America can do better than Capitalism

[BoyNextDoor]

Can we learn from our mistakes and have a moral agenda the rejects Capitalism?

Imagine an Occupy a year from now raising the slogan "America can do better than Capitalism".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HP0L8vxAhc

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If you wanna understand capitalism in its pure form learn to play Poker with your own money. Socialism is playing Poker with other folks money, where you collect a fee for playing the game and the House wins every hand.

 

[Que]

That is an ill-informed point of view. Capitalism has raised more from poverty than any other system. All forms of central planning have failed spectacularly; increasing, not decreasing poverty.

Why do you want more people to become impoverished?

 

[phrodeau]

That is an ill-informed point of view. Capitalism has raised more from poverty than any other system. All forms of central planning have failed spectacularly; increasing, not decreasing poverty.

Why do you want more people to become impoverished?

All forms? Medicaid has done pretty well.

 

[phrodeau]

Capitalism has a direct impact on political power. For example, falling oil prices means that the oil companies won't be contributing as much to political campaigns. This is likely to harm Republicans in 2016, and just might change some people's minds about campaign financing.

 

[KingOrfeo]

All forms of central planning have failed spectacularly; increasing, not decreasing poverty.

Well, not true, the peoples of the USSR were much richer in 1990 than they were in 1917. The question is not whether Stalinism works -- it does -- but how its performance compares to other systems'.

Even the Stalinist model of totalitarian socialism does work -- for limited purposes, i.e., heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and -- by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but effective -- by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler's Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. No way could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period.

OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.)

From Economics Explained, by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow:

The reason it [the Soviet system] did last [as long as it did] is that in the beginning the system very much resembled a military operation. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Lenin confronted an almost totally disorganized society, and tried at first to build a "socialism" that was partly capitalist -- private farming and private small enterprise -- and partly socialist, in the form of state-owned banks and large centers of production. Russia staggered along under this mixed system for a few years, without either great success or great failure, but after Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin took command and rapidly instituted the highly centralized system we have sketched in.

Stalin's methods were ferocious and bloody, but they were successful in bringing about an immense accumulation of wealth, much as did the ruthless ways of the ancient pharoahs of Egypt and emperors of Rome or China. The difference was that whereas the latter built palaces and cities, Stalin built factories, steel mills, hydroelectric plants, and railway systems -- the ingredients of an industrial economy. The fact that Stalin's Russia was strong enough to resist Hitler's armies -- and efficient enough, after its reconstruction following World War II, to impress the world with its industrial and military capabilities -- shows that Soviet central planning was by no means a failure in its initial years. That is why "military socialism" may yet be a model for development efforts in the future. China is today a semi-military socialism which appears to be successfully negotiating the early stages of industrialization, much aided by a carefully supervised free market sector attached to the planned core. Hence the collapse of the Soviet system should not lead us to the snap judgment that centralized socialism is no longer on the agenda of the coming century. That is indeed likely to be the case with the North, but it is not a foregone conclusion in the troubled countries of the South.

THE COLLAPSE

But we are ahead of ourselves. After so successful a beginning, why did Soviet socialism finally break down? The answer is that it is a great deal easier to design and build the skeleton of a mighty economy than to run it. Building a steel plant requires good industrial draftsmanship, but running a steel plant requires good industrial management. Management, in turn, depends on the ability to adapt flows of production to ever-changing conditions -- the unforeseen contingencies, mistakes, mismatches, shortages, and overruns that are inescapable in any complex undertaking.

In a market system, these mistakes are repaired and remedied as soon as possible because they cost the factory or store money. Hence suppliers are told to hurry up, or to hold back on shipments, unprofitable items are canceled and profitable ones run overtime, the Yellow Pages are searched for last-minute necessities. None of this can happen in a society planned from top to bottom. When mistakes are made, they bring about a kind of gridlock in the flow of production, so that the pace of Soviet economic production was a never-ending sequence of feast or famine, too much or too little, with no way of remedying the errors other than recasting next year's plan or seeking the semi-illegal channels of "tolkachi" -- fixers.

 

[Sean Renaud]

That is an ill-informed point of view. Capitalism has raised more from poverty than any other system. All forms of central planning have failed spectacularly; increasing, not decreasing poverty.

Why do you want more people to become impoverished?

Laughable and worse it runs contrary to your basic stance on capitalism. Seriously how you manage to twist yourself into such knots?

Also China and Russia are both spectacular. I might not agree with their human rights policies at all but claiming their poverty has increased is so dishonest that it's insane.

 

[PoppingTom]

If you wanna understand capitalism in its pure form learn to play Poker with your own money. Socialism is playing Poker with other folks money, where you collect a fee for playing the game and the House wins every hand.

What do YOU know about socialism? Have you ever lived in a socialist system?

Socialism is just capitalism, but with state run monopolies. In capitalism, you play poker. In socialism, the state plays poker for you. You're allowed to play poker if you can guarantee to win everytime.

 

[KingOrfeo]

What do YOU know about socialism? Have you ever lived in a socialist system?

Socialism is just capitalism, but with state run monopolies. In capitalism, you play poker. In socialism, the state plays poker for you. You're allowed to play poker if you can guarantee to win everytime.

Pretty much. Under capitalism or Communism or any other system, the economy is based on people working to turn raw materials into goods and services; the difference is in how they're organized.

 

[Dumpington]

Socialism vs. Capitalism

Socialism has strangled economic growth everywhere it's ever been tried.

In blatantly Communist countries like China and the Soviet Union (which finally collapsed in 1991), socialist economic policies in business & agriculture resulted in massive famines & economic blundering that left millions dead.

In lesser Communist nations like Cuba & the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, official government socialism has resulted in over half-a-century of deep poverty and oppression. Liberals here in the United States claim that Fidel Castro would have won election after election, only Castro knew better, which is why he NEVER scheduled a free election in Cuba after taking power --- the very same thing that Hitler (a self-described National-SOCIALIST) did in Germany between 1933 & 1945! Socialist dictators always fear free elections!

Socialist nations with representative (non-Communist) governments tend to have small economies & small populations (e.g. Scandinavia) that remain afloat but don't grow much, or else they're running out of entitlement money (like Greece, Italy, & Spain).

 

[KingOrfeo]

. . . Hitler (a self-described National-SOCIALIST) . . .

That shit again?

 

[Dumpington]

KingOrfeo wrote: "That shit again?"

Yes, Hitler was shit. If there was an Olympic medal for mass-murdering, Hitler would have won the bronze, right after Mao's gold-medal and Stalin's silver.

And yes, all three of those ruthless, murdering dictators described themselves as "socialists."

I can see where that might anger those people who despise capitalism, but it's the truth nonetheless.

 

[KingOrfeo]

And yes, all three of those ruthless, murdering dictators described themselves as "socialists."

And North Korea describes itself as "Democratic."

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Capitalism has a direct impact on political power. For example, falling oil prices means that the oil companies won't be contributing as much to political campaigns. This is likely to harm Republicans in 2016, and just might change some people's minds about campaign financing.

I like your thinking but youre wrong. Oil companies will stay in the influence game whatever happens. Its the small-fry who stop contributing, and no pol cares about the small-fry.

 

[Que]

And North Korea describes itself as "Democratic."

There is nothing to prevent people from democratically choosing socialism, voting themselves plunder from the public treasury.

You know, the wort of thing "your side" is fond of?

 

[Que]

Pretty much. Under capitalism or Communism or any other system, the economy is based on people working to turn raw materials into goods and services; the difference is in how they're organized.

No. The difference is whether there is incentive to maximize production for personal gain or not.

That is why communism failed every time and in everyplace it was tried, and why it will always fail.

But wait, we will have "educators" with guns to see to it that people do their duty!

Guess what? That is a drain on productive human capital.

If the only difference was "how they are organized" and like a good little idiotic Keynesian you ignored the human element that humans under any system will always act as far as they can in line with the incentives they are offered, communism with its central planning would far outstrip capitalism for reasons of efficiency and elimination of redundant efforts. Except it doesn't.

All of those little inefficiencies of redundant efforts is where the seeds of innovation are sown.

I realize your econ 101 professor was a good little keynesnian/marxist/socialist fan but his incapacity for basic reasoning is why he was teaching idiots like you econ 101 instead of consulting for industry on micro-economic trends.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Well, not true, the peoples of the USSR were much richer in 1990 than they were in 1917. The question is not whether Stalinism works -- it does -- but how its performance compares to other systems'.

Even the Stalinist model of totalitarian socialism does work -- for limited purposes, i.e., heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and -- by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but effective -- by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler's Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. No way could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period.

OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.)

From Economics Explained, by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow:

I suggest you read Krushchevs memoir of Stalin's reign. Stalin murdered almost every expert in the USSR and survived because the Brits and Americans bailed him out.

 

[Que]

Not to mention the fact that he is comparing the advances in mechanization that improved living worldwide over the last century with the idea that somehow communism along for the ride but dragging a foot was responsible for that entire increase of standard of living in their country.

I don't know why I even bother to discuss matters economic with him, he doesn't have the most basic of foundation on Keynes. Yet he insists that Keynesian theory works and is positive that the Austrians (the he has never read) are wrong.

 

[PoppingTom]

No. The difference is whether there is incentive to maximize production for personal gain or not.

That is why communism failed every time and in everyplace it was tried, and why it will always fail.

It's less a matter of "maximizing production" (communists can do that, too) and personal gain (where is the personal gain for the ordinary Wal-Mart worker?), more a matter of organization and responsibility.

Just allow monopolies in your country - and you have the same effects like in socialism.

If the only difference was "how they are organized" and like a good little idiotic Keynesian you ignored the human element that humans under any system will always act as far as they can in line with the incentives they are offered, communism with its central planning would far outstrip capitalism for reasons of efficiency and elimination of redundant efforts.

No. Because efficiency and efforts are not the main goal of neither socialism nor monopolies in general. It's safety. Keeping the status quo.

If IBM had the monopoly on computer production, they would still sell the XT.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I suggest you read Krushchevs memoir of Stalin's reign. Stalin murdered almost every expert in the USSR and survived because the Brits and Americans bailed him out.

Yes, I know. And, still he was able to build a state capable of going toe-to-toe with the Reich! That's impressive!

 

[KingOrfeo]

There is nothing to prevent people from democratically choosing socialism, voting themselves plunder from the public treasury.

There is in North Korea.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yes, I know. And, still he was able to build a state capable of going toe-to-toe with the Reich! That's impressive!

Naaah. FDR bailed Stalin out then Hitler removed Mannsteins tanks to Italy.

 

[Sean Renaud]

There is nothing to prevent people from democratically choosing socialism, voting themselves plunder from the public treasury.

You know, the wort of thing "your side" is fond of?

Honestly it's common sense and the fact that so few people do choose this is proof of our retardism. The reality is that history has shown that is the single best way forward.

No. The difference is whether there is incentive to maximize production for personal gain or not.

That is why communism failed every time and in everyplace it was tried, and why it will always fail.

But wait, we will have "educators" with guns to see to it that people do their duty!

Guess what? That is a drain on productive human capital.

If the only difference was "how they are organized" and like a good little idiotic Keynesian you ignored the human element that humans under any system will always act as far as they can in line with the incentives they are offered, communism with its central planning would far outstrip capitalism for reasons of efficiency and elimination of redundant efforts. Except it doesn't.

All of those little inefficiencies of redundant efforts is where the seeds of innovation are sown.

I realize your econ 101 professor was a good little keynesnian/marxist/socialist fan but his incapacity for basic reasoning is why he was teaching idiots like you econ 101 instead of consulting for industry on micro-economic trends.

Communism has not failed everywhere it was tried. I would address the rest of your post but the flaw there is so radical that it needs addressing.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Can we learn from our mistakes and have a moral agenda the rejects Capitalism?

Imagine an Occupy a year from now raising the slogan "America can do better than Capitalism".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HP0L8vxAhc

maybe if your kind .... got a job?

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Honestly it's common sense and the fact that so few people do choose this is proof of our retardism. The reality is that history has shown that is the single best way forward.



Communism has not failed everywhere it was tried. I would address the rest of your post but the flaw there is so radical that it needs addressing.

again, you are a fucking lazy idiot