Do You Prefer Capitalism or Socialism?

Our First World luxuries (infrastructure and services) are paid for by our capitalism. That's where the buck stops.

 

Yes it absolutely is - if it's the kind that requires nothing in return. ONLY capitalism can afford such a thing.

Socialism is not that kind of safety net. Not in the least.

 

That's a different question.

I've repeatedly stated that I prefer capitalism when it offers a solution.

The catch is that capitalism does NOT offer a solution to each of the problems we want solved.

I've given you a starter list of problems for which capitalism has no solution.

No system can be both pure and effective. We need capitalism. We need regulation of that capitalism. We need socialized solutions for cases that capitalism simply has no answers.

 

Once again you are totally ignoring the very definition of capitalism!!

FEMA is NOT privately owned for profit.

Our social safety net is NOT privately owned for profit.

Our streets are NOT privately owned for profit.

 

Capitalism is ECONOMICS. It doesn't 'answer' social questions, but it does build roads and schools.

It's not required to answer social questions in any case, because that's OUR job. Our job, to ensure that we and our families don't add to the social decay and 21stC plague of irresponsibility.

 

Capitalism requires private ownership and a profit motive. It also requires competition to actually work well.

Our social safety net provides NEITHER private ownership nor profit.

 

1) What does that have to do with anything? We're not discussing how to do capitalism, we're discussing what it pays for.

2) Again, this has what to do with the discussion? A social safety net is provided by society (the clue is in the name), not Govt. It's provided by family/village, and by property. It's our responsibility to create and maintain safety nets of and for our own. It's always been our responsibility, just as it has been in every human society. It's not something you can simply opt out of without that impacting broader society negatively - ie creating the very problems you refer to.

 

No, we're discussing capitalism v socialism.

READ THE OP.

Government provides the social safety net, the DoD, roads, FEMA, the VA, Medicare, and all sorts of other stuff that is NOT CAPITALIST, because there is no private owner and no profit motive.

Yes, we as individuals and our communities very much should be helping each other, but what is happening at that level has been totally inadequate - making a stronger, better organized solution (or family of solutions, as we have a lot of social safety net programs) seriously important in the eyes of the American public.

We order government to solve this and other problems within certain bounds. Government may (and should) try to create a solution where capitalist corporations become interested in helping or are required to help. Also, government may work help certain non-profit businesses be more effective - businesses such as Catholic Charities. But, the bottom line is that our social safety net is a socialized solution - NOT capitalism.

 

1) It doesn't matter .. those things are paid for by capitalism. Without the profits of capitalism, they could not happen. It's only that SURPLUS of money which allows these First World boons. How any nation or individual spends their profits, is quite beside the point.

2) And that's the problem. A problem Govt cannot fix - ever. All Govt can do is add bandaids, and these do the opposite of curing the disease. It must come from us.

3) Never going to work. As soon as you remove the profit incentive from 'capitalists', they will cease to pursue it. They are not interested in helping anyone but their own, just as we are not interested in that. We're all human, and thus all subject to the animal instinct to protect and provide for our own, with the hope that other groups are doing the same and thus not making themselves a liability on us.

4) No it isn't. It's just a society rich enough to have nice roads, that's all.

 

I went into detail on your point a while back, see what you think.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/politics-of-the-center-what-is-it.585857/

 

Because I'm coming from the truth.

<sigh>

 

It's the successor.

No, it's ownership institutions.

But the profits are obtained by production, not privilege.

That's certainly the biggest part of it, recognizing that publicly created land value is rightly owned in common.

The problem with capitalism is not the profit motive or the employer-employee relationship. The problem with capitalism is privilege, especially landowner privilege.

 

A free market is logically impossible under capitalism because private ownership of land inherently forces everyone to subsidize landowners.

Do you want the ability to do that only by making commensurate contributions to production, or also by contriving to make yourself the beneficiary of legally inflicted injustice?

 

Very good points. And clear!

I have one quibble, which is with

I would say something more like that we use socialized solutions when there is no way to harness capitalism. Capitalism IS our first choice.

So, our streets, our national defense, etc. are socialized, because there isn't any way to harness capitalism. But, we involve capitalism in getting as much done as possible by contracting the work. And, not just labor - cities usually have civil engineers, but projects of any size often get designed by private enterprise competing for contracts to do that work. And, God knows we have a gigantic and fully capitalist arms industry used by our DoD. We've had an army of private enterprise in Afg, Iraq, and other places.

Also, let's not ignore that capitalism DOES provide us with stuff we absolutely need - housing, food, clothing, etc.

Anyway, I hope people read your post!

 

Hey, thanks.

Your qualification of 'Capitalism for wants, Socialism for needs' is just that, a qualification, a further explanation. But, my entire post was to that.

What is needed for a movement is a simple aphorism, and I think that is it.

When I say 'equilibrium' doesn't imply 50% on each side, the equilibrium may very well be 68%/32%, for all I know.

The point is, the principle should not be confused with 'centrism', per se.

Thanks for the thumbs up.

Iraq was supposed to be a big libertarian experiment, the big opportunity for the libertarians to prove the superiority of that system. Well, it didn't turn out too well, eh? I thought it was rather predictable where libertarianism ( the pendulum too far to the right ) aways results capital flowing to fewer and fewer hands, and thus power centralizes, corruption burgeons, and centralized doesn't disperse, like it would if an equilibrium were achieved.

As a side note:

Mary J. Ruwart, a leading candidate for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in 2008, wrote,

Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if it’s distasteful to us personally. Some children will make poor choices just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess. When we outlaw child pornography, the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will.

Excuse me if I believe libertarians are wacko.

Hah !

 

You mean the same capitalism which allows you to own land privately? Or not, as you see fit .. that capitalism?

 

There are features other than land.

Capitalism is a larger concept than that.

The fundamentals have to do with ownership of decision making for the business and ownership of the profits that come from that business as a result.

It applies just as strongly to on-line businesses where the product involves stuff like tickets, photographs, etc. - products that have nothing to do with real estate.

On the other hand socialized solutions involve our various levels of government making the decisions. The government decides how much and what kind of national defense we need, where our roads should go, how many VA hospitals we should have, and what the design points are for these things.

 

Yes, the same capitalism that allows me to own others' rights to liberty without either their consent or just compensation.

No, not that imaginary capitalism you just made up. The real capitalism where if I want to earn a living, or even just to exist on the surface of the earth, I have no choice but to pay a landowner full market value just for permission, either one period at a time or all at once, up front, because my right to liberty has been forcibly stripped from me and made into their private property. So no, not, "as I see fit." FORCED BY LAW to submit to being robbed either piece by piece or all at once.

Your fallacious and disingenuous attempts to evade and obscure that fact are a disgrace.

 

No, it's the same capitalism. If it wasn't, people like me - from working class backgrounds - would not be able to work our way towards property ownership.

 

What is your political outlook Mama Mia?

 

Or you could quit. Doesn't have anything to do with freedom just pay and benefits. Get democracy a living wage and health care for all and bingo - socialism! Everywhere but English speaking conservative planet....

 

What is a 'living wage'?

If I ask ten different people, I'll get ten different answers.

 

Liberty, justice and truth.

 

No, the imaginary just capitalism that you made up is not the real unjust capitalism we live under.

Captain Non Sequitur strikes again...

So, your false, absurd, and disingenuous claim is that slavery could not have violated slaves' rights because some slaves were able to work their way to buying their rights to liberty from their owners, and went on to own slaves of their own.

 

Help me out here. Is that "moving the goal posts" or is it a "strawman"? It has to be one or the other since my statement that you quoted was a response to your assertion that "nobody in the USA is at all interested in moving from capitalism to socialism", which, of course, has to be untrue and the reason for my reply to it.