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[Tomasoares]

That's the same thing basically as single payer (no one is making healthcare providers public yet).

Not really. The people would pay for their healthcare, by themselves or by a social program if they can't afford it (like the vouchers) - I think that's the system on German, not sure though.

In my country the healthcare is public and it stinks lol

 

[Orthogonal]

What if there's no other options? If they are easily replaceable, someone else will just replace them and then they end up just being unemployed.

If there are no other options, a "shitty" option is better than none. If labor is cheap, that will breed more competition for labor and drive up wages. New options will appear.

 

[Giant Panda]

What if there's no other options? If they are easily replaceable, someone else will just replace them and then they end up just being unemployed.

If the worker doesn't have any better options, then they already have the best option available to them. If no employer is willing to pay more, then that is down to demand and supply.

Let's use an analogy (no analogy is perfect, but I think this one works for simplicity purposes). Imagine you a corn farmer. You make money by selling corn to people. Based on the amount of work you do, you believe you deserve $10 per bushel of corn. However, all the consumers you talk to are only willing to pay $2-5. Are these consumers exploiting you? No. You may have worked hard, but the amount and effort of work doesn't matter so much as fulfilling human needs does. After all, we care about making humans better off, and you make them better off by fulfilling needs. Who are you to say how much corn satisfies someone else's needs? Only each individual can because everyone has different tastes.

So you have two options, either sell to those consumers who are willing to pay the most and realize that what you valued your work at doesn't matter, or lobby the government to force people to pay the $10 you think you are owed. That seems unfair to the consumers does it not? You are achieving profits in a way that doesn't have a corresponding satisfaction of needs.

Now replace the corn farmer with a laborer. They sell their work to consumers known as employers. Of course they would want to be compensated more, but that doesn't mean doing so would be economically efficient or have a net satisfaction of needs.

Now, due to empathy we don't want people to suffer too much even if their labor turns out not to be valued much by others. The most efficient way to do this is that I know of is to tax income and use that revenue to subsidize worker wages. Making the employers themselves pay the higher wages would just return to the forcing consumers to buy overpriced corn example. Taxes of course will distort things somewhat, but if they are low enough the distortion will be small, and people will have a bare minimum standard of living. If you tax and give out too much welfare however, people will start not to care that if their labor is fulfilling needs and creating value, so you have to be very cautious about not going overboard.

 

[Foffy]

Capitalism is evil.

It's basically a system that favors "fuck you, got mines". If you're not born rich, you are pretty much damned for being on this earth.

This is more of a problem of human thought, though. This is an issue of believing in dualistic thinking - the kind that infers division from, say, differentiation - than capitalism outright, though that "fend for yourself because man is apparently an island" does go well with that. If anything, it shows how unaccountable that view is to reality, but people really don't care about being accountable in that sense.

 

[Dice]

but what we're left with is a malformed state nearly strangled after birth by internal and external forces, leaving it paranoid and aggressive in its attempt to survive.

I feel like this is always ridiculously under-considered. It was not only surviving among real socialism trying to establish itself, but surviving an incredibly subversive, pressuring-from-all-angles, thermonuclear-annihilation-threatening war against capitalism. Even aside from being influenced from the top (a top that shouldn't exist) by people like Stalin, it was mutated into an ugly war machine because of the global conditions. Same goes for capitalism, really.

Regardless, criticisms of the viability of communism are not a defense against communist criticisms of the injustices capitalism requires to exist at all. I very rarely see anyone take on the implications of the model of property and value on the common man and question its justice at a fundamental level (not just inequality outcome). Instead they judge each man under the presumption that those models define justice, and so only blame individual men for extremes that manifest. This is a backward way of thinking that ignores the default human condition in nature before we cast our concepts over it.

 

[lednerg]

More people should listen to Prof. Richard D Wolff's weekly podcast Economic Update and/or his monthly YouTube lectures.

 

[ugaboga232]

Not really. The people would pay for their healthcare, by themselves or by a social program if they can't afford it (like the vouchers) - I think that's the system on German, not sure though.

In my country the healthcare is public and it stinks lol

I'm an american medical student and let me tell you, care is amazing if you are rich/have great health insurance and are near a very big city with good hospitals. Otherwise it sucks. All healthcare will stink but public healthcare does the most good for the most people. What you are suggesting is kinda like obamacare scaled up to the max. Even a single payer you can still have some supplemental private insurance if you want more.

 

[Spieler Eins]

Socialism after the 19th century doesn't want to reject capitalism, but improve quality of life within it (in particular for people that aren't rich as fuck). Hence, demonizing the term is pretty stupid. Western Europe isn't anti-capitalism.

 

[tiredheadcrab]

Communism does not state that people should not have personal property. When communists use the phrase "private property" they are referring to productive property that is used socially but controlled privately, i.e. the means of production. It's a terminology difference stemming from Marx's works that doesn't translate well into English and confuses everyone.

We don't want to take away your toaster or your tv or whatever, we want our workplaces to be democratically controlled. How you go about doing that is what is always up for debate among socialists.

I constantly see people say "communism was tried and it failed therefore it's all bad!" but this is nonsense. What was tried was Marxism-Leninism and the various strands of communism that branched off from it, for the most part. That was an ideology that was born out of certain circumstances and, being the first and most powerful socialist state, it went on to influence - whether through force or soft power - other socialist states to be born in its image. That was an ideology that was tried and did not survive, and so it is the task of socialists to learn from it what worked and what failed. Could socialism not made in the style of MLism have succeeded? Hard to say when the Soviets kept beating down pro-socialist-but-anti-Soviet uprisings like in Hungary!

One of the main problems with the USSR and everything that came after it was that it was not socialist enough, that is to say the working class did not have enough say in the economy. It was party dictatorship rather than proletarian dictatorship, and I don't think the original concept of the soviets (workers councils) was a bad one. It's unfortunate that we can't see what the USSR would have been like had the Old Bolsheviks gotten their way instead of Stalin murdering them all, but what we're left with is a malformed state nearly strangled after birth by internal and external forces, leaving it paranoid and aggressive in its attempt to survive. With the US being much further economically and technologically advanced than Russia was at the time of its revolution, and with a much stronger democratic tradition stuck in the minds of its people, if were we able to achieve socialism here it would probably go much more smoothly and in accordance with actual socialist principles.

Even if that's true and you don't want my TV or whatever history has typically proved that wrong. Communism doesn't allow for the people who are the smartest in the room to advance society. There is no going to work everyday to try and be better than somebody else because what's the point? If you are twice as smart and have amazing ideas it doesn't matter. You will still have corruption and be exploited.

Even if we did get to see a modern USSR they be so far behind in technology compared to the US. Hell they already were during the 80's as I already stated.

We are not doing terribly bad under capitalism, the think is we need to take socialist ideas and fill in the gaps that we are missing in capitalism.

Here is a other question. How would you innovate? Would you have any ambitions?

 

[G.ZZZ]

But that's not capitalism.

Capitalism is about investing profits for greater growth. That is capital. You're taking about greed.

We had greed before capitalism. You think upper class communities shared their wealth in the feudal age?

At least with capitalism that reinvestment creates economic opportunity for lower and middle classes, while improving their social standing.

Greed and envy will always be with us. The issue is what system handles that innate human issue best.

"Free" marketers are a fringe of idiots who refused en-masse the Keynesian ideology after the failures of the '70s, without understanding anything of why the '70 crysis happened in the first place and how Keynes actually wasn't for statal spending in periods of economic abundance at all. Instead they still believe in "offer create demand" and "the invisible hand of the market". The equivalents of economist evangelicals, they are, extremists whose reason has no effect on anchored on ideas more than two centuries old by now.

 

[BearFlexington]

Capitalism has done right by me. That being said, it's probably not sustainable, scalable, or universally applicable.

 

[boingball]

Regulated and Transparent Capitalism - Yay, Free Market Capitalism - Nay


Capitalism has advantages, like competition which encourages technological advances, low prices etc.

But there also disadvantages, since the main goal of capitalism is profit and you can generate profit by disabling competition (i.e. going for a monopoly and misusing it like Standard Oil and Microsoft did) or disabling progress (e.g. music/film industry clinging to old distribution models, oil companies).

Regulation also has its disadvantages, since money can buy you things and while big companies always ask for unregulated markets they are not shy about asking for subsidies as well (and getting them once they bribed enough people).


Socialism is a nice concept but has the inherent weakness that it removes competition and with that an incentive to work better/harder.

 

[Foffy]

Regulated and Transparent Capitalism - Yay, Free Market Capitalism - Nay


Capitalism has advantages, like competition which encourages technological advances, low prices etc.

But there also disadvantages, since the main goal of capitalism is profit and you can generate profit by disabling competition (i.e. going for a monopoly and misusing it like Standard Oil and Microsoft did) or disabling progress (e.g. music/film industry clinging to old distribution models, oil companies).

Regulation also has its disadvantages, since money can buy you things and while big companies always ask for unregulated markets they are not shy about asking for subsidies as well (and getting them once they bribed enough people).


Socialism is a nice concept but has the inherent weakness that it removes competition and with that an incentive to work better/harder.

This incentive is already innately fighting against in our current models. Be it the fact those at the top are mountains away from the rest, or the fact personal productivity is insoluble for many, many, many people, and will only expand as time marches on.

 

[Mecha]

This incentive is already innately fighting against in our current models. Be it the fact those at the top are mountains away from the rest, or the fact personal productivity is insoluble for many, many, many people, and will only expand as time marches on.

Oh boy, when I saw the bump I thought I was going to have to start sorting through posts to respond. Saw that sphagnum did a good job responding to people while I was gone, so thank you sphagnum!

 

[pgtl_10]

Has there ever been a true socialist society?

 

[pgtl_10]

Didn't Karl Marx explain that capitalism will ultimately be destroyed by the bourgeoisie?

 

[Giant Panda]

Didn't Karl Marx explain that capitalism will ultimately be destroyed by the bourgeoisie?

A lot of what Marx wrote didn't make sense.

 

[pgtl_10]

A lot of what Marx wrote didn't make sense.

Nope but the idea of rich people gaming the system and putting barriers to free markets sounds reasonable.

 

[thehypocrite]

Nay

 

[Mecha]

Didn't Karl Marx explain that capitalism will ultimately be destroyed by the bourgeoisie?

I don't remember or see anything related to that, if you have a direct citation I would appreciate it. The bourgeoisie will continue to work capitalism and further alienate workers until its eventual collapse, but the bourgeoisie would realistically not join a revolution to destroy capitalism or anything.

A lot of what Marx wrote didn't make sense.

Only to those that don't take the time to understand it.

 

[diaspora]

Yay. The biggest challenge that needs to be tackled with it is that people think that the free market means that it needs to be protected from the government rather than protected from private forces.

 

[Giant Panda]

Only to those that don't take the time to understand it.

I have listened to both his critics and his supporters, and his supporters can't form a logical argument supporting what Marx wrote, while his critics have made a very persuasive argument about how it's nonsense. Not one supporter has ever been able to explain to me how communism could work under conditions of scarcity.

 

[tiredheadcrab]

I have listened to both his critics and his supporters, and his supporters can't form a logical argument supporting what Marx wrote, while his critics have made a very persuasive argument about how it's nonsense. Not one supporter has ever been able to explain to me how communism could work under conditions of scarcity.

That's because it can't as history has proved.

 

[Dictator93]

Nay. Why? The wealth of research and philosophical literature on what its uncontrolled existence has done to the earth and mankind. The only evidence refuting this obviousness is usually from co-opted sources: defenders of the way of life, class, and nations controlling it.

 

[Dice]

That's because it can't as history has proved.

In a world where capitalist superpower intentionally disrupts, beats down, and strangles it to death, sure.

 

[thehypocrite]

I have listened to both his critics and his supporters, and his supporters can't form a logical argument supporting what Marx wrote, while his critics have made a very persuasive argument about how it's nonsense. Not one supporter has ever been able to explain to me how communism could work under conditions of scarcity.

Have you read David Harvey? What did thought about his reflections about Marx and Capitalism?

 

[Moze]

This is the most asinine thing I have read in this thread. Not sure if you are trying to be sarcastic or what, but you do not have to be rich to live well.

No, but you have to be born into a family that is living well.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

hard nay

 

[FlyingSaucer]

Capitalism heavily regulated is (probably) good. Or not as bad as the alternatives.

A veneer of capitalism to hide a system of privatization of pretty much all wealth produced toward an oligarchy, with only some crumbs socialized toward a proletariat kept enslaved by entertainment and artificial political rifts engineered by the elites is pure evil.

 

[kavanf1]

It's funny how every failed communist state example just isn't the "right kind" of communism.

 

[diaspora]

Capitalism heavily regulated is (probably) good. Or not as bad as the alternatives.

A veneer of capitalism to hide a system of privatization of pretty much all wealth produced toward an oligarchy, with only some crumbs socialized toward a proletariat kept enslaved by entertainment and artificial political rifts engineered by the elites is pure evil.

Heavily regulated capitalism is free capitalism, that's what I think people don't understand.

 

[FlyingSaucer]

Heavily regulated capitalism is free capitalism, that's what I think people don't understand.

Monopolies/oligopolies included in the "regulated" thing. "Too big to fail" is a blasphemy and take the whole society hostage.

 

[Dice]

It's funny how every failed communist state example just isn't the "right kind" of communism.

Where would we be in a world where Operation Condor never happened?

 

[Giant Panda]

Have you read David Harvey? What did thought about his reflections about Marx and Capitalism?

I haven't read his works no.

 

[ThusZarathustra]

I'm of the opinion that most folks who espouse some pure form of communism or socialism have some fundamental misunderstandings about what we do as creatures. The urges that underpin the worst excesses of capitalism will never be removed, they can only be mitigated. You'd have to start over from the ground up with an ideology and mythology designed to engineer out as much of those excesses as possible and even then you'd still get rebellion and exploitation because humans are human.

In the end, regulated capitalism and a broad social safety net are the best ways for humans to produce new culture, make new technology, and explore the unknown with the least amount of suffering and strife.

 

[Grover]

stepping on the heads of other human beings so you can have far more wealth than you need?

nah

 

[Fenderputty]

You think upper class communities shared their wealth in the feudal age?

Right. So in what ways does capitalism differ from feudalism? People with Capital are the lords and people without are the serfs. The illusion of upward mobility (I say illusion because it's not exactly common) that one can become a lord from a serf is just more present in capitalism where in feudalism the illusion of upward mobility never existed.

I will give capitalism credit for bringing the whole of the world along economically and technologically though. To date it's been the best use and check/balance of greed. The illusion of possible upward mobility has been a great motivator for people to work within the system.

Moving forward I feel automation will force us to rethink the value of labor in society and thus the fall of capitalism. Not sure when or how ugly it's gonna be, but it's coming.

It's depressing anyway. Humans are more than their labor and capitalism creates scenarios where we forget that.

 

[thehypocrite]

I haven't read his works no.

Well, I like the types of questions he presents in regards to the sustainability of capitalism in the current world. If possible you can watch some these here

 

[Belfast]

Like most "isms" in the world, Capitalism is a wonderful idea. The cream rises to the top? Nothing inherently wrong with that. You provide a better service or product, you should be able to make more money off of it.

Society doesn't have to be equal, but it should *start out that way.* Every person should have roughly the same opportunity to make money as everyone else, and in the idealized version of Capitalism, this is true. But when regulations are knocked down or circumvented by opportunists, the playing field starts becoming very, very unfair. It is no longer about doing or providing your best to society, but about cheating your way to the riches by any means possible.

 

[Sub_Level]

Yay.

The government owning the factors of production goes against the simple cautious advice of having multiple points of failure. If its a good government then thats great but if its bad then you have no other choice.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

man the number of people who think socialism = government control is quite something

 

[thehypocrite]

I'm of the opinion that most folks who espouse some pure form of communism or socialism have some fundamental misunderstandings about what we do as creatures. The urges that underpin the worst excesses of capitalism will never be removed, they can only be mitigated. You'd have to start over from the ground up with an ideology and mythology designed to engineer out as much of those excesses as possible and even then you'd still get rebellion and exploitation because humans are human.

In the end, regulated capitalism and a broad social safety net are the best ways for humans to produce new culture, make new technology, and explore the unknown with the least amount of suffering and strife.

Easy for you to say as you can console yourself looking at the very large number of people that are effectively worse than you.

You also espouse that the only viable method is the one we currently use, don't you see the narrowness of your POV?

 

[injurai]

Easy for you to say as you can console yourself looking at the very large number of people that are effectively worse than you.

You also espouse that the only viable method is the one we currently use, don't you see the narrowness of your POV?

Nobody remembers the gulags...

 

[Fenderputty]

man the number of people who think socialism = government control is quite something

Right lol. Or socialism = communism. Seen that in here.

I've seen plenty of socialists who think consumer good should stay in the free market. Just that the market should be regulated and employment/labor owned by the individual in some way (worker coops)

 

[Jenov]

Yay.

It's the best humans have found for success thus far. There's been more growth and prosperity under capitalism than any other time in history. It's not perfect though, and requires regulations and some offsets of socialism to help keep wealth inequality from going too far out of whack.

 

[mkenyon]

Your system assumes that everyone has good intentions and that no one would be good at manipulating others and getting themselves put on top.

Look, no system is perfect. There is always a way to exploit it. Which is why it's ridiculous to think that we should all go one system or other for everything. Use what works in the area it works in. use something different in a different area. Our system already shows you can have different systems working with each other (our system is definitely not pure capitalist).

Yes, capitalism does need checks. But honestly, of all the systems, the ideas behind it are probably the best to keep human nature in check. But we do need regulations on it because there are definitely ways to still exploit it. And it's not good for everything (stuff like health insurance or stuff like roads just don't work so well that way).

Pure capitalism would probably work fine if everyone was good natured and wanted the best for everyone. But they don't. And that's the same problem with going to your system. Except that your proposal has even less balances to keep these people from finding ways to abuse/exploit it.

Putting an inordinate amount of daily life in control of authoritarian regimes which have no check, especially in industries which are monopolies or oligopolies, does not sound like a good way of keeping greed in check. The trend towards monopolization, an inherent aspect of any industry, just further drives this home.

Markets are fucking phenomenal at gauging pricing and dealing with scarcity. Crowd-sourcing monumental tasks such as feeding people is a no-brainer.

As society develops, I'm sure we'll find a solid middle ground where workers aren't alienated from their labor, while also avoiding the pitfalls of a tightly controlled economy.

 

[Voysa Reezun]

That's kind of a complex question.

I actually read "The Wealth of Nations" because everyone cites it so much as a defense of capitalism, and the fairly-rigorously regulated capitalism that Smith describes is really the ideal that we should be shooting for in this country. In general, markets are good! Everyone should have the chance to buy and sell their skills and goods. In reality, some markets are useless. What good are half the weird bonds that banks create and sell? What good is a collateralized debt obligation to the economy at large?

I also am a fan of socialism for things like natural resources (why should Shell or ExMo own the land that has oil off the California shore, for example? That land and those resources should belong to the people) and I don't believe that competitive markets work particularly well in some industries such as health care. But as with most things in life, hybridization that takes the best parts of capitalism and mixes them with the best parts of socialism seems like the best possible solution that doesn't involve something otherworldly like Jesus coming back to earth and instituting a perfect communism or something.

 

[ThusZarathustra]

Easy for you to say as you can console yourself looking and the very large number of people that are effectively worst than you.

You also espouse that the only viable method is the one we currently use, don't you see the narrowness of your POV?

The method we "currently use" only vaguely represents my description, so broad was it. More regulations and a broader and deeper social safety net is needed almost everywhere. I'm American, and we do those things terribly here. If I had my way we'd have transparent government, drastically reduced military spending, massive public works, universal healthcare, more low-interest small business loans and more.

The method we currently use, as you say, so little resembles the ideal of regulated capitalism and a broadly supportive social safety net as to be different things entirely.

As to a better alternative, I'm all ears, but I'm really only curious about how you prevent all the usual exploitative problems of human systems from cropping up while still allowing ambition and excellence to thrive.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

Right lol. Or socialism = communism. Seen that in here.

I've seen plenty of socialists who think consumer good should stay in the free market. Just that the market should be regulated and employment/labor owned by the individual in some way (worker coops)

the capitalists did a good job on a number of people it looks like.

That's kind of a complex question.

I actually read "The Wealth of Nations" because everyone cites it so much as a defense of capitalism, and the fairly-rigorously regulated capitalism that Smith describes is really the ideal that we should be shooting for in this country. In general, markets are good! Everyone should have the chance to buy and sell their skills and goods. In reality, some markets are useless. What good are half the weird bonds that banks create and sell? What good is a collateralized debt obligation to the economy at large?
.

You might enjoy Das Kapital too. If nothing else as a unique critique of capitalism. I've read Kapital but I need to read The Wealth of Nations.

 

[kavanf1]

Where would we be in a world where Operation Condor never happened?

Rhetorical question I assume as that's impossible to answer. In any event, capitalism was not to blame for that, so I'm not sure what you're getting at?