You can't have capitalism without socialism.

You can blame this on capitalism, but that's not the case. Just because you have capitalism, does not mean you can't have charity. For someone to not give to the poor or disabled, simply means that person is greedy. If the society chooses to still conduct business with this person, well you can say that's just as much their fault as well. It's the people that make the principals and morals, what is tolerated and what's not.

If your looking for a perfect society, you will never get there, and only allow political correctness to thrive. We sit here arguing over what political party is the best, ignoring the facts that it is the people that make the civilization. If we wasn't so lazy, and willing to go along with whatever we are told. We would fire everybody in the White House, for they have put us on a path of bankruptcy, and destruction. Instead we choose to bicker and fight with one another, while the leaders sit in luxury, while sipping their rich wine. Sending us to lose our lives, so they can continue with their luxurious lifestyle.

 

One thing. I do wish to note though is that your "unregulated capitalism" bit is baloney. If we have a threshold of people which is sufficient to pass welfare programs, than we have a threshold of people which is significant enough to support those in need.

 

You speak with conviction but as I do not see you as an authority I will not acquiesce unless you can provide compelling evidence that sways me to your position... and it is I who gets to decide for me what constitutes compelling evidence.

I would say it depends upon the team who built the race cars as a car is only as good as the team that builds it. Now if it were a race between two cars I would say the car is only as good as the team who built it, the team who maintains it, and the driver who drives it. Some cars are better on curvy tracks with short straightaways while other cars do better on tracks with long straightaways that allow for high speeds. I look at the pros and the cons as no car excels in every area.

Pot meet kettle. Do you not see that you do not get to decide for me what is or is not the point and vice versa? I see your point, and I reject it.

And there in lies our disagreement as I do not see government as one dimensional. The grey area represents the differences in how capitalism and or socialism is implemented from one country to the next.

Welcome to reality. There is an objective good, it's just that humanity cannot come to a unified agreement as to what is objectively good, thus the variety of views of what is objectively good, hence the subjectivity. For everyone who argues an objective good there will be others who will argue it is an objective bad. Why else would there be so much disagreement in the world? It would be wonderful if we could all come together to sing in perfect harmony, but I somehow doubt that will be happening anytime soon if ever.

 

When did Socialism stop that?

 

Yes, optional reality, personal truths, everything is subjective. hence why it is meaningless to discuss things with you.

bs, just give a straight answer to a straight question, or are you the kind of person who is simply incapable of properly thinking in abstract terms? When I tell you to compare the systems themselves, and you keep pointing to things other than the systems, that shows you cannot think in abstract terms. The point is that you should NOT think about the leaders, or in the case of cars, about the builders, or the drivers, BUT ONLY THE (*)(*)(*)(*)ING CARS THEMSELVES.

wtf is this?? This is (*)(*)(*)(*)ing ridiculous. You can't just go around rejecting points as you wish, you got to use logic and proper argumentation!

You said, "do you think it's one dimensional? I do not, I think there are shades of grey". To which I reply, that there can be shades of grey in a one dimensional spectrum. I.e. you don't know what you are talking about.

Sure, whatever, but the point is that you -you personally- can not measure any kind of "good", which is why it is pointless for me to have a discussion with you about how good capitalism and socialism is.

 

If our discussion is meaningless then why do you continue to post comments?

Previously answered and rejected, what is the use of continuing to beat a dead horse?

Such arrogance. Perhaps you still do not understand that I do not see you as an authority. I am not confined by the box of your thinking.

How one judges another says more about the judge than the judged.

I am not confined by the box of your thinking. But lets follow your thought on limiting the discussion to the cars. Even two cars that come sequentially off of a production line will still have differences that will inexorably lead to differences in handling, longevity, fuel efficiency, etc.

How one judges another says more about the judge than the judged.

My apologies, I read that wrong.

Spoken from a position of ignorance. Placing your words in my mouth and calling them my own is illogical by my measure of logic. My view of good is concrete but I realize that assessment of good is relative to the individual thus subjective. An objective good in my head becomes nothing but a subjective opinion once voiced to another.

 

Unregulated capitalism is exactly why the rich are so much richer today. The number of billionaires has doubled since the housing bubble started. The wealth gap has never been this big. Imagine having more money than you could possibly spend: what good is that extra $10 billion in the bank when you can't even spend it? There is a myth among conservatives that money is a prime motivator, and when people go on welfare, they lose all incentive to work. If this were the case, why do billionaires keep working? Mark Zukerberg punches in at the office just like everyone else even though he has no need to work at all... it's not about money.

Anyway, back to unregulated capitalism. Fair taxation prevents too much relative deprivation where the standard of living his vastly different between the haves and the have-nots. The poor can still have a decent living, but nothing compared to the rich. This creates unrest, but it also creates revolutions. If the super wealthy want to keep their money, they should consider a bit of wealth distribution or risk ending up like King Louis or Car Romanov. But it's not just that: poverty is expensive. Offering the poor opportunity is better than offering them money. But with the middle class shrinking, there's less social mobility for the poor -- less opportunity. Fair taxation stratifies income (an eventually wealth) more evenly so that everyone can improve their status.

 

Nope: our Founding Fathers ordained and established the best form of socialism in the world, with our supreme (social) law of the land.

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who are you trying kid; that was just one experiment in socialism.

Capitalism died in the US in 1929.

 

"You can't have capitalism without socialism."

From my own perspective this is very interesting because I grew up as a member of the "hippie" generation that somehow knew intuitively that an economy had to be based upon a merger of capitalism and socialism. Like most I didn't have the academic knowledge but understood that there needed to be fair exchanges between people (capitalism) but also understood the necessity for those "with" money to help those that "needed" money (socialism).

It wasn't until years later when I'd read Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" that I came to understand that capitalism is based solely upon greed and that any benefit to society was by accident and not by intent. I also read John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government where, in Chapter 5, he addresses the "natural right of property" and explains that commerce is about benefiting all of the people and not just some of the people.

It was really my eventual understanding of Smith, where greed is the only motivation for commerce, and Locke where, based upon the natural right of property, commerce benefits all of the people that lead me to understand why, instinctually, an economy had to be based both upon certain principles of capitalism and certain principles of socialism so that all of society benefits from commerce. Locke won the argument against greed in his arguments based upon the natural right of property but Locke never disparaged "capitalism" when it resulted in a benefit to all which could necessitate the disribution of the excess created by specialization and commerce.

The problem for us today is how do we take the best of both and make it work and not that either standing alone is worthwhile. We need personal greed as an incentive but we also require a fair distribution based upon the right of property established by the labor of the person. There is middle ground and this can be accomplished.

 

i agree that anarcho-capitalism is simpler than anarcho-communism.

 

1.) No, we haven't had unregulated capitalism. The closest we came to it was in the 19th century - we don't have it today.
2.) The number of billionaires means nothing in this matter, because there is no evidence of an actual act of taking money away from others. It isn't a matter of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, it's a matter of the poor getting richer and the richer getting richer more quickly. It is not an actual problem.
3.) Of course welfare is a demotivator. Or is it a mere coincidence that most people on unempoyment magically find a job within weeks of running out of unemployment benefits?
4.) Actually guys like Zuckerberg are spending their money and they're finding great new ways to do it.
Zuckerberg funds new online payment processing company
Zuckerberg announces the Oculus Rift, the (thus far) cutting edge in virtual reality gaming

They reinvest. It's not like they sit around twiddling their thumbs watching gold piles dude. That wealth that they reinvest creates great new items and jobs for others - as well as products. I'm certainly looking forward to the Oculus, and recently ordered a steamlink, undoubtedly developed by some other rich guy (it's a device that syncs your computer to television so you can play pc games on the TV).

5. Relative deprivation is baloney. If I'm doing better, you're doing better, then what's the difference to be upset about? Does it matter that my state of affairs improves faster than yours, so long as yours as everyone else's improves? (btw, just in case there is confusion, I'm not rich, and I'm referring to groupings here - every quintile is seeing improvement).
This is the fundamental difference that yourself and so many others miss when they talk about how "horrible" the inequality is. This is not some King Louis circumstance - the wealth of the rich is not causing the poor to be poor, because wealth is not extracted from the poor the way that it was by unscrupulous kings. Instead, in our free market economy the incomes of every quintile is increasing - the quality of living for every quintile is increasing. Our welfare programs exist to cushion those at the bottom. Apart from holes in the system, we do fine.
What I actually like is Finland's system. They have a massive welfare program, where everyone gets a check (even the billionaires), but that check is for the least bit needed to survive. So if you're really down, you could always go find a small studio apartment and live - just get by. Finland doesn't have welfare disincentives to work. The reason why we have them, and a lot of people don't understand them, is because we have cutoffs. So, let's say your monthly income is 800 and because of that you're entitled to benefits worth 9000. However, if you increase your income by 5000, you lose your benefits. These figures aren't accurate, but they demonstrate real life situations where our welfare programs disincentive work. Finland, at least, doesn't do that. And Finland also has enough of a program where no one can whine and moan that they need more, more, more!
6. Everyone can improve their status. There were articles out a couple of years ago about how it was easier to move from the 5th quintile (bottom 20%) to the 1st quintile (top 20%) in Denmark than in the United States. What those reports failed to mention was that that accounted for about a 40k income jump in Denmark, and a 75k income jump in the U.S. The issue, there, is a measurement of *relative* income mobility. The United States has far more *real* income mobility. That is, we actually have more people moving from the bottom to what is (in Denmark) the top than Denmark does, as measured by incomes. We're doing just fine mate - having a strong upper class doesn't seem to be hurting us when you reconsider every other country in the world.

 

All of society does benefit - a rising tides lifts all boats.

 

In point of fact all of society is does not benefit from laissez faire capitalism where greed is the sole motivating factor and were any benefit to society is purely accidental (Adam Smith).

The emperical evidence establishes that at least 40 million working American households do not have enough compensation (wages and benefits) to provide for their basic support and comfort in the United States while based upon the arguments for the "natural right of property" every household is entitled to their basic support and comfort based upon their physical labor (John Locke).

One of the most illogical arguments by the laissez faire capitalists is that the worker many not be performing tasks for the employer that warrant compensation (wages and benefits) that provides for the basic support and comfort of the worker/household. The inherent problem with this belief is that the worker does not define the tasks to be done because the tasks are assigned by the owner/management of the enterprise. If the tasks being performed don't result in enough revenue to adequately compensate the worker, thereby ensuring the compensation does provide for the workers support and comfort, it's a problem with the owner/management and not with the worker that only performs the tasks they're assigned.

The laissez faire capitalist is blaming the worker and not the owner/management that's actually responsible for the under-compensation for the labor of the worker.

 

Not trying to fool anyone, I just posted the fact that the socialism experiment back then was a major fail.
Unless you have something to refute it, I believe you are trying to fool yourself.

 

Smith did not omit, Capital good works, like you seem to.

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Back then is the operative phrase. 1929 was relatively recent compared to that; Capitalism has never been the same, since. Now, public policy is even those to big to fail, capitally, can get a social bailout, allegedly, for the good of the economy.

 

But the fact still remains that capitalism can survive on it's own where socialism cannot.

 

So what; capitalism will always need a social bailout to advance beyond what we consider, third world.

 

Uh no Pre thatcher Britaan was a socialist country with the government owning the most of the means of production along with the railroad and much else. Thatcher to her credit removed the government from most of that.

 

That's ridiculous, your so called social bailout money comes capitalism!

 

Not having a clue or a Cause, but only obsolete propaganda and rhetoric, is even more ridiculous. Third world capitalism is a "far cry" from First world socialism.

 

Except government spending- local, state, and federal- amounts to 50% of GDP. So in reality, we have a sludge of oil and water, not 99% water with 1% oil.

Yes I understand much of this spending is transfer payments and the government can tax without (too) much distortion in the economy with a big welfare state, but it's still true that the US economy is growing to be much less capitalist than it once was, less capitalist (discussing only the economy and property rights themselves) than several of these Nordic countries which people point to as being socialist.

 

Deflecting much!

 

There are two ways to gain wealth.

The first way is the most primitive: conquest. Once simply takes someone else's wealth through violence, threats, or any form of duress.

The second is a relatively new idea in the course of human history; that man has a right to own property and freely trade that property with others. Implicit to its success is that the right is not limited to material goods, but also extends to the effort of labor & intellect. The trade of property requires the agreement of both parties involved.

This second way was the path chosen by the founders of our great nation. It is the pathway that lead to our incredible rise to prosperity. The solution to the inequities of the second way, is not to reinstate the first way, which is certainly the solution of Sanders et al.

 

Unbridled capitalism is the old plantation mentality where the wealthy support themselves and take no responsibility for their low paid workers( used to be slaves they owned) or the infrastructure needed to give them the " equal opportunity" promised by American capitalism.

Support of the infrastructure needed to give children of the poor " equal opportunity, " like guaranteed free education, is a hallmark of modern American capitalism.

The old " income inequality" models - master and slaves or land owner and sharecropper - were made possible by denying slaves the opportunity even to learn to read so that they never even knew anything better was possible or even existed for themselves or their children. During share cropping days " separate but equal" court ordered discriminatin in funding and support for children based on students' skin color kept " them" down on the farm or poor newbies if they managed to make it to the big cities.

Now listeners to right wing radio ( which controls over ninety percent of airwaves ) and slanted television news coverage like Fox has an audience that is less informed about world affairs than Americans who don't listen to or watch TV news coverage at all.

The 1989 demise of the Fairness Doctrine which said, ironically, that news coverage needed to be " fair, honest, and balanced" led to rabid right wing control of radio airwaves almost completely and a winning, if not utter dominance, of television news broadcasting by Fox.

With requirements of fairness and honesty for presidential candidates gone the " balanced" requirement that used to be solved by the "equal time" rule that everybody recognized as the only true way to give a fair presentation of opposing points of view became just too "politically correct" for the greedy and ambitious.

Making corporations " persons" and allowing them to contribute as many billions anonymously to Superpacs took away the old one man - one vote basic foundation of both capitalismand democracy. One man can't vote for another man ( or woman) if he has never heard of him/ her and with modern election financing it is clear that candidates at least as good ( and some better) have already dropped out as presidential candidates for simple lack of funds to go on.

Industrialization along with innovation ( driven by a strong education system supported by business) led to a strong middle class who then had enough money to start their own small businesses.

Small businesses ( not plantation owners or large businesses) create the most new jobs in modern America and were instrumental ( along with a middle class that could afford to buy their goods and services thanks to higher wages guaranteed by strong unions) made the total wealth of America increase exponentially.

Now American capitalism is going back to the plantation mentality only the poor workers being exploited are n other countries. If this were simple competition and globalization taking place over centuries instead of greed this would be ok.

But globalization by giant American corporations in sweatshop after sweatshop in poor country after poor country has created winners and losers.

Winners are the top one percent in America. Losers are the poor who are getting relatively poorer and the middle class which is stagnating and shrinking.

Creating lower paid jobs overseas does not help Americans - at least those not in the top one percent. If you look at clothing labels that change from one third world country to another country to another you will see that it only helps non - Americans until the foreign workers workers there, who can read unlike the slaves of old, demand more in wages and benefits and large American based businesses, like locusts, move on to somewhere else where they can uses up all the resources as cheaply as possiblewithout government interference or demands from workers who want a piece of the profit pie.

George Will wrote an op- ed where he said " income inequality" was good for everybody. He even mentioned plantations where the plantation owner knew best how to manage resources. He mentioned globalization also. Over centuries globalization will certainly be beneficial but suggesting It is working well as done by American business now when one in seven American children are going to bed hungry tonight is idiotic.

The goal of modern capitalism should not be solely greed and accumulating of wealth by the one percent.

The goal of modern capitalism has been and should be again for everyone to do well.

Watch the " Shark Tank" program when somebody wants to start a business and keep it in an American community and keep the jobs for Americans. The sharks insist on outsourcing overseas because they can lower " costs" = increase profits.

Could these American companies make it with American workers the sharks refuse to finance because they know there are workers overseas who will work for cheap?

We'll never know. American business has become about profits for American business owners and investors - no longer about supporting well paid middle class workers in a comfortable lifestyle.

Instead of the Horatio Alger stories when America was much less developed we now heartwood often " THEY're only be poor because they don't want to try." When did encouragement to try by business disappear and turn into stereotypical blame of the worker and / or government? Instead of American business ( at least republican American business) recognizing how strong and wealthy the America economy is in relation to the rest of the world which is struggling there are constant complaints and blame.

Greedy outsourcing has replaced innovation and pride in using American workers as America's business preferred business model.

G. E . The giant corporation that pays zero in taxes many years, has record cash on hand, outsources record number of jobs, holds money off shore to avoid taxes, and ( unlike average American workers) got billiions in bailouts in the recent recession has constant television commercials about how " innovative" they are.

I don't even know what the commercials are about. I just know they can afford the commercials.

I'll tell you when I see their first commercial explaining how they ( like many other giant American corporations) got away with paying zero taxes for years.

Maybe they'll just say they were "taking advantage" of American tax laws just like Trump said he " took advantage" of American bankruptcy laws four times putting thousands out of work, losing his investors' money, and stiffing his creditors.

Trump has no way to pay for his proposed tax cuts favoring the wealthy and economists ( both republican and democratic) say that it will drive up the deficit because tax " cuts" are not " free."

Trump telling those making less income ( most of whom already pay zero) to say " I win " when he " gives" them something they already have is like asking them to buy a lottery ticket to support their families.

At least in the old Horatio Alger stories hard work - not just trust the rich guy - was the message. Maybe Trump's promised jobs will pop up like mushrooms.

We'll see if he wins - but we won't be seeing the type of capitalism and respect for growing the middle class that America's greatness has been built on in his policies.

 

American conservative GOPhers say Sweden along with the other Nordic nations are socialist hellholes. Of course, there is lack of a decent education with many of these chaps, but even some of the educated still claim it. It is bipolarism. Either you are a hands off capitalist, or you are a socialist. The intellectual sensitivity needed to discern, is utterly absent.