Socialism Doesn't Work?

Well, the problem is that, as in the United States today, that Laissez-faire capitalism leads to such concentration of wealth, of influence, and eventually corruption, that it immiserates the bulk of the population, destroys the government, and leads, if not outright collapse, to social unrest.

 

Yeah, science kinda works that way.

Practical economic data sprung out of the thin air in 1922?

LOL - That's quite an assertion.

Hilarious. Anyone with a knowledge of history knows that it's socialism that is assaulting free enterprise and capitalism.

What do you think this is all about?

 

Did you see how Kode responded to your question?

Socialism "is being worked out".

This goes back to the excerpt from Doctor Zhivago I posted in #414 where Boris Paternak observes through his protagonist that socialists "aren't at home in anything except change and turmoil: that's their native element; they aren't happy with anything that's less than on a world scale. For them, transitional periods, worlds in the making, are an end in themselves. They aren't trained for anything else, they don't know about anything except that. And do you know why there is this incessant whirl of never-ending preparations? It's because they haven't any real capabilities, they are ungifted. Man is born to live, not to prepare for life. Life itself - the gift of life - is such a breathtakingly serious thing! Why substitute this childish harlequinade of adolescent fantasies, these schoolboy escapades?"

My answer, and I suspect you would agree, is that it can't be made to work properly. Socialism is incompatible with human nature and it has already proved that it is not a viable economic system. Even the socialism we see in the hybrid economies around the world subsists on the wealth that free market economic activity generates. Socialism doesn't produce wealth - it redistributes and destroys wealth.

 

What I didn't like in this thread was when some people were calling everything from taxes to government socialism. Well not everything's socialism.

McDonalds and Burger King? That's capitalism. That yogurt joint? That's capitalism. Ben and Jerry's? That's capitalism.

Whenever you're enjoying yourself out on the town that's capitalism. In fact most of modern convenience is all due to capitalism. So if you're enjoying life above a boring, subsistence level of existence you can thank capitalism.

 

Do you mean capitalism or do mean the free market? I suspect you mean the latter.

Capitalism as practiced does not create wealth. It steals it from free market, from those who work, build, create and gives it to parasites like Goldman-Sachs, and Wells Fargo.

 

I mean both.

The individual wage has reached the upper limit that our economy can support. That's why people are loosing their jobs in places that raise the minimum wage. We can't support any higher wage.

The pay package of CEOs is in a different class than the individual wage. They are responsible not for a local location, or a city, or a state, they are supporting a world wide enterprise. There's no comparison.

And companies make a profit, but that's because they are just so large. Again, colossal reach. They handle millions of accounts. Profit by margins.

 

YOU are the one asserting that dat sprang out of thin air in 1922.

I guess you only know capitalist "history" as taught in schools in capitalist countries. Historically, any time socialism was begun peacefully and following the law, eventually capitalist forces attacked because they knew it would become as popular as it was in 1915-1935. That is why the USA, Germany, Japan, and Italy attacked Russia without provocation right after WWII.

 

Again, look into the Mondragon Corporation.

Capitalism also experienced failures during it's 100 years of development.

 

Capitalism has never failed or you would be able to provide an example of where it has failed.

You have been asked to do so but failed.

 

The Mondragon corporation is not an example of socialism.

It is a for profit organization which makes it capitalist.

Repeated massive fail

 

You falsely assume the agent of Socialism must be government.

 

Really? Where, pray tell, did I do that? QUOTE PLEASE.

 

I'm tired of your dance and lies. I'll put you on "ignore".

 

No evidence of lies from me and you are merely running again.

That's fine I'll still correct you

 

The Great Depression, and The Great Recession?

 

Well, you don't understand what the word capitalism means and conflate it with free markets.

 

I

I can understand why people believe that, but as the ratio of lowest paid workers to CEO in an average American corporation went from 1 to 30 in the 60s to 1 to 300+ today and as the minimum wage adjusted for inflation was about $10.80 at Its highest in the 60s, I would say the comparison says otherwise. Or perhaps companies should hire their CEOs from India and China.

And I still say capitalism today, whatever its virtues, has become a parasitic criminal institution. There's no good reason for the biggest institutions like Goldman Sachs should not be broken and the management be in prison.

 

No, see the biggest institutions are not criminal. They accumulate a lot of wealth, but that's what taxes are for. To fund government and for civil works.

 

Uh, no it's not; and that you require remedial tutoring on such a basic fact should embarrass you.

Exactly as I stated, there is no central government with the power to defend itself, much less enforce rule of law, protect it's citizens and/or institute a formal economy of any sort. The government recognized by the UN holds only a small part of Somalia, and that only with the help of it's neighbors and the UN, with the rest being fought over by various secessionist "governments", warlords and terrorist groups. Somalia is mostly anarchy, and the rest is informal, subsistence agriculture and black market trade, with no entity who can enforce monetary, property, trade or any other type of economic rights or rules.

If Somalia is where you're going to hang your hat when it comes to judging the success or failure of capitalism, then you don't belong in the discussion.

 

In socialism like for example North Korea people are controlled to be happy, they even so enthusiastic to see the butt of Kim Jong Un so that they can venerate or even kiss it with great awe, they could create that greater illusion to make people more happier. In democracy everything rely upon each individual how he/she planned life ahead, he/she are free to choose and be divisive enough to use personal efforts and the resources that are at hand provided by the government.

 

Then you're in big trouble, because they are not socialist countries. Their governments do not own/control most of the means of production; much less all of it; and Denmark ranks just behind the US and the Netherlands a couple spots ahead of the US in the Heritage Foundation's ranking of economic freedom. Denmark and the Netherlands are free market capitalist states with large welfare programs; they are not socialist states.

 

Was Alexander Ulyanov, a revolutionary and Vladimir Lenin's brother a socialist? You know, the one who threw a bomb into a Tzar's carriage?

 

"Denmark has a mixed economy based on services and manufacturing. It relies heavily on human resources, but not exclusively, as there are a few significant and valuable natural resources available, including mature oil and gas wells in the North Sea. Cooperatives form a large part of some sectors, be it in housing, agriculture or retail. Foundations play a large role as owners of private sector companies."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Denmark

I know and have said that there is no purely socialist country. All countries with efforts aimed at building socialism also incorporate capitalist businesses in the mix. But my point is that the socialist effort has been most significant in a few countries that still have socialist structures, and Denmark and the Netherlands are two of them.

 

Socialism doesn't work very well.