Topic: Capitalism vs. Socialism - Make your argument here. - page 14. (Read 21360 times)

Im pretty sure socialism can't exist without the financing and support of capitalism, socialism without capitalism is communism...

All these systems today are antiquated and there needs to be new ideas of political systems developed.. we can't just keep trying to bandage these failing systems..

This is absurd.  Most of human history did not have a state, money, or classes and involved the sharing of resources.  Primitive communism.



Well by definition, socialism puts power into the hands of workers and communities.  Socialism is decentralized power to individuals by definition. Democracy and individual control are literally the mechanisms by which socialism functions.  Its not mob rule either because individuals keep control over their workplace and communities keep control over themselves. 

Of course, when all of your examples of socialism are actually things that are the opposite of socialism, you will come to a conclusion that socialism doesn't work. 

You are saying "putting power into the hands of each individual never works because the state having all of the power leads to abuse of power" .  Its akin to saying "watering plants never works because eventually, the plants will dry out". 

Makes no sense.

Though I like the ideology behind socialism there is a very major flaw in the whole system and that is it breeds dictatorship Because everything is in the hands of the government, it give them power over everything and from the power, it breeds dictatorship.

I can say that the so-called communism/socialism is false proposition.

Socialism/communism has never really existed in the history of mankind，it exists only in Marx's theory. All self-proclaimed socialism/communism countries that you know are not true communism.To be exact, they are all "totalitarianism/authoritarianism" out the cloak of communism.

The core of real communism is that power comes from the people and people share power.

But now all the "socialist/communist-ruled" countries power are concentrated in the hands of a few high-ranking party members in communist party, and they have supreme power.

In my opinion, communism is an idealized social state. I don't think that true communism is bad,but Marx theory has a major flaw，he envisions a highly civilized society, but neglected the restriction of power.

It does not provide a feasible theoretical basis for how to limit power after power is out of control. He does not see that the concentration of power will inevitably lead to the loss of control.

In any society, once power is too concentrated, it will inevitably lead to the abuse of power. All communist countries are like this without exception.

Therefore, at present, Marx’s theory has proved to be a failure.

But is it possible to succeed？ Maybe, when the human society develops into a highly civilized era, the day when a man with God-like power can consciously not abuse power.

If it happens, then it is a era of God, not human.

Entitled to eh? What is anyone really entitled to? If your answer is the fruits of your own labor, then at what point does some one else get to tell you, you have had enough and now they are taking it for others at the point of a gun?

In the USA at least, the government currently doesn't produce the money (though they have the power to under the constitution), the private bank known as The Federal Reserve Bank does. Also, as they print more and more money, inflation is itself a form of taxation. More money is printed, the cost of real goods and services go up, the value of the currency drops in buying power. Then as wages go up to keep up with cost of living, you are "earning more" so the IRS taxes you again for the inflation.

Any time you are feeding money into a bureaucracy, it is going to siphon off some for its own operations. Over time this pool grows and grows and corruption runs rampant. It is inevitable, good intentions be damned.

I am against SOME forms of taxes. I don't agree with income tax policy, and property taxes can be used in a very parasitic way to strip people of land while the larger companies end up writing off their property taxes anyway.
Everything can be paid for with sales taxes. It is very simple. You consume more, you pay more. There is no easy way around it either.

Again you are creating a false dichotomy trying to claim if I don't support your idea of taxes I must be an anarchist. Really this is bottom of the barrel standards of personal attacks and false choice fallacies. What else you got?

Its simply taking the money they were "entitled to" for unemployment and using that to build a business.  Are you opposed to unemployment benefits?

The government produces one very important thing. Money.  If the government stops producing money you get rapid deflation, a very bad thing for the economy.  Remember that.  New spending does not equal new taxes.  Anyone keeping up with the US right now should realize that.

Are you against taxes?  Taxes are a government issue regardless of which economic system you are using.  Do you wish there were no taxes?   You can't have a government, or national currency.   That would make you an anarchist.

It seems like you are really just an anarchist.

They can like chocolate cake too, it doesn't make chocolate cake Socialist. There you go again with the nebulous Communist buzzwords that are almost completely meaningless at this point.

Exactly, you are totally unaware of the results of these policies. Let me spell it out for you.

With your belly full of warmth and a smile on your face you write up some subsidies that are going to "put the means of production back in the worker's hands" whatever the fuck that means in reality. This subsidy then has to be provided by the government. The government does not produce anything, so it needs to pay for this subsidy with taxes of one form or another. If you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will come and MAKE you pay your taxes and possibly also put you in a cage.

All Socialists promote taking money from the productive at the point of a gun, otherwise it would just be called charity.



We may share a lot of views, I don't know that for sure. However this is not about semantics. This is about causality, and how this particular ideology, usually even motivated by good intent, has a step by step path laid out for it to turn into a totalitarian dystopian society. Communism was LITERALLY FUNDED BY the Western banking elite in the US and Europe. The ideology is the fruit of a poison tree. Your analogy above is again simplistic and ill-defined.

Human beings are in fact VERY PREDICTABLE, and if you leave them any room to take more power and control, they will. Socialism is like locking a bunch of children in a toy store over night and trusting they will not touch any of the toys. In this analogy the bureaucrats are the children and the toys are our lives and means of survival. Socialism and Communism not only ignore basic human drives and behavior, they ignore the laws of economics, largely based on math. From practically any academic angle you approach Communism from, Communism/Socialism/Marxism fail examination. This is not simply a semantic disagreement between us, but perhaps maybe with yourself.

Socialists like these laws because they put the means of production into the hands of the worker who would otherwise have to sell his labor for the rate dictated by some capitalist, or live off of the government unemployment benefit indefinitely.

I don't know anything about money being taken at the point of a gun and no one in the american socialist party would condone such so we are all on the same page here.

Nope, to me socialism is simply workers and communities having freedom and control over their own labor and production.

. You still are me.  We have the same views on just about everything here.  The main thing we disagree on the semantics of the word socialism.  You have switched the words capitalism and socialism and think that I (and all dictionaries as well as the American socialist party) are the ones who have switched them.  I understand that you are basing your definition of socialism on the behaviors of governments that have operated under the name "socialist" or "communist" party and that is probably a position shared by people who lived in the former soviet union.  I will concede this because it is not worth arguing over what word to use to classify an economic system by when we all agree on basic principles that are is bad and good.

Lets just call them System 1 and System 2.


System 1: People are oppressed by a power hierarchy.  The fruits of labor are stolen by force or contract.  People do not have the liberty to do what they want with their own lives. In the end, needs are not even met.

System 2: People live in freedom and have control over their own lives.  People are entitled to the fruits of their labor and have the opportunity to be innovative entrepreneurs.  Morale is high.


Why quibble over silly semantics when we could discuss actual differences with respect to the correct means to the same end?  We all (correct me if I'm wrong) hate system 1 and want system 2.  That means it is not productive to continue to talk about how system 1 has failed in the past.  We agree on the end but perhaps we differ on the means to that end.  Why not talk about that instead of arguing about which word to use to describe things we agree on.   

"Individuals use them to start their own businesses which succeed or fail based on the market."

Sounds like Capitalism to me, except the part where they take money at the point of a gun to subsidize this program.

See the problem here is you insist on calling the fruits of Capitalism Socialist at any opportunity. Nothing done under the Marcora laws requires Socialism to be implemented. In fact the majority of the policies it contains are implemented in some form in other countries, and none of them are calling it Socialist.

To you Socialism is some nebulous warm feeling blanket of a term that wraps you up in visions of utopia, equality, and rainbows. The real world has rainbows, that's about it, and real Socialism has a quite a body count every time some one tries to implement it at scale.

They all started out with the best of intentions, they all felt warm and fuzzy about it, and they all screamed in terror at the hell they had created for themselves and the generations that followed as a result of these naive ideologies.

NOW. That said, I am not saying Marcora laws are a bad idea (except for the centralized government subsidy part), it contains many good ideas. However just because they are good ideas and they are good for workers doesn't wave a magic wand over them and make it Socialist.

I find people such as yourself always think they have it all figured out, and all I need to do is just read more because I just don't understand it. I do. I was you. Then I actually started seriously researching. You have no idea how many thousands of hours I have spent reading on this subject alone. You want to play the teacher but you don't want to do the homework. Perhaps you should do some reading? Here let me start you off with some light reading:
http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Sutton_Wall_Street_and_the_bolshevik_revolution-5.pdf


"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -C.S. Lewis

Well maybe to you they aren't socialist, but the problem is that these are types of programs that can achieve the goal of the socialist party and every socialist I know of in this country today.  So regardless of whether or not you call them socialist, or the historic socialists you read about would have taken that route, the socialists here and now should be the only ones relevant to the discussion. 

Also, you have misread them as they are not "centralized command economy structure".  Individuals use them to start their own businesses which succeed or fail based on the market.  Centralized command economy means that the government is telling people to produce x amount of a good or service.  It just seems like you have all of the economic vocabulary twisted, haven't' read up on the laws, or both.
No economic system produces anything.  Everything is produced by labor regardless of the system.  The system simply determines who gets the surplus.  Socialists suggest that the worker who did the labor should get the surplus. 



We don't expect different results though. We expect the same positive results that democracy and worker-owned businesses have always produced.  Worker-ownership doesn't guarantee success, but it simply puts people's lives into their own hands.  All people are happier when they have freedom and control in their lives.  Relative to their capitalist counterparts, worker cooperatives like Mondragon have proven to be crisis resilient and have increased the quality of life and happiness of everyone involved.  We would be delighted to get the same results. 

Somehow what you call capitalism and definitely no socialism is a core principle of the socialist party.  Maybe you should read the website before strawmanning what socilaists want based on what you read about the USSR.
https://www.socialistpartyusa.net/principles-points-of-agreement

I have looked into them, and addressed your point already. Morcora laws are not Socialist, they are centralized command economy structure within Capitalism. All you do all day long is try to make it look like Socialism some how produced the wealth it stole from Capitalists. SOCIALISM PRODUCES NOTHING.

I have plenty of interest in debate, and that is exactly what I have been doing. You are demanding that I agree on your baseless premise that there is some how some magical version of Socialism we haven't tried yet that won't end up like all the other horrible disasters that resulted from almost every attempt.

Some people define insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If that is true, Socialists are fucking insane.

The examples of Marcora laws and worker cooperatives are not fantasy though.  If you would look into them, they have worked successfully for a very long time and affected real people and real economies.  You continue to ignore my point to go back to argue against something no one is arguing on behalf of.  The definition of socialism has been posted by multiple users but it is you that continues to use your own definition. 

This seems to be what is happening and I am done responding if you have no interest in debating and only want to misdirect the conversation to be a critique on authoritarian governments. 

Your intent is irrelevant. The results are relevant. There has NEVER been a successful scaled up version of Socialism/Communism/Marxism, and anything you call "success" was only a temporary effect left from residual Capital created under the rubric of Capitalism. Everything you are saying is PURE FANTASY. You are free to your own opinions, but your are not free to redefine words and reality so it fits in your delusional box.

I think we socialists agree with TECSHARE on most things but we clearly disagree on the definition of socialism.  Everyone agrees that what he calls socialism is awful and everyone agrees that workers should have freedom and not have the fruits of the labor taken away.  Lets not get hung up over word choice unless you are injecting those examples into the debate to intentionally mislead others about what we actually want.

Well I want to make clear the the actual results you are referring to have nothing in common with my ideas or the ideas of any American socialist I have come across in the 21st century.

We don't want to have the government scale it up, we just want these opportunities to be an available option to everyone.  No one wants the government controlling everyones lives.  Our ideal economy consists of a bunch of small-scale worker cooperatives just like the ones I have described that you call impressive.  These "tiny examples" that you call impressive are what we mean when we talk about socialism.

The Soviet Union was one national so called cooperative where the autocrat had complete control of the entire economy.  We want a democratic economy and all of the examples you think about when you think about socialism involve a totalitarian dictated economy.

The differences between what we call socialism (the definition) and what you call socialism (20th century examples of communist parties running everything) are really as simple as democracy vs totalitarianism.   Maybe your response to socialism should make us socialists thing long and hard about the use of the word.  I don't know how to get around this but perhaps people's perception of the word has been so badly damaged that we should use a new word to get around the trauma caused by perversions of socialism.  What do you think?

We don't want any of that and to be clear, we simply want to put the power to decide what to do with the products of ones labor into the hands of the workers.  We consider capitalism as a force that takes the products of ones labor and hands it to another.   According to this post (especially the bolded part, you want the exact same thing as us socialists.  This is why discussion is so important.  All this time we were using different words to describe our common goals.

This is not true because new wealth is always being generated.  You can collectivize new wealth without taking anyone's old wealth. That is why I keep referring you to Marcora laws as a functioning example of transitioning an economy towards socialism. Also keep in mind, that we are not asking for nationalized collectives or government-ran collectives.  We want an economy that consists of many worker ran cooperatives.  

Capitalism:  Companies have shareholders/owners who don't work but take the products of the labor and also control the company

What TECSHARE calls socialism:  The government takes the products of the labor and controls all companies (everyone hates this so its not even being debated)

What we want: Companies have shareholders who are the workers of that company and democratically decide what to do with the products of their own labor.

The problem is that it ALWAYS leads down that route. There is no way to operate a system of collective wealth on a large scale WITHOUT taking private property by force. Once the productive people have had enough, and they run out of people to rob, the system must then eat the wealth of the average citizens (ie the worker class) to operate.


None of this is by accident. Capitalism is not stalling, the current economic model is stalling, by design. If you do some more careful research you will find Marxism itself was funded and supported by the banking elite on Wallstreet as a system of controlled opposition to Capitalism. It is right in your face. Look at the symbol of Communism, the hammer and sickle. They are ancient symbols. The hammer represents building and creation and the sickle represents destruction and the harvest. Capitalism is the hammer, Communism is the sickle.

Capitalism issues credit and induces production, then the system is compromised usually by inflation or other financial shenanigans, credit is contracted, everyone is stuck paying debts they can't afford, they sell their real property at fire sale prices, and the bankers buy it up for pennies on the dollar just before they introduce Communism. Communism then comes in and picks the bones under a friendly pink warm fuzzy mask to ease the sheep into the slaughter under a pretext of helping them. The economy is destroyed, a new system is created. Then Capitalism is reintroduced again. Repeat.

Don't submit to harvesting.

This is a false equivalency. Capitalism has quite demonstrably improved the quality of life of humanity and reduced poverty, something Socialism could never take credit for. Socialism only takes credit for riding gains created under Capitalism because it is parasitic by nature. At least Capitalism has an element of voluntarism and promotes abundance. This isn't even debatable, it is a fact. Is Capitalism perfect? Absolutely not. Life is not perfect. Does it work more than it doesn't work? Absolutely. Would Socialism fix those problems or do a better job? Absolutely not.

Saw the following definition of Socialism and would like to share it here, since it makes sense:

These days, the word socialism gets tossed around so much, it's almost lost all meaning. Originally, though, it was the bedrock of Marxism and meant that workers and their community should control the market for what they make.

Because the Soviet state eventually strayed far from Marx's idea of socialism towards Lenin's totalitarian communism, socialism is now often used to mean everything from "fascism" to "progressivism." But in its purest form, socialism was a political, social, and economic system meant to empower the working class. In the U.S. today, though, it's often used as shorthand for "the services that government provides and which are paid for by taxes." Depending on who's talking, that idea is either a goal or a target. (source: vocabulary . com/dictionary/socialism) [bold mine]

It looks like "Capitalism" is nearing stalling speed, and since freedom is very important to us all, and what the discussion is really about, we should carefully contemplate and consider the above quoted pure definition of what socialism is about, to fine tune the meanings of the words we use in the discussion.

I think both are flawed systems and both ruin society and peoples lives in different ways. I am a purport-er of alternative ways to run society there was an interesting project called the venus project if anyone wants to check it out.

But socialism vs capitalism is really a pointless argument they're both crap!

The problem is not that I don't understand your ideas. The problem is your ideas... are just ideas. They have NOTHING to do with the reality of the proposals you are making or the ACTUAL RESULTS of implementing Socialism. You THINK it is good, but in reality all it does is make the things you claim to want to fix MUCH WORSE. History has shown this process over and over again, this is not a straw man, this is historical record. So Socialism kind of worked on a tiny scale in some place none of us has ever heard about... very impressive, that doesn't change the scorched Earth and hundreds of millions of bodies left behind every time people try to scale it up.

BTW your example isn't even Socialism, that is 100% Capitalism with a little central control thrown in. You accuse me of not having done any research, but I assure you I have done more research on Communism/Marxism/Socialism than you have ever done on any subject in your life. Frankly I don't think you can even define Socialism based on your "example" here.

The fact of the matter is Socialism requires taking the products of one's labor by FORCE in order to hand it out to another. The ONLY way to do that on ANY kind of scale is a tyrannical government. There is no "nice" way to rob people, even if you do good things with the money later.

I've tried to explain to you what my ideas look like when implemented but you just revert back to the tired USSR strawman.  Its not like I'm just making a cop out that socilaism has never been done.  It has, just not in the examples capitalists want you think about.  I mentioned worker cooperatives and Marcora law in the first post but here are some more resources to introduce you to socialism in action.

Capitalism a love story segment on Coops (3 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VdbFzwe8fQ&list=PLaJhh0k4dkH35GDiLjh7rmM9CKmtJQB8T


Mondragon during the economic crisis (5 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaJ1hfVPUe8


Italian law that led to 30% worker owned GDP in the Bologna leader
https://www.wikipreneurship.eu/index.php/Marcora_Law

The biggest problem for socialism is that people have been incorrectly trained to think it means authoritarian rule and never bothered to research.