Capitalism is economic tyranny Socialism is economic democracy.

More than you could risk going to prison or having your family taken away for refusing your orders of a Socialist government.

 

sounds good

 

OK, what are we talking about when we say the word "socialism". The two most well known examples of "socialism" are what we had w/ Soviet Socialism and National Socialism. Both were totalitarian states.

There's never been a nation or political party w/ the word "Capitalism". Virtually all nations have markets which are subject to varying degrees of government control. Yeah, so the Pope said he didn't like "unfettered capitalism" --that's never existed and the reason it has never existed is the fact it's impossible in real life. Markets can not function w/o governments nearby to enforce contracts and keep order.

 

Because their rights to liberty have been forcibly removed without just compensation and converted into the private property of the privileged, especially landowners.

No he doesn't. If I don't like what my employer offers, I can seek a better offer elsewhere, or go into business on my own account -- as long as I pay a landowner full market value just for permission, of course. Your claim is just baldly false.

No, your claims are just baldly false. An employer has NO POWER to do anything but offer you access to economic opportunity you would not otherwise have. If you don't like it, there are others who might be more accommodating. If an employer declines your services, you are no worse off than if he had never existed, so he has indisputably not taken anything from you. A landowner, by contrast, has no power to do anything but deprive you of access to economic opportunity you would otherwise have. Every landowner is inherently stealing from you. So that is the problem. Landowners. Not employers.

SEE THE DIFFERENCE?

Nope. That's just garbage disproved above. If you lose your job, in what sense are you worse off than if your employer had never existed? But every landowner makes you worse off than if he had never existed.

SEE THE DIFFERENCE??

And so can you -- except that you have to pay a landowner full market value just for permission.

<sigh> Who provides the factory that gives you an opportunity to live far better than your remote ancestors, who were not "exploited" by employers, hhhmmmmmm?

Are we thinking yet?

No, that's just garbage with no basis in fact, as history proves. Socialism will always be even worse than capitalism for one very simple reason: when socialists steal factories, there are fewer factories available for production; whereas when capitalists steal land, the amount of land available for production stays exactly the same.

 

Capitalism is none of what you claimed is simply people trading things of value between themselves.

You are attributing corporatism to capitalism.

Socialism always ends in famine starvation and genocide. It has killed 110 million people in the passed century it is a more distructive force than religion.

Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Constitutional Republics ensure rights in spite of democracy. Why are people so desperate to repeat mistakes from the passed?

 

Yes because I can go get another one later the same day. That's something offered by capitalism.

Under socialism I don't have to have a job because to each according to his need and a chicken in every pot. That's why they end in famine.

 

In capitalism you can become the employer. In socialism you cant do anything unless a commitee allows it. **** the commitees, I want to decide for myself.

 

What socialist country, present or historical, represents this.

 

Capitalism is just as likely to make a slave of a man as socialism. Look up Company Towns. It was a Capitalist labor system where the company sets up a town in a remote location, then makes it so the employees there have to live in the town. They get paid in company scrip, so no actual money changes hands. They have to use that scrip to pay rent and utilities to the company, to buy groceries and other goods the company brings in to the company store. And most important of all, except for a few burning themselves out working themselves to death, nobody working for the company is at a net income positive in this relationship, they're all in debt.
Don't ever let people tell you that capitalism is a magic tool of freedom for anyone but the bosses at the top, that's how they'll get you working 80+ hour weeks with no vacation time on too little pay. The US is a democratic republic with a capitalist economy that is regulated and controlled, and those regulations came about because without them life was hell, but the jackals at the top of industry have been peeling those controls back for decades now to make themselves richer at everyone else's expense.

 

For those saying you couldn't have democracy and a socialist system, you could be simply giving unions representation in government. If you have one chamber of the legislative body made up of union representatives they will never vote against socialism yet it will be democratic.

• Lower House elected by proportional representation.
• Upper House elected by union elections.

 

No ideology is capable of encompassing all human aspiration. We have to be eclectic, willing to learn and adapt ideas and concepts. Some parts of capitalism and socialism are fine, some are not. There are other ideas as well. Trying to make just one work for everyone everywhere is the surest way to make conflict and suffering inevitable.

 

So, you declare yourself a slave, because you must work to put food on your table. Same predicament that every living thing on the earth deals with everyday, but most don't whine about it.

Capitalism IS freedom, for you. YOU are already a capitalist.
YOU are- in business for yourself. YOU are selling your personal services to a customer. YOU asked for the position. YOU agreed to the compensation- meaning, you know what you are worth....

YOU are free to end that agreement at any time.

IF YOU think you are worth a lot more money, all you have to do is what your employer has to do everyday- find someone who agrees your product is worth your price.

IF YOU can't find anyone that wants to buy your services for the price you want.... Maybe, they aren't as valuable as you think they are.

YOU are free to become the capitalist at any time, make all that easy money you think you employer is making from your work. Yes, you can start your own business from scratch right now, I've done it more than once. It comes with a free education, too- you would learn as you go.

What you would find is that you would work harder than any of your employees. You would be awake nights trying to figure out how to make next weeks payroll, how to stay alive and grow. IF you do keep your business afloat and succeed- it will be because you worked smart as well as hard, planned carefully, and risked everything you own to do it. And, you will find that only a small percentage of the people who ask you for jobs- give a damn about giving you your money's worth, or your company succeeding. . Those are the people you need most and who are worth the most.

One of the most interesting things you learn from being in business is that most "employees" make no connection between you being their customer- buying your services- and positions where they are the customer of some business, buying their services. As a customer, they expect to be catered to, seen as right, to be treated with respect, be thanked for their patronage, have complaints handled quickly and to their satisfaction- and they think they are doing that business a favor each time they return. But none of that applies when they are the seller, and their "employer" is their customer. It all turns around, and they expect to be treated as if they were the customer then too.

Try being the kind of businessman who treats his customers with the respect you think you deserve when you are the customer. Because your employer IS your customer- buying your product every day and giving you a lot of benefits you never gave anybody. Try giving them their money's worth, actually contributing to the success of the company. You might be amazed how much that would be appreciated and change your opportunities.

You might even realize that the problem isn't your employer or capitalism- but your point of view.

 

No, that is false. Capitalism by definition requires private ownership of the means of production: natural resources and producer goods. As private ownership of natural resources by definition forcibly removes others' liberty rights to use those resources and converts them into the private property of the resource owner, it can never be acquired in consensual trade; i.e., however many "consensual" exchanges it may pass through, it is only ever initially obtained, and subsequently sustained, by forcible theft, which by definition invalidates all the subsequent exchanges.

No, he is mainly committing the fundamental error of all socialists: blaming employers for what landowners do to workers. He is right that capitalism inherently robs and exploits workers. He is just wrong about how.

True; I've calculated that on average, socialism has killed people at a rate of about 0.5% of the population per year, mainly in large-scale disasters, whereas capitalism only kills about 0.2%, mainly in the steady toll of poverty caused by private landowning. If we include wars over landownership, capitalism's murder rate is far higher.

It is the only way to hold government accountable.

Not really. For example, by its prohibition on direct taxation not apportioned among the states by population, the US Constitution forcibly removes everyone's natural individual rights to liberty and converts them into the private property of landowners.

I don't know, why are you? You defend private landowner privilege, which has destroyed many great civilizations -- Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, the list goes on.

 

the problem here is that incentive, innovation, pride of entrepreneurship, is vanquished, and that never works. It just doesn't.

I'm all for unions, but forced unions is tyranny. Workers should be allowed to vote on whether or not they want a union in their shop.

Well, that is kinda the current situation. In CA, in the gig economy, Prop 22 dictates that in order for, say, Uber, or Grubhub, to fire a driver, they need to show good cause. I'm in favor of such laws, but a company should be allowed to fire the non productive or workers that are 'problem' for a company, in their attitude, dress, etc.

If you kill the real estate investment industry, we are going to wind up with shortages. I live in a rent controlled mobile home park, but the manufactured homes are subject to free market prices and the park is privately owned. I bought early when it was cheap. If we relegate this to a state controlled operation, again, we are going to wind up with shortages.

Your Poll is simplistic, and not a good poll. It suggests there is only a binary choice, and that is a fallacy. A nation like the USA is far more nuanced than to suggest such a simplistic binary choice.

I have owned and operated small businesses, and this idea of 'worker controlled businesses' can only work in some circumstance. I had a wedding photographer shop, subject to the style and vision of the shop's owner (yours truly) and turning it over to my employees would be disaster. Now, there was a much bigger outfit, who acted as an agent for a consortium of smaller one/two person shops, and that worked, they all wrote their own contracts, and gave the umbrella firm a commission of their contracts. But, making the 'state' the owner, making it a bureaucracy? I don't think so.

The classic idea of Socialism is state ownership and control of all means & tools of production and distribution, which, according to that classic definition, leaves little room for a market economy, though some forms of private enterprises, flea markets, independent cab owners, etc., tend to happen despite it. But, at the minimum, in a Socialist world, all of the strategic industries are state owned and run. What is being promulgated by Mssrs Richard Wolff and Noam Chomsky, is 'anarcho syndicalism' (which is what Chomsky calls it, Wolff calls it 'communism') , which are businesses that are run by worker groups who democratically choose policies related to their work and work product, an idea which, on a large scale, in my view, is unworkable. On a small scale, like the Kibbutz's in Israel, it could work.

This is too far to the left, just as a government too small for the size of the nation is too far to the right.

THe problem with these 'all encompassing' ideas is that a large nation like America is too complex. In my view, a balance of the two forces, achieving an equilibrium, is the best solution, i.e., a 'mixed economy' as it is known.

I wrote about this in an earlier post, which I will reprint, for your consideration.

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

 

Your poll question is unanswerable because Socialism and Democracy are mutually exclusive. Capitalism produces democracy and vice versa.

 

When in reality, he is a slave because he must pay a landowner full market value just for permission to put food on his table. Read and learn:

THE SLAVER

Suppose I own an estate and 100 slaves, all the land about being held in the same way by people like me.

It is a profitable business, but there are many expenses and annoyances attached to it: I must keep up my supply of slaves either by buying or breeding them; I must pay an overseer to keep them continually to their work with a lash; I must keep them in a state of brutish ignorance (harming their efficiency), lest they should learn their rights and their power, and become dangerous; and I must tend them in sickness and when past work.

And the slaves have all the vices and defects that slavery engenders; they have no self-respect or moral sense; they lie, they steal, they are lazy, shirking work whenever they dare; they do not care what mischief their carelessness occasions me so long as it is not found out; their labor is obtained by force, and given grudgingly; they have no heart in it. All these things worry me.

Suddenly a brilliant idea strikes me. I reflect that there is no unoccupied land in the neighbourhood, so that if my laborers were free they would still have to look to me for work somehow. So one day I announce to them that they are all free, intimating at the same time I will be ready to employ as many as I may require on such terms as we may mutually and independently agree.

What could be fairer? They are overjoyed, and falling on their knees, bless me as their benefactor. Then they go away and have a jollification, and next day come back to me to arrange the new terms.

Most of them think they would like to have a piece of land and work it for themselves, and be their own masters. All they want is a few tools they have been accustomed to use, and some seed, and these they are ready to buy from me, undertaking to pay me with reasonable interest when the first crop comes in, offering the crop as security. As for their keep, they can easily earn that by working a few weeks on and off on any of the plantations, or by taking a job clearing or fencing, or such like. This will keep them going for the first year, and after that they will be better able to take care of themselves.

"But," softly I observe, "you are going too fast. Your proposals about the tools and seed and your maintenance are all right enough, but the land, you remember, belongs to me. You cannot expect me to give you your liberty and my own land for nothing. That would not be reasonable, would it?" They agree it would not, and begin to propose terms.

A fancies this bit of land, and B that. But it soon appears that I want this bit of land for my next year's clearing, and that for my cows, and another is too close to my house and would interfere with my privacy, and another is thick forest or swamps, and would require too long and costly preparation for me who must have quick returns in order to live, and in short that there is no land suitable that I care to part with.

Still I am ready to do what I promised — "to employ as many as I may require, on such terms as we may mutually and independently agree." But as I have now got to pay them wages instead of getting their work for nothing. I cannot of course employ all of them. I can find work for 90 of them, however, and with these I am prepared to discuss terms.

At once a number volunteered their services at such wages as their imagination had been picturing to them. I tell the 90 whose demands are most reasonable to stand on one side. The remaining 10 look blank, and seeing that since I won't let them have any of the land, it is a question of hired employment or starvation, they offer to come for a little less than the others. I tell these now to stand aside, and ten others to stand out instead. These look blank now, and offer to work for less still, and so the "mutual and voluntary" settlement of terms proceeds.

But, meanwhile, I have been making a little calculation in my head, and have reckoned up what the cost of keeping a slave, with his food and clothes, and a trifle over to keep him contented, would come to, and I offer that.

They won't hear of it, but as I know they can't help themselves, I say nothing, and presently first one and then another gives in, till I have got my 90, and still there are 10 left out, and very blank indeed they look. Whereupon, the terms being settled, I graciously announce that though I don't really want any more men, still I am willing, in my benevolence, to take the 10, too, on the same terms, which they promptly accept, and again hail me as their benefactor, only not quite so rapturously as before.

So they all set to at the old work at the old place, and on the old terms, only a little differently administered; that is, that whereas I formerly supplied them with food, clothes, etc., direct from my stores, I now give them a weekly wage representing the value of those articles, which they will henceforth have to buy for themselves.

There is a difference, too, in some other respects, indicating a moral improvement in our relations. I can no longer curse and flog them. But then I don't want to; it's no longer necessary; the threat of dismissal is quite as effective, even more so; and much pleasanter for me.

I can no longer separate husband from wife, parent from child. But then again, I don't want to. There would be no profit in it; leaving them their wives and children has the double advantage of making them more contented with their lot, and giving me greater power over them, for they have now got to keep these wives and children out of their own earnings.

My men are now as eager as ever to come to me to work as they formerly were to run away from work. I have neither to buy or breed them; and if any suddenly leave me, instead of letting loose the bloodhounds, I have merely to hold up a finger or advertise, and I have plenty of others offering to take their place. I am saved the expense and worry of incessant watching and driving. I have no sick to attend, or worn-out pensioners to maintain. If a man falls ill there is nothing but my good nature to prevent my turning him out at once; the whole affair is a purely commercial transaction — so much wages for so much work. The patriarchal relation of slave-owner and slave is gone, and no other has taken its place. When the man is worn out with long service I can turn him out with a clear business conscience, knowing that the State will see that he does not starve.

Instead of being forced to keep my men in brutish ignorance, I find public schools established at other people's expense to stimulate their intelligence and improve their minds, to my great advantage, and their children compelled to attend these schools. The service I get, too, being now voluntarily rendered (or apparently so) is much improved in quality. In short, the arrangement pays me better in many ways.

But I gain in other ways besides pecuniary benefit. I have lost the stigma of being a slave driver, and have acquired instead the character of a man of energy and enterprise, of justice and benevolence. I am a "large employer of labour," to whom the whole country, and the labourer especially, is greatly indebted, and people say, "See the power of capital! These poor labourers, having no capital, could not use the land if they had it, so this great and far-seeing man wisely refuses to let them have it, and keeps it all for himself, but by providing them with employment his capital saves them from pauperism, and enables him to build up the wealth of the country, and his own fortune together."

Whereas it is not my capital that does any of these things. lt is not my capital but the labourer's toil that builds up my fortune and the wealth of the country.

It is not my employment that keeps him from pauperism, but my monopoly of the land forcing him into my employment that keeps him on the brink of it. It is not want of capital that keeps the labourer from using the land, but my refusing him the use of the land that prevents him from acquiring capital. All the capital he wants to begin with is an axe and a spade, which a week's earnings would buy him, and for his maintenance during the first year, and at any subsequent time, he could work for me or for others, turnabout, with his work on his own land. Henceforth with every year his capital would grow of itself, and his independence with it, and that this is no fancy sketch, anyone can see for himself by taking a trip into the country, where he will find well-to-do farmers who began with nothing but a spade and an axe (so to speak) and worked their way up in the manner described.

But now another thought strikes me. Instead of paying an overseer to work these men for me, I will make him pay me for the privilege of doing it. I will let the land as it stands to him or to another — to whomsoever will give the most for the billet. He shall be called my tenant instead of my overseer, but the things he shall do for me are essentially the same, only done by contract instead of for yearly pay. He, not I, shall find all the capital, take all the risk, and engage and supervise the men, paying me a lump sum, called rent, out of the proceeds of their toil, and make what he can for himself out of the surplus.

The competition is as keen in its way for the land among people of his class as it is among the labourers for employment, only that as they are all possessed of some little means (else they could not compete) they are in no danger of immediate want, and can stand out for rather better terms than the labourers, who are forced by necessity to take what terms they can get.

The minimum in each case amounts practically to a "mere living", but the mere living they insist on is one of a rather higher standard than the labourers'; it means a rather more abundant supply and better quality of those little comforts which are next door to necessaries. It means, in short, a living of a kind to which people of that class are accustomed.

For a moderate reduction in my profits, then — a reduction equal to the tenant's narrow margin of profit — I have all the toil and worry of management taken off my hands, and the risk too, for be the season good or bad, the rent is bound to be forthcoming, and I can sell him up to the last rag if he fails of the full amount, no matter for what reason.

All my capital is set free for investment elsewhere, and I am freed from the odium of slave owning, notwithstanding that the men still toil for my enrichment just as when they were slaves, and that I get more out of them than ever.

If I wax rich while they toil from hand to mouth, and in depressed seasons find it hard to get work at all, it is not, to all appearances, my doing, but merely the force of circumstances, the law of nature, the state of the labour market — fine sounding names that hide the ugly reality.

If wages are forced down it is not I that do it; it is that greedy and merciless man the employer (my tenant) who does it. I am a lofty and superior being, dwelling apart and above such sordid considerations. I would never dream of grinding these poor labourers, not I! I have nothing to do with them at all; I only want my rent -- and get it. Like the lilies of the field, I toil not, neither do I spin, and yet (so kind is Providence!) my daily bread (well buttered) comes to me of itself. Nay, people bid against each other for the privilege of finding it for me; and no one seems to realize that the comfortable income that falls to me like the refreshing dew is dew indeed; but it is the dew of sweat wrung from the labourers' toil. It is the fruit of their labour which they ought to have; and which they would have if I did not take it from them, however subtly and indirectly, by force.

 

IF you ever owned a business, such as a restaurant, and it was legal for your employees to not show up for work, willy nilly, you'd be about of business in short order. The fact that an employee knows that he or she can be fired for abusing a privilege, like time off for 'being sick' (when they aren't really sick) or some non legit reason, that the employee knows this curbs the practice. If you give an inch, I assure you, employees will take a mile, and it is in the mile you lose control and profitability, an your company suffers, including the jobs of all the others who do not abuse their privilege.

The problem with your principle is that it assumes everyone will act in good faith.

I"ve been in business too long to know that that idea is fantasy.

The absense of good faith dominates the economy, it is the reason we have laws, contracts, lawyers, etc. If everyone were ethicle we woudln't even ned locks on our doors, let alone police, guns, lawyers, contracts, and the military.

Because of human nature, and the real world, ie., the general state of mankind, your utopia is unreality and unworkable.

 

Capitalism is in fact superior for a multitude of reasons. The main one being economical success through natural prices and demands. Socialism always misdirects raw goods to places that don’t need it. Socialism is a scam made for lazy people

 

Right: the part of capitalism where people own the fruits of their labor and trade by mutual consent is fine, while the part where the privileged are legally entitled to steal from everyone else is not. Similarly, the part of socialism where possession and use of natural resources are administered by the community to secure and reconcile the equal individual liberty rights of all citizens to use them is fine, while the part where people are prohibited to use their own labor and consensually obtained producer goods to produce additional goods and services for profit in consensual exchange is not.

 

I have no problem with having to work to put food on the table, I have a problem with the fact that an employer can hold that over some ones head, someone might be looking for a different place to work but until then they have to make sure they aren't fired. There are basically no protections in the United States for workers.

If only it actually worked this way, businesses will pay the MINIMUM amount of money and benefits they can get away with, and when someone is desperate and needs a job they aren't going to turn down a job because it's not what they want to get paid. If it really worked that way minimum wage hikes wouldn't be needed.

Unless you don't have another source of income lined up and have to pay bills.

Not how it works, if multiple people apply for the same position with the same skills the person asking for the lowest amount will get hired.

You aren't hired based on value, you're hired based on supply and demand. No business will pay more than someone is willing to work for, and too many people are desperate and will work for less.

You need to already have enough money to fund your business even the cheapest startup (amazon DSP) needs 30K assets. You need to be moderately well off to start a business.

You get the loyalty you put in, if I am getting paid minimum wage or low wages with no benefits I'm going to put minimum effort into my job, if I get paid good wages with amazing benifitis like the public sector does I will put my all into my work. Employers want more than they are willing to give.

You aren't a customer, customers don't have any power over you, they have to go by your rules and you can trespass them if they refuse to cooperate. Employers set the rules and will act in the interest of what makes them more money. Very few jobs allow for bargaining for wages anymore. Its always a take it or leave it situation.

No one being paid minimum wage or a non living wage is going to go out of their way to contribute to the success of the company

If capitalism worked as you described we wouldn't have needed government intervention.

 

No. Under capitalism, natural prices and demand result in the bulk of the wealth producers produce being taken by landowners in return for no contribution to production. This is an inevitable consequence of Ricardo's Law of Rent, and was demonstrated conclusively by Henry George in "Progress and Poverty" over 140 years ago. All our massive government interventions in the economy to rescue working people and consumers from enslavement by landowners -- welfare, minimum wages, union monopolies, public education, health care and pensions, etc., etc. -- are undertaken in a foredoomed attempt to reverse some of this effect.

More to the point, socialism aggravates scarcity by removing some or all of people's liberty, ability, and incentive to relieve scarcity.

 

No, but they are certainly not closely related. Democracy cannot survive very much socialism, and vice versa.

No, that is also false. Capitalism tends to oligarchy as the privileged take a larger and larger fraction of production in return for no contribution to production.

 

Of course you are right, and anyone not living in the bottom of a dark hole should be able to see that virtually everything government touches winds up being a train wreck. When private enterprises fail, they affect a small number of people, mostly their own investors. When government botches the job, they affect everybody- and many botched programs live on like parasites feeding on the public indefinitely. Anything that can be done in the private sector will be more successful, more efficient and less costly than the same thing done by government.

I believe most of the people supporting any kind of socialism are looking no further than themselves, and thinking for some reason that someone else, someone other than themselves- should be responsible for making their life work better. That is a critical mistake, because nobody has more at stake in the success of your life than you do.

Everything in life and in nature clearly tells us that we each have primary responsibility for ourselves. IF you don't get your butt in the drivers seat of your life and let someone else take control of you, the inevitable result is that you will not wind up where you wanted to go. And socialism- in any form- is the abdication of your right and duty to have control over your own destiny.

 

It just goes to show how deep the indoctrination has gone. We all become the product of our children at some point. Its clear what our children are being taught. They reach for the shinny things in life now with no remorse even when they are proven wrong. They are taught its better to crash the plane than allow your political enemy to pilot the aircraft. Which is what the parties are now. Absolute political enemies.

I myself do not believe there is a way back. I know you have hope and refuse to give up, and I will stand with you. But how do you unteach 2 or 3 generations? The only way back is with a steel hand and an uncompromising legal system or maybe a mandated 2 year enlistment to rid them of these ridiculous fantasies they were sold. Until that day you are dealing with 25-40 year old adolescents.

 

each has it's place, in the USA, we use the best of all systems

greedy Corporatism is what is gonna bring us down