's wealth in a handful of individuals. and where once this widening disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" might have triggered bloody revolution (as in europe, south america and south asia), order is today established by the pervasive control of media outlets by corporate interests, and fear-mongering by corporation-backed politicians (we can have 11,000 nukes, but WMDs in the hands of anyone else but us is dangerous!).

we speak of blocking china's access to sensitive industries like oil (CNOOC-UNOCAL), but white goods (HAIER-MAYTAG)?

strange that no one seems to take offence at the starbucks that has opened inside the walls of china's forbidden city palace, or the mcdonald towns springing up around russia and the middle-east.

rammstein insists "we all live in amerika", whether or not we're american. i suppose that is now true, except not everyone gets a vote.

so much for democracy, then. and post 9-11, civil liberties and freedom of speech went out the window too. someone earlier professed favour for fascism a la starship troopers? tell me what the difference is with today, less the bugs, space travel, and co-ed showers.

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communism presents a compelling social ideal, but instead of playing on our human weaknesses, as is the assumption in capitalism, communism demands the best of us; a damning oversight. it's progeny, socialism, will do no better.

+ + +

a capitalist vs socialist argument is merely a personal decision between two equally ill-conceived evils. i cast my vote for nihilism.

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RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of th... - 4/22/2006 3:04:39 AM

JohnWarren

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kommune
at the core of the issue, we are the plague that ravages our world.

You obviously have never tried to get a night's sleep in the middle of a mosquite swarm. I'll take humanity over them any day.

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RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of th... - 4/22/2006 3:50:17 AM

NeedToUseYou

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I'd be for a mostly capitalism based economy. Pretty much until a person reaches the age of adulthood. They would be covered by the blanket of government protection. In other words government makes sure they have food, educated, and have shelter. After adulthood well, capitalism pure and simple. I'm just going off my current situation, and the taxes we pay living in a psuedo-capitalist/socialist state. If we didn't have to pay all these damn taxes on labor and profit, we could easily hire a couple of people tomorrow, and pay them about 10.00 a hour w insurance and still turn a good profit off their labor. Purely unskilled moderately physical jobs, so 10.00/hour would be very good pay in that regard. In the sorta capitalist/socialist state we live in, well, the employer has to pay all kinds of taxes/insurance, and the worker has to pay all kinds of taxes. Really, virtually eliminating most of the social nets, and reducing the tax burden just in my little operation would translate to two jobs with insurance starting tomorrow and plenty more to come, that pay is better than most unskilled labor jobs. So, I'm looking at capitalism would be best because it would allow me to better pay workers, and pay less taxes and still be profitable. Net effect more jobs for those that want to work. Currently I'm forced to do more work so as to avoid labor costs, so as to stay on target for growth. So, my desire for a nearly purely capitalist system has nothing to do with anything other than it would benefit everyone who wanted to work. Now, what a person does with that money isn't my concern nor obligation. So, if they want to invest it, great. If they want to blow it at the titty bar great. But I really don't understand socialist systems in regards to adults as it hurts jobs and economic growth. Currently I could just pay about 9.00 bucks a hour and no insurance and less profit. It doesn't make any sense to me when we have a unemployment rate around here that's absurd to discourage business growth with high taxes, hrrmm, that just means less jobs and lower wages. So, really all that's happening is the government is taking the taxes they charge, and paying someone who can't find work or work that at least can keep them fed. So, I get no labor, and the person receiving the benefits is just barely surviving at all, and I'm paying higher taxes. And everyone is worse off. But we have a inefficient social net, so it makes people think they are safer, but less jobs.

Yeah, I'm a capitalist. I don't see anything bad with it.

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RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of th... - 4/22/2006 3:59:08 AM

meatcleaver

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Getting the perfect system is nigh on impossible but I would go for a mixture of the two.

France has particular problems because it refuses to open up its industries to competition and its economy is stagnating but as other European countries have proved, you can have an enterprising economy and have a welfare system that protects the vulnerable of society and is a safety net for those that have hit hard times, which can happen to the most able person. There is a pay off in that it reduces efficiency slightly but have countries no other function than being money making machines for those that can grab the most?

I think it is fair to say the US is the most capitalistic country in the world and it works for the majority of its citizens at the moment. However, for the richest country in the world not to be able to give medical insurance cover to all its citizens suggests there is an inherenet weakness in its capitalist doctrine. Especially when you can point to about 25 (maybe more) other countries that manage to do this.

The other problem with laissez faire capitalism, it puts enormous power in the hands of the wealthy whose sole reason d'etre is to make more wealth and gain more power for themselves and so skews the political system. It's only for a very short period of time that capitalism has adequately supplied wealth to the bottom of society (I'm not talking about scraps from the table here). However, the price for this is that many of the products we now buy are made by little more than slave labour in the third world. Yes, as we go about our business enjoying our affluent lives we can happily ignore the fact our relatively luxurious lives are built of the sweat of underpaid and overworked people, brow beaten by poverty, not unlike at the height of the industrial revolution. There has to be a fairer, more ethical way to run the world.

Add to that that consumption at todays rate is unsustainable, especially with an emerging China and India where its citizens will be demanding the same wealth as people in the west. The world can't sustain another society that consumes as fast as the US so even here we are going to have to rethink capitalism soon enough, the world certainly can't sustain three huge economies with such consumption. Capitalism in its present form is only temporary, our children or grandchildren are going to have to make big adjustments for the greed of our generation. Some form of modified form of socialism and green politics will have to be mixed in with capitalism. Things will change, they have to.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 4/22/2006 4:01:56 AM >

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RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of th... - 4/22/2006 4:15:08 AM

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Hong Kong, at least before the Chinese regained control a few years ago, was as near a "pure" capitalist region as any I can think of. I wonder how the poor fared there? This is a serious question, by the way, one I've wondered about for a while.

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RE: Capitalism, socialism, or a bit of both? None of th... - 4/22/2006 8:12:33 AM

Amaros

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quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

Reading history, one of the most efficient systems of government was an absolute monarchy, in the hands of an effective monarch.

Efficient in the short term perhaps, but highly innefficient over the course of generations - the key word here is was.

Rome started to decline almost immediately after becoming a monarchy, though it had greatmomentum, and had its ups and downs as it went through both good and bad rulers. The trains ran on time under Mussolini, but that form of government itself lasted less than a decade, ditto Germany - not very efficient in my estimation.

Representitive democracy is less efficient in the short term, but more stable over the long.

Similarly, the competetive cooperation or democratc/free market politial ecnonomy is more stable, dynamic, and progressive than any sort of feudal/monopolistic type of political economy, whether it be socialist or fascist, which may accomplish great things in the short term, but tends to suffer from long term sclerosis and stasis.

There are areas, such as those mentioned above, that benefit from socialist type organization - the military is a socialist organization for example, as are the police, etc. Capitalism works best when there is equality of opportunity - i.e., access to education, infrastructure, etc.

This efficiency however, is based on the fact that competition will continually arise from the bottom to challenge those on top, which can be pretty dynamic and unstable looking - in feudal type systems, competition from the bottom is choked out, leaving those on top with no incentive to improve.

Republicans, for example, fucked up with supply side ecnomics - it worked too well, resulting in commodification and oversupply, which has driven prices down, in acordance with the laws of supply and demand - this leaves corporations, which on the good side, contribute economies of scale - scrambling to make a profit, which they can only do by outsourcing to countries with lower wage scales/worker protection - the result is an evaporation of our manufacturing base and a massive trade deficit - you have to keep things in balance.

The contrasts here are efficiency vs. stability, supply vs. demand, consumption vs. production, standard of living vs. quality of life, etc.

< Message edited by Amaros -- 4/22/2006 8:14:14 AM >

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