What is Socialism, Communism, etc?

[sarkwalvein]

Oh hell, this thing is degenerating. Try to keep on topic, I guess?

 

[mattytrog]

Communism = Everybody works for the state. The state controls everything. The economy, healthcare, defence, education.

Socialism = For the greater good of everybody. The rich will subsidise the poor, some things are controlled at state-level, free to use for citizens (ie our NHS system).

Capitalism = Race to the top. State doesn`t control citizens. Poorest people are left at the bottom. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer normally.

 

[CallmeBerto]

@kumikochan

The USA hasn't been really capitalist since the 1950's

@Lilith Valentine - On the CIA? What are you on? The CIA is apart of GOVERNMENT not Capitalism

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[QUOTE="Capitalism = Race to the top. State doesn`t control citizens. Poorest people are left at the bottom. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer normally.[/QUOTE]

Expect this isn't even a bit true. EVERYONE gets more richer under capitalism. Hell compare your life to that of 20 years ago. You are much much richer today. Not only do you have more wealth you have more free time then ever before. The really really poor are in the minority.

 

[sarkwalvein]

@kumikochan

The USA hasn't been really capitalist since the 1950's

@Lilith Valentine - On the CIA? What are you on? The CIA is apart of GOVERNMENT not Capitalism

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Capitalism = Race to the top. State doesn`t control citizens. Poorest people are left at the bottom. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer normally.

Expect this isn't even a bit true. EVERYONE gets more richer under capitalism. Hell compare your life to that of 20 years ago. You are much much richer today. Not only do you have more wealth you have more free time then ever before. The really really poor are in the minority.

Not sure about that.
In any case, (almost) everyone gets a better quality of life under any semi-functioning economy (e.g. China, India, Cuba, Pakistan, USA, compare the life standard of the average citizen of any of those to that one century ago). Probably due to progress.

What is true is that the gap intensifies starkly.

 

[The Catboy]

@kumikochan

The USA hasn't been really capitalist since the 1950's

@Lilith Valentine - On the CIA? What are you on? The CIA is apart of GOVERNMENT not Capitalism

They are part of the US government and orchestrated several attempts to overthrow Communist governments instate the same systems as the US. This still has quite a bit to do with Capitalism, but I was using it as example to explain that defining one system by it's flaws only opens the other to be defined by it's flaws as well. I was trying to bring it back on topic. It's not a shinning example of my best work and was rather poorly put together, I will give you that.

 

[Hanafuda]

Vietnam is doing pretty OK nowadays

Capitalist-based reforms. China too.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Capitalist-based reforms. China too.

USA is also doing good, with its "socialism" based reforms since the 50s. (?)
No one follows a pure model, that doesn't work really.

 

[Stephano]

The best way I can put it is socialism is for the equality of outcome rather than the equality of opportunity. A socialist government would like to have a greater roll in distribution of wealth. I believe there is a fine line in what a government should and shouldn't do for a country. For example, some say that schools and taxes for road building are socialist in nature. While I personally can't say whether they are or not, I do believe some programs like schools are necessary for a healthy society. Without such programs, it would be a pure democracy which is basically mob rule. That's why America is not a pure democracy but rather a constitutional republic. The founding fathers new that government would have to play some role to keep the country prosperous but where the line is drawn as far as how big of a role the government plays in micromanaging our lives is what separates pure socialism from pure democracy.

This isn't a perfect definition and is not intended to be. I just needed an explanation so i can post this image.

 

[KingVamp]

Again. Agreed. The government needs to work in the interest of the people, whereas our current political system rewards elected officials with a fat pension and no obligation to do anything to help people in a lower tax bracket than themselves

There are people who actually try to help people, despite how the system is. So, it isn't as gloom and doom as he makes it. That said, fixing some of the problems of the system would help a lot too.

I disagree tho. I find a social democracy to be the best system in place that brings much more wealth and prosperity to everyone then almost a pure capitalistic system that is in place in the US.

I mean, I feel like we are moving to a social democracy. Just a bit slowly.

 

[WeedZ]

Expect this isn't even a bit true. EVERYONE gets more richer under capitalism. Hell compare your life to that of 20 years ago. You are much much richer today. Not only do you have more wealth you have more free time then ever before. The really really poor are in the minority.

That depends on who you ask

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...n-america-by-18-million-people/?noredirect=on

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/22/us/america-poverty-un-report/index.html

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Expect this isn't even a bit true. EVERYONE gets more richer under capitalism. Hell compare your life to that of 20 years ago. You are much much richer today. Not only do you have more wealth you have more free time then ever before. The really really poor are in the minority.

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

Just because we have more money doesn't mean we're richer, because you've failed to factor bin increased inflation, cost of living, and compensation for productivity, in favor of an average that is skewed by the people on the top making disgusting amounts of money more than everyone else. And because you said that a "minority" of Americans live in poverty, I want to phrase it in a much more realistic manner: in 2012, roughly one out of every six Americans was living below the poverty line. And that statistic will only grow alongside wage inequality as time continues to pass

 

[WeedZ]

Not to mention the average household debt is the highest its ever been.

 

[mattytrog]

The sad thing is, to reverse this trend of insurmountable debt, which no countries in the world have a chance of paying off, we have a reset button. This has been used twice in the last century. In 1914 and 1939.

It's only a matter of time before things boil over. War = money. Why do you think so many leaders have been hell bent on starting one?

 

[Hanafuda]

USA is also doing good, with its "socialism" based reforms since the 50s. (?)
No one follows a pure model, that doesn't work really.

Generally, I agree. Capitalism ultimately concentrates wealth. Communism ultimately concentrates power with the State. Neither is ideal. But in choosing which side gets the thumb on the scale, I definitely prefer limited government.

 

[Xzi]

Generally, I agree. Capitalism ultimately concentrates wealth. Communism ultimately concentrates power with the State. Neither is ideal. But in choosing which side gets the thumb on the scale, I definitely prefer limited government.

Capitalism concentrates power with a small percentage of wealthy oligarchs, and you end up with the same situation because they control the police/private militaries. Unfettered capitalism leads to dystopia just as quickly as unfettered communism does, which is why you need other influences (like socialism) and rules/regulations to keep capitalism from becoming too heavy-handed in choosing winners and losers.

 

[Quantumcat]

The ONLY system that has ever brought so much wealth and prosperity to everyoneso few

FTFY

 

[Quantumcat]

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

Just because we have more money doesn't mean we're richer, because you've failed to factor bin increased inflation, cost of living, and compensation for productivity, in favor of an average that is skewed by the people on the top making disgusting amounts of money more than everyone else. And because you said that a "minority" of Americans live in poverty, I want to phrase it in a much more realistic manner: in 2012, roughly one out of every six Americans was living below the poverty line. And that statistic will only grow alongside wage inequality as time continues to pass

Even if it was 1 in 10,000, those people are human beings, and nobody should have to choose between starving or letting their kids go hungry, or dying of an easily treatable illness.

The best society would be the one proposed by Socrates - where everyone gets together and works out how it is going to function, then they go to sleep and wake up in a random position in that society. This means all positions have to have their advantages and disadvantages, and nobody gets all the crap while others get all the luxuries.

In reality, a democracy where the majority have a working empathy lobe in their brain (mix of socialism and capitalism perhaps) is the best we can do, I think.

 

[kumikochan]

Even if it was 1 in 10,000, those people are human beings, and nobody should have to choose between starving or letting their kids go hungry, or dying of an easily treatable illness.

The best society would be the one proposed by Socrates - where everyone gets together and works out how it is going to function, then they go to sleep and wake up in a random position in that society. This means all positions have to have their advantages and disadvantages, and nobody gets all the crap while others get all the luxuries.

In reality, a democracy where the majority have a working empathy lobe in their brain (mix of socialism and capitalism perhaps) is the best we can do, I think.

So a social democracy basically like is in place in Europe

 

[Taleweaver]

They are part of the US government and orchestrated several attempts to overthrow Communist governments instate the same systems as the US. This still has quite a bit to do with Capitalism, but I was using it as example to explain that defining one system by it's flaws only opens the other to be defined by it's flaws as well. I was trying to bring it back on topic. It's not a shinning example of my best work and was rather poorly put together, I will give you that.

I only partially agree with that (and it seems to me like you've read up on the works of Naomi Klein as well).

The idea Klein outlines best in 'the shock doctrine' (and refers to in her later books) is that capitalism - or at least the free market capitalism version of it - simply cannot survive unless enforced by some sort of militia, and as a co-ordinated response to a public tragedy. In that light, the CIA has meddled in numerous global operations that...well...let's just leave it at "if other countries would do similar things with the USA as target, they'd immediately be labeled terrorists" (you might recall a certain Al-Qaeda rebel group being funded by the CIA before they started doing to the USA what the CIA intended them to do against their local government).

The thing is...the countries that are targeted weren't all communistic. Some had more socialistic forms of leadership, and it wouldn't surprise me if some even adopted capitalism to begin with. The common idea was more that they minimized or even blocked USA's influence more than these liked.

 

[The Catboy]

I only partially agree with that (and it seems to me like you've read up on the works of Naomi Klein as well).

The idea Klein outlines best in 'the shock doctrine' (and refers to in her later books) is that capitalism - or at least the free market capitalism version of it - simply cannot survive unless enforced by some sort of militia, and as a co-ordinated response to a public tragedy. In that light, the CIA has meddled in numerous global operations that...well...let's just leave it at "if other countries would do similar things with the USA as target, they'd immediately be labeled terrorists" (you might recall a certain Al-Qaeda rebel group being funded by the CIA before they started doing to the USA what the CIA intended them to do against their local government).

The thing is...the countries that are targeted weren't all communistic. Some had more socialistic forms of leadership, and it wouldn't surprise me if some even adopted capitalism to begin with. The common idea was more that they minimized or even blocked USA's influence more than these liked.

To be fair, it wasn't really a post I made to be a history lesson, just an example of what it looked like to define another based on it's negative history. All of his posts were simply making a point to point out all the flaws in Communism and declare that as being Communism as a whole. I rebuttal by doing the same with Capitalism to show that the negative aren't the only defining traits. It was pretty poorly thrown together though because I was extremely tired from work.

 

[SG854]

I'm actually going to make a Blog explaining why the belief the Rich getting Richer and preventing the poor from rising to the top is non sense in a capitalist society. And Why Minimum Wage laws are horrible. It's going to take me awhile to type though.