What Do Socialism and Capitalism Mean to You

[Bomb#20]

1. the question of wether socialism works or capitalism works is an unanswerable question

West German Embassy, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1989

That isn't capitalism verses socialism. That was democracy verses authoritarianism.

Yeah. The thing that made the Soviet/Warsaw Pact bloc an intolerable place to live was Socialism.

To paraphrase James Carville, "It's not just the economy, stupid".

So show me a society where the means of production were collectively owned that didn't become an authoritarian police state.

Socialism - an economic system wherein decisions about what ought to be done, where, for whom, and to what extent, is determined by a authoritarian process,

Why on earth would you guys imagine anyone can set up an authoritarian process for making the decisions about the economy -- the decisions about what ought to be done, where, for whom, and to what extent -- and not have that authority spill out onto everything else? When the government decides for whom newsprint will be produced, do you think it's going to direct people to deliver it to anti-government newspapers?

If decisions about what ought to be done, where, for whom, and to what extent, are determined without an authoritarian process, but are instead negotiated among the doers themselves, then the outcome will be some complicated compromise where vast numbers of different people's divergent goals are simultaneously promoted to some extent, but any given goal is severely obstructed due to being traded off against all the others. Using an authoritarian process makes it possible for one goal to be assigned overall priority over another even when pursuing the one depends on cooperation from whoever is pursuing the other. Consequently, the authoritarian process is more effective at achieving just about any one goal, but kind of stinks at simultaneously satisfying lots of competing goals. If we could just agree about which goals should have higher priority than which, the authoritarian process would be ideal. Lots of political movements form out of like-minded people who are in pretty broad agreement about which goals are worth pursuing and which aren't, so the authoritarian process naturally appeals to them -- sometimes so much so that when one of these movements wins the political contest and takes power, its leaders choose to impose the authoritarian process on the economic system. This frequently leads to a great deal of immediate progress towards the movement's mutually agreed high-priority goals.

The trouble is, this system kind of stinks at simultaneously satisfying lots of competing goals; it's only really effective at pursuing one goal at a time. When those in charge of the authoritarian process for making the decisions, about what ought to be done, where, for whom, and to what extent, figure out that they can't make more than one goal their top priority, they invariably decide the highest priority goal is keeping themselves in power.

 

[Bomb#20]

1. the question of wether socialism works or capitalism works is an unanswerable question

West German Embassy, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1989

...
Some people want to look at socialism and capitalism in bubbles, but the reality is that what matters nearly as much is how they are regulated. Capitalism is kind of like a car salesman. They say trust us... and we see failure after failure after failure... and then people be like *showing image above* and implying capitalism hasn't endured ... the CDS related global economic implosion that only didn't end in a Great Depression because people remembered ... As a reminder, that failure was less than 15 years ago. It required trillions of Government money to somewhat disappear. And in a couple of years, the banks were begging the Government to trust them again!

So let's not get all silly about the greatness of capitalism post the bank panics of the 19th century, the Great Depression, the S&L failure, the Great Recession, the crypto-crisis (just wait for it).

Freedom of choice, access to goods, and flow of currency are things we strive for in an economy. Knowing when to use a light hand verses a heavy hand is an art we are still working on! In America, we can't sell ice cream or potato chips without regulations... because if you let companies abuse our trust...

Remind me, which of these historic failures prompted a mass exodus of people fleeing to countries where the means of production were collectively owned?

and then people be like *showing image above* and implying capitalism hasn't endured ...

Yeah... no. Showing an image like the above implies nothing of the sort. Your rhetorical tactics can get stuffed.

"Get all silly about the greatness of capitalism" is not something anyone needs to do in order to answer the question of whether socialism works or capitalism works. That fact that capitalism suffers from the bank panics of the 19th century, the Great Depression, the S&L failure, the Great Recession, and the crypto-crisis (just wait for it), and yet people still tried desperately to escape to it, is a testament to the fact that capitalism works, and an indictment of how badly a system where the means of production are mostly publicly owned doesn't work.

 

[bilby]

So show me a society where the means of production were collectively owned that didn't become an authoritarian police state.

Correlation ≠ Causation

And in this case, the arrow of causation is quite possibly the reverse of what you imply; For a government to get to own the means of production it frequently first becomes an authoritarian police state, because the previous owners of the means of production usually don't want to give them up.

I will leave it to you to decide whether the mass nationalisation of almost all major industries (such as railways, coal, steel, gas, water, healthcare and passenger aviation) in the UK in the late 1940s qualifies as "the collective ownership of the means of production", and if so whether you believe that the UK subsequently became a police state. Personally I feel that it probably does, and that it didn't.

But perhaps that cherry isn't sweet enough for your argument.

 

[Bomb#20]

West German Embassy, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1989

The Eastern Bloc was a disaster because its political structures (and the power vacuum left by the cataclysms of two World Wars) made it possible for an ideologically driven enthusiast (ie Joe Stalin) to completely impose their brilliance on everyone else.

Dude. Stalin didn't impose his brilliance on Czechoslovakia. The Czechs* voted the Communists into power. A couple years later Czech communists turned out to be just as unwilling to be voted out of power as other communists.

(* The Slovaks did not. But there were too many Czechs and not enough balances.)

Free market capitalism coupled with monomanaical nationalism was even more disastrous for Germany

On what planet did Germany have free market capitalism? Germany went in for the same sort of government-organized cartels as Mussolini and Franco. It was an economic system wherein decisions about what ought to be done, where, for whom, and to what extent, were determined by an authoritarian process, just one predicated on government objectives that weren't minimization of inequalities and weren't managed by representative democracy.

The problem, as always, is enthusiasts. To protect our way of life, we must hang every last extremist.

"Death to all fanatics!" -- Malaclypse the Younger

 

[Emily Lake]

I will leave it to you to decide whether the mass nationalisation of almost all major industries (such as railways, coal, steel, gas, water, healthcare and passenger aviation) in the UK in the late 1940s qualifies as "the collective ownership of the means of production", and if so whether you believe that the UK subsequently became a police state. Personally I feel that it probably does, and that it didn't.

Police state? No, not exactly. Inefficient and rife with problems? For some of those absolutely.

Don't get me wrong - unfettered capitalism has lots of problems, the US has problems as a result of the corporatism that comes with relatively unfettered problems. But UK has problems too - and some of those are due to the nationalization of some of those services.

Scarcity of health care services, for one thing. Sure, it's nationalized and free to all... which isn't helpful when you can't get in to a doctor. And at throughout this past winter, I think a whole lot of UK citizens are less than pleased with the national services for heat and power.

 

[Bomb#20]

I will leave it to you to decide whether the mass nationalisation of almost all major industries (such as railways, coal, steel, gas, water, healthcare and passenger aviation) in the UK in the late 1940s qualifies as "the collective ownership of the means of production", and if so whether you believe that the UK subsequently became a police state. Personally I feel that it probably does, and that it didn't.

But perhaps that cherry isn't sweet enough for your argument.

"The Attlee government nationalised about 20% of the economy, including coal, railways, road transport, the Bank of England, civil aviation, electricity and gas, and steel."

Attlee ministry - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I will leave it to you to decide whether 20% qualifies as a system where means of production are mostly publicly owned. Personally I feel that it probably doesn't.

 

[lostone]

For those at the lower levels of income, the difference between $1200 per month and $3300 a month is very significant.

I will leave it to you to decide whether the mass nationalisation of almost all major industries (such as railways, coal, steel, gas, water, healthcare and passenger aviation) in the UK in the late 1940s qualifies as "the collective ownership of the means of production", and if so whether you believe that the UK subsequently became a police state. Personally I feel that it probably does, and that it didn't.

Police state? No, not exactly. Inefficient and rife with problems? For some of those absolutely.

Don't get me wrong - unfettered capitalism has lots of problems, the US has problems as a result of the corporatism that comes with relatively unfettered problems. But UK has problems too - and some of those are due to the nationalization of some of those services.

Scarcity of health care services, for one thing. Sure, it's nationalized and free to all... which isn't helpful when you can't get in to a doctor. And at throughout this past winter, I think a whole lot of UK citizens are less than pleased with the national services for heat and power.

Heat and power are also problems in several US states. Texas and California, for example, political opposites. Hospitals and doctors are not all that wonderful in the US, either. Perhaps we should conclude that no systems work all that well.

 

[bilby]

Scarcity of health care services, for one thing. Sure, it's nationalized and free to all... which isn't helpful when you can't get in to a doctor.

Which is a problem for all healthcare systems. The number of doctors is necessary limited by the very high and very necessary barriers to people who want to become doctors.

The question is, should you resolve this unavoidable shortage by having all patients go through a triage process which leaves the non-urgent patients waiting for long periods; Or use a wealth based process that leaves the poor untreated regardless of how urgently they need attention, while the wealthy need not wait to have even their trivial needs met?

 

[bilby]

And at throughout this past winter, I think a whole lot of UK citizens are less than pleased with the national services for heat and power.

The ones that were privatised by the Thatcher government in the 1980s? How are their failures supposed to illustrate the failure of socialism? Is socialism so evil that it still causes problems more than forty years after it's ended?

Did you think that these industries were still government owned? If you see Sid, tell him.

 

[lostone]

The wealthy can and do hire personal doctors in the US. The less wealthy have to rely on what their insurance allows. We have plenty of doctors, but our insurance based for profit health system limits our access in some ways and provides an over-abundance in others.

 

[bilby]

The wealthy can and do hire personal doctors in the US. The less wealthy have to rely on what their insurance allows.

And the uninsured?

In the UK, a homeless person who is hit by a bus will get the exact same medical attention as a wealthy businessman (or anyone else) who is in the same situation. Both will be provided with top quality treatment, not only in their urgent care (ambulance and on-scene paramedic services, Emergency department services at the nearest suitably equipped hospital), but also admission to a regular hospital ward from the Emergency department for whatever recovery period and medium term treatment is medically necessary, and post-discharge rehabilitation and follow-up services. No mention will ever be made of money throughout the process; No billing or invoicing will ever be brought to the patient's attention.

 

[lostone]

The wealthy can and do hire personal doctors in the US. The less wealthy have to rely on what their insurance allows.

And the uninsured?

In the UK, a homeless person who is hit by a bus will get the exact same medical attention as a wealthy businessman (or anyone else) who is in the same situation. Both will be provided with top quality treatment, not only in their urgent care (ambulance and on-scene paramedic services, Emergency department services at the nearest suitably equipped hospital), but also admission to a regular hospital ward from the Emergency department for whatever recovery period and medium term treatment is medically necessary, and post-discharge rehabilitation and follow-up services. No mention will ever be made of money throughout the process; No billing or invoicing will ever be brought to the patient's attention.

The uninsured are on their own. Live or die. They are outside the system.

 

[Bomb#20]

The wealthy can and do hire personal doctors in the US. The less wealthy have to rely on what their insurance allows.

And the uninsured?

In the UK, a homeless person who is hit by a bus will get <snip>

The uninsured are on their own. Live or die. They are outside the system.

Why do people hold on to these ideological non-reality-based beliefs? The uninsured go to the emergency room, get a lot of their time wasted on trying to squeeze blood from a stone, get their injuries or diseases treated, and at the end get a fat bill they won't be able to pay. The costs will get passed on to other patients, their employers, the insurers, the taxpayers, etc., in the form of inflated rates for the other patients' services. America has had socialized medicine for decades. But this is America, so of course we do our socialized medicine in the stupidest and most expensive and most inefficient way we can dream up; but it's still the real thing. This notion that America has free-market medicine and when the homeless are hit by a bus they're left to die is a left-wing strawman.

 

[lostone]

jut off of a casual google, I pulled up this:

17% of adults with health care debt declared bankruptcy or lost their home because of it. 66.5% of bankruptcies are caused directly by medical expenses, making it the leading cause for bankruptcy. As of April 2022, 14% of Americans with medical debt planned to declare bankruptcy later in the year because of it.Aug 30, 2022

 

[lostone]

Depending on the ER is not the best of options for routine health care, and degrades the services that already crowded ERs can offer.

 

[Tigers!]

Consumer drives the bus in capitalism?

I generally try to discourage my customers from driving the bus.

Yes, but everybody is an expert

 

[Tigers!]

If someone earns more and contributes the maximum that SS takes out of your paycheck, you don't get any more in benefits than someone who contributed the bare minimum. The fact that it is an entitlement system is part of why there's a maximum contribution in the first place.

I guess I should be looking for a lawyer - my draw is lower than what people who contributed more are getting. It’s also more than some people’s who made less, but they probably can’t afford lawyers.

Probably a better MP would be more useful.

"Let's kill all the lawyers"
William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.

 

[lpetrich]

Were the Nazis Socialists? | Snopes.com goes into gory detail about this issue.

"Nazi" is short for "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" - "National Socialist German Workers Party"

Some early Nazi invented that name in an effort to show that the party bridges Left and Right by using left-wing and right-wing words:

National (R) Socialist (L) German (R) Workers (L) Party

Something like

American (R) Green (L) Constitutional (R) Progressive (L) Party

Adolf Hitler considered "socialism" mostly a vote-getting slogan, and he was a firm believer in social hierarchy, including workspace hierarchy. He rejected "workers' councils" for big businesses, stating

What right do these people have to demand a share of property or even in administration?... The employer who accepts the responsibility for production also gives the workpeople their means of livelihood. Our greatest industrialists are not concerned with the acquisition of wealth or with good living, but, above all else, with responsibility and power. They have worked their way to the top by their own abilities, and this proof of their capacity – a capacity only displayed by a higher race – gives them the right to lead.

Adolf Hitler - Wikiquote

I can see all the right-wing CEO sycophants shouting "Sieg Heil!"

As to labor unions, the Nazi Party suppressed independent labor unions and created a Party-subservient one:  German Labour Front

he German Labour Front (DAF) was then created in May 1933 as the organization that was to take over the assets seized from the former trade unions. Robert Ley, who had no previous experience in labour relations, was appointed by Hitler to lead the DAF upon its creation.[5] Three weeks later, Hitler issued a decree that banned collective bargaining and stated that a group of labour trustees, appointed by him, would "regulate labour contracts" and maintain "labour peace."[6] This decree effectively outlawed strikes, since workers could not oppose the decisions of the trustees.[6] Meanwhile, Robert Ley promised "to restore absolute leadership to the natural leader of a factory—that is, the employer... Only the employer can decide."[6]

The leadership of the DAF stressed that there was no need for antagonism between workers and employers in the new Nazi state. To underline this, its laws were couched in a neo-feudal language of reciprocity. This new system of industrial relations represented a major victory for the employers, backed by the Nazi leadership, who needed the co-operation of industry in their drive to rearm.[7]

...
The DAF also gave employers the ability to prevent their workers from seeking different jobs. In February 1935, the "workbook" system was introduced, which issued every worker with a workbook that recorded his skills and past employment. These workbooks were required for employment and they were kept by the employer; if a worker desired to quit his job, the employer could refuse to release his workbook, preventing the worker from being legally employed anywhere else.[10]

More "Sieg Heil!" from the right wing.

While employees were to be meekly obedient to employers, employers in turn were expected to be obedient to the Nazi government, a system that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to want to reinvent.

But the Nazis had some rewards for being a good Nazi and submitting to the system.

o compensate for these restrictions on wages and employment, the DAF sought to provide workers with leisure and entertainment. Robert Ley explained his policy as aiming to "divert the attention of the masses from material to moral values," as he believed that "it is more important to feed the souls of men than their stomachs."[10] Thus, the DAF established the Strength through Joy organisation, which provided factory libraries and concerts, swimming pools, adult education programmes, variety performances, theatre visits, athletic events, subsidized tickets to the opera, and subsidised vacations with a focus on cruises. The number of people taking holiday cruises went from 2.3 million in 1934 to 10.3 million in 1938.[11]

The Nazis ended up building several cruise ships.

 

[Elixir]

Probably a better MP would be more useful.

I don’t think we Americans have MPs.
Every federally elected official for whom I can vote is in office.
They are overridden by scads of conservotards from places like super-rural Colorado, Texas and Mississippi.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

jut off of a casual google, I pulled up this:

17% of adults with health care debt declared bankruptcy or lost their home because of it. 66.5% of bankruptcies are caused directly by medical expenses, making it the leading cause for bankruptcy. As of April 2022, 14% of Americans with medical debt planned to declare bankruptcy later in the year because of it.Aug 30, 2022

Yeah, my Dad died from cancer, right past the point where they were having problems making the ends meet. (He hadn't told me, but I saw the writing on the wall). He was going to have difficulty affording to survive with cancer. God bless America!

Health care if you are lucky, but guns aplenty!