Topic: Capitalism vs. Socialism - Make your argument here. - page 9. (Read 21323 times)

Capitalism works beautifully. To illustrate how capitalism is working itself towards its ultimate forthcoming success, look at these interesting statistics from Oxfam, a development charity:

In 2016 the number of billionaires owning as much wealth as half the world’s population were 61

In 2017 the number of billionaires owning as much wealth as half the world’s population were 43 -            a drop of 29,5%

In 2018 the number of billionaires owning as much wealth as half the world’s population were 26 - a further drop of 39,5%

I predict in the 2020 report we are probably going to see top billionaires in the vicinity of maybe 12.87 -   a drop of 49,5%

* for argument sake I shall round the 12.87 top billionaires to a nice round 13, so I will stand with this number for this year (2019)

It is truly remarkable to see the centralizing beauty of capitalism in action.

For me, socialism sounds good but doesn't work and capitalism sounds horrible but works. There is no single country on earth that practice socialism, not even the U.S.S.R was under socialism. Well perhaps Cuba and Moldovia and still they have lots of capitalism stuff

Both the Capitalism and Socialism has loopholes and downsides. They have both deficiencies as much as they have both efficiencies. Capitalism seems to be unfavourable on the lower class, thus, hindering them to be on progress since it allows competition. The principle in Capitalism is very simple, the rich will become richer, the poor will become poorer. On the other hand, socialism seems to be too idealistic to the point that we will find it difficult to have a social organization, encouragement of competition, and will become unfair to those have more that will now have less just to be in balance with those who has less. The bottomline here is that, both ends must meet especially that they are considered the extremes of ideology on society.

Back in the day, the US government was limited, it did not get in the way of the economy, and there were no lobbyists. Remove the government's job of managing the market economy, and the corporations will not be able to lobby.

Completely agreed.
I'm all for getting the guillotine out and make the whole government going through it, but how do you make it so another one doesn't pop out?

Notice that the common factor in all the different systems you're talking about is state power. The state, and the corruption it attracts, is the problem, not capitalism or communism.

And how do you prevent big companies to use their money as leverage and lobby to corrupt your government and create regulations in their favor? :/

With representative democracy, socialism or capitalism is all the same. It leads to concentrate the power in few hands, them being corporations in capitalism and government members in socialism.

The end doesn't change, though capitalism takes longer I'd say.

     I think it is much better to strive for the higher standard.
     However, since it appears may here want to go totally libertarian, how about this for an idea. Charge people for placing a 911 call. Have such service run by private corporations. Also, secure payment upfront. We don't need any "deadbeats" being extended the credit. If the person is in a situation where imputing their credit/debit card info into the phone is not practical, that is just too bad. Also, since we are to avoid all forms of "socialism" at any cost, we ought not offer any kind of prepayment plans. After all, that would be asking for people to pay for something that they may never use, to defray the costs of those who actually use it.

OK, it appears that I have not explained my point adequately. One of the problem with the healthcare system in the US centers around emergency care. In emergency care, it is not practical to secure payment up front. What the medical provider does in this case is extend the patient credit. Needless to say, this results in a good deal of bad debt. Now it has been demonstrated what happens when a certain sector of the economy generates a good deal of bad debt. The housing crisis is a perfect example. The losses end up getting socialized one way or the other. It is true that we could have just not started bailing companies out. However, if the government didn't shoulder the burden, then the costs incurred would have to be passed on to someone. In fact they already were passed on since many people lost their jobs, and the economy as a whole suffered.  In an ideal world, it would probably be better to secure payment up front and not extend credit to anybody. However, in certain situations, (an medical emergency for example) this is not practical.

I don't use Goolag, sorry.

The other side is that it is often against the law for police to pull an unconscious man out of a burning vehicle, thereby saving his life. But cops will often disregard the law and save the guy.

As far as the good Samaritan, the Samaritan is wrong by earthly standards, but right by heavenly standards. To understand the earthly standard clearly, see Ayan Rand - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAFKnfN4bfk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooKsv_SX4Y.

I'm not sure how this sentiment exactly gels with the principal put forward by the parable of the Good Samaritan. Also, I may have missed the part about Jesus charging Lazarus,the lepers, etc.  Quite frankly, if a society thinks emergency medical professionals are being completely moral by sitting on their hands if they can't be assured of payment for their services, when a person is in peril of death, it is not a society that I would want to live in.

Nobody will ever run out of money IF he considers everything he owns to be money. If all he has are the clothes on his back, his money is his labor. If he is too weak to labor, he will die soon. Only then will he not have money. But then he won't care, right?

In the end, the state and the church will run out of money. Charities could continue, as long as people feel wealthy (and generous) enough.

The ethical argument is problematic. You present it as ethically absolute, but not everyone sees it that way.

This to me is a major issue with politics in general; it's an argument that never ends (until everyone literally kills one another, of course). Everyone thinks they're ethically correct, despite the fact that that's a complete contradiction of the fact that everyone has different ethics.

You don't have to give them the fruits of their labor.  I  just frame it that way because in the current context, it is being taken away from them.  So by ensuring it is not taken from them, we could say it is being given to them.  Your argument is the same as saying government cannot give slaves freedom.  Its true, but its misleading because the government can obviously stop them from being enslaved and restore the freedom that they have naturally.

If object B is a finite resource and george bought all of object B then no, Pete does not have another option.  No matter how smart Pete is, he cannot get object B without buying it from George. If Pete needs object B to make a living then george, by taking more of object B than he needs, is forcing Pete to make the trade.  

Capital and knowledge are two different things.  Keep in mind that 80% of wealth is inherited.  


Your entire analysis is based on a false assumption.  Your false assumption is that socailists reject capitalism because we are not content with what we have want more wealth for themselves.   This is what happens when you project the capitalist "me me me" mentality onto socailists.  The problem with that is socialists are socialists precisely because we do not think about what is best for our position, but we think about what is best for society.  

Think about it, most socialist intellectuals are in positions of power and privilege already.  Its necessary in order to have the time and education to dig so deeply into economic theory.  We are already among the highest percentiles of earners and in control of our own labor.  Most academics work for the state or employee run non profits anyway.

Personally, I feel like I have too much wealth and live with too much luxury considering the state of the planet.  It is this extreme level of guilt and empathy for less fortunate that drives my passion for socialism.  Sometimes I want to buy a really nice product, and I don't because I feel like it wouldn't be fair for me to have it while people starve. The main limiting factor for my consumption is guilt.  Just as humans have been trained to think about everything in terms of money, I think it can be reversed.  We can restore human nature and build a society where people make decisions based on ethical value. 

I'm just saying, in the end, it becomes socialized in one form or another anyway. I work for an ambulance billing company. They are ethically and legally required to transport anybody. It would be totally unethical for us to leave a person untreated and untransported who is obviously having an emergency, even if the crew suspects the person does not have the means to pay. In the end, the ambulance service charges a higher price in order to recoup the costs from people who do have the means to pay. In the past, most hospitals were run by churches and non-profit corporations. Many still are. In the end, you just cannot have an effective free market when the main consumers happen to be chronically ill or dying.

All insurance



It's not much of a marketplace if you have no choice but to pay something to someone. That's called a racket, not a marketplace. It's a hard problem to solve though; roads (or railways) are natural monopolies because of the physical reality of the infrastructure (there's only 1 surface a road can be built on, and the routes are limited by other infrastructure that obstructs those possible routes)



Is it practical or ethical to socialize all healthcare, and pay for it with socialised debts that can't be paid at some point in the future? It's easy to say "socialize it to simplify it" now, and forget about how everyone maintains that long term. But remember why we're here on bitcointalk: government debts all over the world have increased more since 2008 than they have since the year 1908. That means big expenses like socialized healthcare are gonna either end or get drastically cut the world over once the government debt market reverses trend.

     What type of insurance are you talking about? If you are talking about auto insurance, most states in the US require people to have auto insurance if they want to drive. However, I see a very vigorous, competitive auto insurance market. If you are talking about health insurance, that is a big mess in the US. The problem with healthcare in general is that the biggest customers are either chronically ill or dying. Also, in emergency medicine, there is an ethical mandate to treat first. It's not practical or ethical for a healthcare provider to secure means of payment in the middle of an emergency. Most times the indigent or underinsured end up not paying the bill. Therefore, the healthcare providers are forced to raise their prices and try to make up for it by charging more. It just ends up being a feedback loop where the amount the healthcare providers charge keeps rising. In my opinion, the healthcare market is going to end up being socialized no matter what system you try.

Has anyone made a case for layering capitalist and socialist ideas on top of each other, seeing as that's what actually works in reality?


Insurance is a great example of that. A profit making company (capitalist outermost layer) that administers a money pool (socialist inner structure) that people join voluntarily (capitalist at the individual level) to manage risks.


Here's how you fuck that up: insurance companies convince government to add an extra layer; coerced standards (aka "regulations"). This makes it very difficult to break into the market as a startup. Then the existing companies can easily charge too much, because they haven't got any competition (and can make deals with their existing competition not to undercut each other). Next, the insurance company cartel can get government to force people into buying insurance for various risks, and present it as "keeping everyone safe".


Supply side distortions (standards that prevent new entries to the market) and demand side distortions (forcing all people to buy something at fixed prices) completely destroys the market, but it's apparently easy to convince people that this is free market capitalism in action.

But if everyone is forced to buy and there is no competition, how is that different from socialism? The method is different to outright socialism, and complicated: 5 layers of socialism and capitalism nested inside or across each other. But what's the outcome? Very similar to what happens in total socialism: friends of the government run massive companies that don't have any incentive to do a good job.

The government could definitely survive without taxes.  The government doesn't need taxes at all.  The value of the dollar is what needs taxes.  The dollar is not pegged to gold but instead, is indirectly pegged to the US economy through taxes.  The IRS only accepts payment in US dollar which is why taxes create demand for the US dollar.  Since taxes are proportional to economic activity, a bridge has been created between economic activity and demand for the dollar.  That bridge is the IRS ability to collect taxes. 

If we ended all taxes, the government would survive and could pay off all of its debt instantly anytime because the US government only owes debt in US dollars.  The US government, wisely, does not owe debt in gold or any foreign currency or paying debt would be an actual issue.