Why Aren't Socialism and/or Communism better than Capitalism and/or Liberalism?

[civvver]

Define "other people's money."

For example, a corporation produces gross profits due to the efforts of all those who work there. Should 99% of those profits go to the 1% who are upper management while 1% of the gross profits are divided up between 99% of the people who work there?

Then, if the employees suggest that maybe the division should be more equitable, upper management screams, "They're trying to take our money!"

Example 2: Employees go to work, earn salaries, and pay a percentage of their wages in taxes. Meanwhile, someone's Great Uncle Henry dies and leave his great nephew $1 billion dollars. When it is suggest that maybe the heir pay taxes at the same rate as the employees, the heir screams, "They're trying to take my money!"



I'm not sure how you can define "most productive" to include ancient heiresses who know nothing about business and silver-spooned morons who merely follow the instructions of their underpaid financial advisers. I believe that the Joe Six-Packs of the world, who get up in the dark, who go to Job 1 and then to Job 2, and who come home after dark, are also productive. Teachers are productive members of society, as a bus drivers, factory workers, desk clerks, shop girls, etc.

Well aside from the fact that rich uncle's money has already been taxed, probably a bunch of times actually, so it's like double or triple taxation.

When employees gripe about not getting enough money it's usually because they can be replaced easily with a bunch of other people willing to do the job at the current rate. On top of the fact the workers agreed to do the job for that wage, so what's the problem? No one is forcing them to work there. Of course they can organize and negotiate for more, no issues with that, but it's kinda like when mcdonald's workers say they're worth $15 an hour. Lol does anyone actually believe that? Most can be replaced by a $100 tablet. The reason teacher's get paid like crap is cus there are a ton of teachers and not a lot of demand for more. Sorry that's how supply and demand work.

If you want more money you need to provide something that people will pay a lot for, make a product people want or do a specialized job so you can negotiate a high salary. If it was so easy to become a ceo and keep all the profits then everyone would do it.

 

[civvver]

A few deaths a year don't damage a hundreds million society unless artificially made significant.

Gun ownership is one of many factors which lead to these deaths.

Deaths because of guns are easier and more obvious to notice than from other reasons (including those which may lead to a gun being used to kill).



1. It is too straightfoward and honest, both in theory and practice, to fight capitalism or canny enemies.

2. Of course they are.

Let's imagine I want a super jacuzzi. I have to work hard for it and then install it to my place, and then to maintain it, all by myself. And then they will envy me or avoid me, because they are out of my league of super jacuzzi owners now, and they will be unhappy, because they have none or a <snip> jacuzzi.

Now, let's imagine everyone gets a super jacuzzi, it's a norm. Those who doesn't are sorry losers, avoid and banish them, this garbage! Are we all happy except them now? No. We need this new extra super something to own!

And what about Earth and nature? How will they endure if everyone gets and maintains a super jacuzzi? What are you, a green people hater to think of such things? Well-being is of utter importance!

Did I mention most of the time of its existence a personal super jaccuzi is not even used?

And now let's imagine a planned economy. Do you want a super jaccuzi? Okay, go to a local soviet, so that they decide on this issue. Enough people are in need or wish a super jaccuzi? Enough resources available? Okay, let's build a few super jaccuzi for the community via collective work/resource investement, so everyone could access them. The results are: noone has to work overly hard to get a super jaccuzi, but everyone just a bit; everyone can use a super jaccuzi; noone can usurp it (what an absurd wish it would be!); Earth and nature are not over-exploited to build private things which are not used most of the time and/or the main function of which is to help their owners' social position/image instead of straight utility.

3. Marxist economy describes economical relations nicely and to the point. So any definition of capitalism/communism should be looked for in there.



If there were no socialist revolutioners, countries and super powers, this rise or anything related would never happen.

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Sounds like you are just jealous of some sweet jaccuzis your neighbor has! The point is actually economic freedom where you are free to buy whatever you want, do whatever you want with your money without getting government approvals. Even in the jaccuzi situation you described there are many communities where you can go to the local government and show how buying one with public funds would benefit everyone, your example doesn't really have anything to do with communism or capitalism, except that in communism you wouldn't be allowed to make money independently and choose what to do with it.

It's the whole propaganda that capitalism is purely about greed and class warfare and bad for everyone. It's not like everyone living in a capitalist society acts this way, many people just make what they need, the point is economic freedom and choices.

 

[Midnight-Blue766]

This is probably wrong, but here's my personal take on it. According to the materialist conception of history, social change occurs based off a the development of economic systems. In each case, the existing system was eventually replaced by the creation of new productive forces, and the subsequent shifting of the economy to accomodate them. Although capitalism in some forms existed as far back as the 16th century, it was only the development of the steam engine and tools for the industrial revolution that allowed the bourgeoisie and capitalism by extension to dominate society. Socialism, then, isn't so much a new economic system as it is an overhaul of industrial capitalism with all of its benefits but none of the drawbacks. Capitalism could only be supplanted when a new form of production that is as different from industrial mass production as industrialism was from cottage industries is created, and when new inventions that can make such a system viable is proliferated throughout society. The problem with the ideal of the communist classless society is that it attempted to prematurely create a mode of production independent from capitalism when its real supplanter would in reality be unimaginable to us inhabitants of a bourgeois society as the great foundries of the Ruhr were to a feudal lord of the 13th century.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

It's all in the words themselves: communism is about communities, capitalism is about capital. Community is everyone, except maybe a few. For capital is everyone, and capital is for a few.

There's no economic freedom. It's a myth. The only thing you're truely free is to dream about and to feel richness via TV. Well, you can sell yourself to a bank using credit to pretend you're rich.

Of course there are countries where people are much richer than in the rest of the world. This is because capital and capitalists concentrate there. This is because the respected population exploites some other nations through the capitalist system, delegeting the hardness of life to other places. Someone works harder and sells resources cheaper for you to have a super jaccuzi. And when those countries which are supposed to behave so (be exploited) do not, they are suppressed via the old good ways: blockade and war.

Look at the states which were overrun by NATO in the last 15 years. They all are socialist.

Socialism (not even this original Marxism with world revolution ideas) is still the biggest threat to capitalism. Because it (a) steals capital and (b) shows people they can live happily without a capitalist regime.

Of course, there are good things about capitalism. Like enterpreneurial spirit. But it is all in the past. Because capitalism is not a stable system. It has a beginning and an end. And it is different depending on its period. In the end of the capitalist process you have a society controlled by the ultimate capitalists, which through decades and centuries got absolute power ousting any competition.

That is what you have in the West. That is what world finance system is. That is what globalization is.

If you compare USA and Russia. People got used to call Russian capitalists at the top "oligarchs". But Russia is no olygarchy. USA is a true oligarchy. In Russia you have no class at the top, those people are ex-criminals and coup-d'étaters, random people behaving randomly. They exist in this quality having what they have a few decades only. While in USA you have a clear self-sustaining elite which monopolizes power systematically not randomly for centuries. There are families.

There's no way for a person such as you to enter these highest circles no matter what. Nor any of your off-spring ever. Nor even some self-made "oligarchs" of some ex-socialist or banana republic will be ever let there.

And there's a tribute you pay these circles (no matter what part of the world you are from: USA or somewhere else). And there's a limit how far can you climb. But that limit you will never see, because the tribute you pay is so heavy and cunny, it will keep you down, unless you are very special, lucky and aggressive immoral person. And you are not. So being on a wage or having a small (heavy tributed) business is your maximum.

Also, one in this system can be much happier if not pursuing to be higher than average. Modern capitalism doesn't stimulate people to go forward. Look around. Capitalists want you to consume. They do not want you to become competition or even discriminating about what to consume.

You will never see a full yield of your work. You will never see the full benefit of the technological progress, because it is also monopolized by the true capitalists.

And with the fall of the Soviet Union there's no true competition left, which would stimulate capitalism to be progressive and human as it was through some decades of the XX century. Society, all the humanity degenerates because of this.

Pro-capitalists are much more idealists than pro-communists. The system, they are saying exists, does not and probably never was. A huge mechanics of how the modern world and economy works is left out from the capitalist economic science.

 

[warpus]

Sure, communism is better than capitalism at some things. Not many, but they exist.

 

[REDY]

Economically is market much more effective than any (re)distribution system.
Morally its amoral system. But command solution seems allways morally ambivalent. There is choice who to repress.

 

[warpus]

The main benefit of communism over capitalism is that under communism the state is free to direct "efforts of society" to some degree, whereas in capitalism there is a more free for all type thing going on. So even though under capitalism there is a lot more competition and thus innovation and efficiencies and all that good stuff, under communism a ruling party can say: "We're getting high speed rail country-wide", and direct the energy of the nation (in a way) to make that happen. They own the means of production and have a much more direct access to make large-scale projects happen.

I find pure capitalism and pure communism both way too extreme to work well when implemented. With capitalism you need strong regulation to go along with it. And IMO, actually, a partially communist economy (that's also regulated) could work in a liberal democractic society, I think. So, none of that single-party bullcrap. There are parties, you vote, you can start a business, the economy works almost as normal, and the party that wins gets to call the shots - but the constitution has in it certain communist caveats - such as giving the state control of certain natural resources and means of production. Or something like that. I see nothing wrong with the model in my mind.. at least on the surface.

 

[REDY]

The main benefit of communism over capitalism is that under communism the state is free to direct "efforts of society" to some degree, whereas in capitalism there is a more free for all type thing going on. So even though under capitalism there is a lot more competition and thus innovation and efficiencies and all that good stuff, under communism a ruling party can say: "We're getting high speed rail country-wide", and direct the energy of the nation (in a way) to make that happen. They own the means of production and have a much more direct access to make large-scale projects happen.

This should be made by capitalism much better - cheaper, quicker and better in quality. Its realy just about democracy which carefully watch on such expenses so megalomaniac projects are not possible.

If we talk about positives about communism its not big projects but that low-end everylife where you cant lose job and house

 

[Daw]

This should be made by capitalism much better - cheaper, quicker and better in quality.

That's IF they are made at all, under capitalism. Capitalist enterprise aims for profit. Big scale infrastructural projects either yield no profit at all, or yield that in a very remote future, while they require huge investments right away and then require more for maintenance. So, under capitalism there can be just no point seen for them.

If we talk about positives about communism its not big projects but that low-end everylife where you cant lose job and house

I actually think it's both big long-term projects (fundamental scientific research tenfold so) and low-end everyday life.

Free entrepreneurship, I think, can exist in between under both socialism and communism as much as it exists under capitalism, in fact. While socialism involves money/profit as motivator, there is no reason why communism shouldn't allow enthusiasm-driven people do stuff for the fun/art of it.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Subscription post. I have much to say, Gary, as you know. I will try to be succinct.

 

[warpus]

This should be made by capitalism much better - cheaper, quicker and better in quality. Its realy just about democracy which carefully watch on such expenses so megalomaniac projects are not possible.

They are possible but take a lot more political will and time to make possible.

The problem with any political system of course is that if you have crazy psychopaths running it, you're never going to reap the benefits. Chances are your crazy leader is going to spend all the money on the military rather than a fancy high-speed rail system.

 

[aelf]

Communism is many things, but in my view it's role is primarily to cut out the middleman: Right now, in order to be flourish and be happy, most people need money. This mediator then becomes the market, which becomes market forces, which becomes capitalism. Much misery could be dispensed with if the journey to happiness could be made materially simpler.

 

[sophie]

Subscription post. I have much to say, Gary, as you know. I will try to be succinct.

That was so succinct I daresay you didn't say anything at all!

 

[warpus]

This should be made by capitalism much better - cheaper, quicker and better in quality. Its realy just about democracy which carefully watch on such expenses so megalomaniac projects are not possible.

Addition to my point above: In capitalism you have corporations and for the most part they answer to shareholders. Shareholders only care about profit. And so, corporations usually make profit their #1 priority as a result. Most infrastructure projects and other similar endeavours are built for the benefit of the citizens, profits coming as a secondary consideration at best. So sure, democracies make it harder for such projects to be even started, but capitalism isn't really well suited for them either.

If we talk about positives about communism its not big projects but that low-end everylife where you cant lose job and house

That's scenario specific. When my family lived in communist Poland our living accommodations were crap.

 

[bhavv]

"Eventually you run out of other people's money. - margaret Thatcher.

That is pretty much the inherent problem with socialism and communism is that once you have taken as much money as you can out of those who are the most productive, eventually that money will run out to pay for things that keep socialism and communism running. Why don't you think eventually communism failed and we are seeing many socialistic countries failing, such as Venezuela.


Link to video.

Link to video.

 

[warpus]

What the hell happened to Shania Twain, she used to sing country, now she's pretending to be black pop star or something. Mind you last song I heard from her before this she was telling me she ain't impressed much by my code.

 

[Galgus]

Taking moral issues aside, these are the two main practical problems, though the second only fully refers to a truly centrally planned economy.


1. Redistribution schemes kill incentive to work harder. What incentive is there to, say, build a factory if you will make no real gains on it? Why work harder than your peers if it will never matter, because all outcomes are equalized?

2. This is a much, much bigger problem, but it only fully applies to truly centrally planned economies without a market.

It is the calculation problem: the impossibility of distributing resources efficiently to meet everyone's desires without prices to coordinate the activity.

Prices are an information system, gathering knowledge held collectively by all actors in society of desires, costs, and availability of resources.

When you take that away, trying to plan an economy with either direct democracy, a single dictator, or a group of "elites" becomes a fruitless fumbling in the dark.

It is the central reason why such centrally planned economies have been disasters.

This explains it better than I have, but I think I've summarized it fairly.

 

[Borachio]

Link to video.

Prior to 2012, the company [Starbucks] paid just £8.6m in corporation tax in its 14 years of trading in the UK, despite sales worth billions of pounds. In 2011, for example, the company recorded sales of almost £400m.

How things have changed. Starbucks will pay as much tax this year as it did in its first 15 years of operation in the UK, where it started trading in 1998. For many years it paid no corporation tax at all,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35102462

 

[Daw]

1. Redistribution schemes kill incentive to work harder. What incentive is there to, say, build a factory if you will make no real gains on it? Why work harder than your peers if it will never matter, because all outcomes are equalized?

No.

People are sapient (well, some of them, which is quite enough).
People are competitive.
People are cooperative.

When there's a need to build a factory, sapience and cooperativeness come to help, the former helps realize the need, the latter helps gather a group of specialists able to do it: we've got demand to satisfy with our distribution system, a new factory will increase productive output to satisfy the demand faster, so everybody will benefit, so let's do it!

When people compete, they work harder. There are many kinds of sports, labor/productivity is just one of them. Achievements will earn you fame and respect, and there are people who think these things are worth the effort. Proof.

2. This is a much, much bigger problem, but it only fully applies to truly centrally planned economies without a market.

It is the calculation problem: the impossibility of distributing resources efficiently to meet everyone's desires without prices to coordinate the activity.

While distributing resources efficiently to meet everyone's desires is something at which socialist structures achieved poor scores so far, it also is something capitalism doesn't even try to do.

Prices are an information system, gathering knowledge held collectively by all actors in society of desires, costs, and availability of resources.

The best information system is an information system. The best thing to calculate is a calculator and the best thing to compute is a computer.

In 1920, when Ludwig von Mises rose the issue, none were around. Neither they were when USSR made its try. And they still were weak when Mises' follower Friedrich Hayek died aged 92 in 1991. And they are largely lacked still, although it is already technically possible to implement them.

Today, a central planner might look like an on-line shop, only bigger.

 

[REDY]

Addition to my point above: In capitalism you have corporations and for the most part they answer to shareholders. Shareholders only care about profit. And so, corporations usually make profit their #1 priority as a result. Most infrastructure projects and other similar endeavours are built for the benefit of the citizens, profits coming as a secondary consideration at best. So sure, democracies make it harder for such projects to be even started, but capitalism isn't really well suited for them either.

That's scenario specific. When my family lived in communist Poland our living accommodations were crap.

I understand that some infrastructure are not profitable/too big and therefore they would be not built/maintained only by capital. After all thats why we need state. State companies should be better supervised by state but it would be still open to discuss if it realy outweigh positives of state cooperating with private companies. We just have not examples here.

Your accomodations was crap, quite normal in communism. If it would be good it would be probably nationalised decades ago. I was more pointing out that you didnt need worry that you will be not able pay bills. Job should be practically lost only by political reasons. Anecdotally, my parents were just going to work but didnt work at all. Most of time they were socialising And they hadnt good political profile, both my grandfathers were forced labor in uranium mines. I think that majority of people would love it.