Does socialism work?

DateYutaka said:



right when fior the most part he most porftable anything has not innvated in years

i use video games like COD for an example over have thye inovate d there market in the last 5 years in game play mechanics or story telling over all not
there
but it make money hand over foot and as i have said veyr little to no innovation in gameplay mechanics or story telling not even any real technical innovations [ it engine has been the same for years ]


so your wrong here

Takuan_Soho said:


But it is not "mixed".

No matter how much the government screws with "distribution" it doesn't become socialism. Socialism is about production and the ownership of capital. No "mixed system" pretends to deal with the production side of the equation, thus they are not "socialist".

Yomiyuki said:

i have no clue what you meant by this, or how it was relevant to that specific comment of mine, my asian brethren.

DateYutaka said:
hecne why there has never tulr been a socialist nation either [ minus myabe 1930 Catalonia] were the workers not the state ran the mean pf production

most right winger fail tomunder the difference state owned and worker owned

i say this as a libertarian leftist

Takuan_Soho said:


As you pointed out there has never been "worker owned capital", nor will there ever be. That sort of is the point, and ultimate failing, of socialism.

DateYutaka said:
Catalonia in the 30''s was this cloest there has ever been [ untill the Stalinist betrayed us] there has never even been close to an acap nation

Takuan_Soho said:


In other words, socialism may be able to work if not for communism....

Pardon me, for all the faults of Capitalism, at least it doesn't lead to stalinism....

DateYutaka said:
but as that qoute says Capitalism does lead to Fascism

traed said:
No there has been several. In fact before capitalism and serfdoms all capital was owned by workers and money didn't exist as a goverment regulated currency.

traed said:
pardon me, for all the faults of Capitalism, at least it doesn't lead to stalinism...USSR was state-capitalism.

Takuan_Soho said:


...................



Agree, thank god for capitalism, it saved us from socialism (i.e. stalinism). And Alder aside, pretending that communism isn't communism...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBf66wAMpVQ

j0x said:


i got no idea, i did not read the linked paper there

and what are this new emerging jobs you are saying? with how high the potential of artificial intelligence is it can replace any intellectual jobs too, plus you are forgetting that a lot of people just have average intellect so they cannot normally qualify for high skilled jobs right?

NekkoArc said:
I mean streamers, Youtubers, etc that are not REAL JARBZ that could easily fall under the radar of this sort of study.

You forget that new tech is coming up with micro-chips that you insert it in the brain to cure mental illnesses, increase concentration and could possibly make us 10x smarter. This will happen possibly before we have a "fully functioning" AI that basically behaves like us.

I assume AI will be less needy for the sake of convenience in maintenance. If people are directing the market with demand, AI will not "lead us". Plus, how do we know that AI will be any different than what we have now? New tech is just humanity's extended list of tools to make life easier and I don't think humans will endow AI with the facility that could possibly disobey or do harm to society "willfully". That is a receipt for disaster.

greenteaweasel said:
It's an interesting juxtaposition to see movements for socialist leaders (like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders) gain traction while Venezuela, a government based on socialist ideology, has pretty much collapsed.

Do you guys think socialism works or is it just a fallacy young people are consumed in?

xrockxz89 said:
Socialism might be a bit much, but I'm surely not opposed to social welfare.

To me a little bit more of a communist spirit would do wonders for America ^_^ Not that we actually have to do anything more than have social welfare policies.

traed said:



USSR was state-capitalism.

Monad said:

Bullshit. State handling things isn't capitalism by default. It is communism.

libertarianmind said:


We haven't. And intelligent libertarians like Friedman or Hayek understand that it's not practical to have unfettered capitalism. Only radical ancaps and minarchists want that

omfgplzstop said:
@Pirating_Ninja
Crony Capitalism isn't trickle-down economics. It is capitalism where the government interferes in the wrong ways and supports certain corporations over others, either directly or indirectly, as is the case in many areas of the US economy today.

The way minimum wage works is this: You force people to pay a certain wage for an employer they need. Thus, to cover the higher cost, they have several options.
They can employ the employee for less hours, which allows him to make more money in the same amount of hours if he manages to find another job to fill the gap, but otherwise ONLY hurts the business.
They can fire the employee and replace him with a higher quality one, which is probably not the intended result.
They can fire the employee and avoid replacing him altogether, because they need more money to function.
Or they can raise the prices on their products/services, resulting in a higher cost of living for everyone else.
I am opposed to forcing someone to work or to employ someone else, so if the guy gets fired he's screwed unless you are not opposed to that, in which case I'll point to Venezuela and Soviet Russia where they've already tried forcing people to work.
No minimum wage allows experienceless employees to negotiate with employers in order to acquire experience and be able to demand a higher wage when applying for a job elsewhere or a raise in the same place, preventing the situation many people are now in where they're stuck looking for places that are willing to hire lower-quality workers.

America was not at all capitalistic during the great depression, exactly the opposite. Hoover (which is funny since I always see people present him as a laissez-faire guy just because he was a republican) and FDR's incessant meddling served to elongate the depression, significantly. Recessions can be healed by the market itself--in fact, by June of 1930 the unemployment rate, which spiked to 9% in the stock market crash, was already back down to 6.3%. They aren't a failure of capitalism, just a sign that the market is faced with changes it needs to adjust to. Prior to the Depression it was indeed capitalist, and it had grown quite a bit during Coolidge's presidency, with which the vast majority of people were happy. The beginning of the Great Depression, nevertheless, had plenty to do with government. For example, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, which resulted in the inflationary booms that led to the malinvestments leading to the stock market crash (which wasn't the only cause for the depression).

The unemployment rate in 1931 was 16.3%, and fluctuated on the way to 17.2% by 1939. To claim that FDR's policies (large parts of which were extrapolated from Hoover's programs according to, among others, Rexford Tugwell, part of FDR's "Brain Trust") helped the economy is dishonest, or at least ignorant. At best they provided public relief while the artificial wages and inflation, as well as his absurd regulations (government agent decides how much people have to pay as wage and how much people have to be paid as wage, disagreements lead to industry shut down, bank reforms prohibiting expansion, etc.), kept the economy from improving.
FDR's public programs were generally wasteful and counterproductive to the economy, and the Supreme Court even outlawed some of them (for example the NRA in 1935 and the AAA in 1936). Even his own treasury secretary said, "we are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." He also talked about how after 8 years the unemployment rate is back to where they started except they have a debt now too.
This all got so much better in the war because FDR's pre war policies were essentially war policies. The massive spending on army rather than artificial, wasteful and mandatory public programs solved the unemployment issue and gave people money that was NOT causing inflation.

After the war, congress cut taxes. government spending fell from $85 billion in 1945 to 30 in 1946. Between 1944 and 1948, government spending was brought down from 44% of GNP to 8.9. I heard this without a source, but controls were also supposedly lifted, which makes enough sense for me to believe unsourced. I could probably find it if I looked hard enough. Regardless, some people argue that THIS is what ended the Depression rather than the war's consequences, though I believe it's a combination of both.

The 50s and 60s were an economic success for multiple reasons. First, the fact that government did not impede the economy as much--the effective highest tax bracket, according to a calculation that includes capital gain, by Marc Linder, a law professor, was 49% in 1953. Further calculations show that it dropped further throughout the decade, reaching a mere 31% in 1960. Even the Internal Revenue Service did not estimate it as any higher than 70%, which are all much lower than the official 91% recorded and touted, which barely even applied to anyone. A 2009 study (http://www.nber.org/papers/w15369.pdf) calculated that the AVERAGE marginal tax rates, inclusive of federal and state income taxes as well as social security taxes, equaled 25% in the 50s, as opposed to the 2000s' 37%. It's possible that effective taxes were even lower. The Tax Notes magazine found that those earning more than $100,000 back then (which is much more now) paid less than 5% of the total taxes collected, which is significantly less than what the rich pay today. The aforementioned highly likely deregulation (I find it hard to believe that FDR's tens of thousands of new laws were still adhered to when the government was not in charge of everything, seeing as how most of the laws related to the government programs and intervention) is also relevant.

The other element of the economic success is the enormous boon the war was to the people and the war research that followed, leading to developments in electronics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, atomic energy and other fields--the fact that other nations were recovering from their damages during WW2 allowed the US to function as a world research center, as well as for American factories to export goods that could not be created elsewhere. Sales of synthetics and electronics, for example, soared. The planes and ships of the war had direct peacetime applications, and the large amount of money accumulated by US citizens during the war was available to support the economy. There are other reasons the economy was booming after the war, but Roosevelt's policy was not part of it.

You risked your life eating canned food? Capitalism allows you to spot an opportunity there and start producing food of higher quality, which you can then sell for higher prices. Which did happen, Pillsbury and Washburn for the first example that comes to mind.
Working 12 hours for 2 meals may seem like a terrible thing to you, but it was way better than the alternatives in those times. They aren't any different from modern people in third world countries, "exploited" by capitalists who actually provide them something. There's also the fact that with decreases in prices and more innovation, wages steadily increased, and that the low standards of living then, which were not BECAUSE of capitalism but rather existed alongside it, were constantly improving until they became much better for everyone--America's economy grew by over 400% between 1860 and 1900. 440,000 patents were issued during the same period. Less hours of work eventually produced the same products, making life much easier for workers. Furthermore, the bottom class, of people from the slums who were not skilled at work, are the ones this applied to. The middle class, as in, majority of the population, was absolutely better off.
You also don't mention how the monopolies were created by people who were not any richer than others when they started; Rockefeller and Carnegie, for example, crushed their competitors through clever deals and foresight, effectively earning their monopoly by their own virtues until later when they got state intervention to make it easier. Also regarding Carnegie, like many others, he received his education at a free school, gifted to his town by a philanthropist, the kind of which were much more common when the state wasn't taking money from them to supposedly give to the poor. Furthermore, monopolies are not invariably bad--the above examples both significantly reduced the prices of their products, Carnegie from $160 per ton to $17 in a quarter century and Rockefeller from ¢30 to ¢5.9. Both of them did so in their road to attaining their monopoly and kept improving, because in order to maintain their monopoly with no government intervention, they had to remain innovative and responsive to consumer demands, as well as obviously offer desirable products in affordable prices. Both of them, among many others, improved the standard of life for Americans. Monopolies are only bad if the ones holding them have complete control over the market (as in, invariably prevent competitors from ever trying to rise) AND their products are necessary for consumers (i.e. health, food). Out of all the 17 monopolies in the Gilded Ages, the only ones where prices didn't decrease (usually significantly) were the match industry and the castor oil industry, which I'm sure you'll agree were not exactly necessary--they were services improving your life, but their producers pitched them at a certain price.
Without government intervention, complete control over a market requires very specific circumstances and is very rarely achieved. Even in the case of the incomplete monopolies of the Gilded Age, some were assisted through government intervention--Carnegie enjoyed steel tariffs for a time, for example. Patents and copyrights were used to suppress competition in some cases. Land was also often assigned on the basis of political pull rather than trade. All this also ignores the heavy impairment to freedom that the anti-homosexual, nonwhite and women laws were. Calling the Gilded Age an accurate representation of capitalism is wrong. Regardless, maintaining a government-free monopoly is not as easy as people like to claim--a monopoly is still a business. If it lowers prices too much in order to drive competition out, it loses money much faster than that competition. But even after it drives out the competition, as soon as it tries to raise prices to a point that gives a high enough profit margin, new competitors can enter to take advantage of that profit margin and it would be forced to lower prices again. The fact that consumers continuously receive the product at a cheaper than normal price means the demand goes down and it takes longer for the monopoly to recover.

After the war, poverty rates steadily declined. But then the war on poverty happened (1965 or 1967, don't remember), and effective percentages of poverty, despite the fact that standards of living have improved enough to make it significantly harder to be considered poor, have INCREASED. The lower class expanded, because the welfare state allowed them to do so. The taxes on the middle class have slowed economic growth and hurt families. The increase in crime rates resulting from the decrease in responsibility also costed middle class people money.
America has almost 200 welfare programs. It spends a trillion a year on these, excluding Medicare and Social Security. A quarter of that would get all of the poor to the poverty line. But it won't stop them from being poor. Gifts don't make you wealthy. The reason poor people stay poor is because they don't try to improve, are bad at managing money, or had a child out of wedlock or before having a secure job, 95% of the time. The reason they don't try to improve is obvious; when the state gives you money, when you believe that all of your issues are a result of victimization, you don't try to improve your situation in any way that isn't complaining. When you depend on welfare, you sometimes don't WANT to make enough to get out of it. The bit about managing money is also obvious. If you work but don't have money, you used it on something. Unless you had a child before getting a secure job or married, you probably didn't use it very well.
No one wants to get rid of these programs because it means they lose votes--because they've now made the poor depend on them, or in most cases develop a mentality that doesn't see any alternative.

I don't see too many differences between Sanders's version and actual socialism. I don't know which kind of socialism people are advocating for here, so I'll just attack possibilities:

A high tax rate disincentivizes work. The same applies to having all your needs fulfilled. This is almost invariably what has led to dictatorships in communist countries trying to force people to work. Socialism depends on everyone willing to work for everyone's sake. When there's no other incentive than the betterment of the world, it collapses, because not everyone care about the betterment of the world. Often, when high taxes are utilized to (immorally) milk the rich, they eventually end up leaving. France is a recent example where they had to drop the taxes to stop the rich from leaving and taking away the money they provided for public goods.

Consider this. Let's say we enacted socialism. Let's say I have a friend who can sing well. In order for him to sing, I'll do anything. But he doesn't want to, and he doesn't need anything. I can't offer him payment to sing for me. But me and a bunch of other people want to hear him sing. So we either force him to, try to pay him SOMEHOW (in which case socialism collapses) or have to contend with the fact that we'll never hear him sing. There simply aren't enough singers in the entire society willing to invest their time to replace him, because there's no incentive for them to do so. Meaning we're either stuck without singers or we try to force them. @traed, you said the incentive will be better than profit, but you have everything you described in Capitalism already--the only difference would be taking away the profit. Already, in capitalism, when trying to make a profit, you try to understand what will better the lives of yourself or others, so that people will enter a voluntary transaction with you. The desire for fame doesn't suddenly disappear when you try to make a profit.

Another relevant aspect of socialism is that it isn't really compatible with multiculturalism. Nordic socialism hasn't collapsed yet (but it's on the way there, and this is why they're starting to elect more economically right governments) because they are very ethnically homogeneous, and have a united culture. There's no tribalism to ruin it like in the US. They also have the US paying for their defense budget and make their revenues using a free market system, which they then through taxation (approx. 60% income tax on the middle class) distribute to social net programs. Like I said though, they're moving to the right because their economic growth is incredibly slow and people want cheaper prices, as well as the fact that inevitably, despite their culture encouraging work (heard about this offhandedly so take it with a grain of salt, although obviously it makes sense), unemployment is on the rise and they're running out of money (in case it wasn't clear, these I didn't hear offhandedly).

When there's no price mechanism, when everyone just provides the fixed amounts of a thing, unaware of the amount of demand for that thing, there are shortages. If everyone tries to increase their production capacity to avoid this, they will have to buy resources, and if the resources are not sold but given, they will run out of them and need to find/export new ones. In things like food, shortages are dangerous.

Finally, and most importantly, it is immoral. The idea that I owe you something because you exist is immoral. The idea that because I make something more people want, I need to give away a larger amount of my money, that because I managed to amass a fortune I need to give away more of it is just wrong, and forcing it onto people will only lead to suffering.

Personally, I believe the role government should play in the economy is preventing fraud and protecting what I consider to be rights by fighting theft, coercion or any other impeachments on freedom.
Regarding welfare benefits, the only one I think the government (or preferably, municipalities and states) ought to provide is payment for education up to high school, because good education is the most important thing for a society and the economic state of the people. Even then, I think it should be done in a manner that tries to utilize the efficiency of the free market, such as the voucher system, and that regulations and restrictions should therefore not be imposed, which will improve the awful system that's currently in place and allow students to actually prosper. Likely, when schools need to compete and don't have someone dictating what they teach, they will offer programs that could replace a degree in the market.

@_Ako_
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. In contrast, socialism has resulted in deaths of millions and collapse of societies (albeit not always due to its own issues, because outside forces interfered before it collapsed). I discussed the few governments that work socially above, but the bottom line is that the Nordic countries operate on a free market system trying to avoid government intervention and just use taxes to provide social programs, don't have cultural tribalism, have the US pay for their defense budget (big one), have low economic growth due to 60% taxes on middle class and such so prices take longer to decrease (also very high taxes on some luxuries), and some of them (Denmark for example) have started moving to the right because the welfare state increased unemployment and put them at risk of running out of money.

@TheBrainInTheJar
We haven't had complete capitalism in all aspects, because government keeps interfering where it shouldn't, but the free market mechanism has demonstrated its effectiveness countless times when the government stayed away (and even when it didn't, the theory worked). So the principle has been proven, but the system was not wholly or unobtrusively implemented. Usually government, often encouraged by lobbying big corporations, imposes regulations and turns the economic system into crony capitalism, which is gay.

@j0x
There's nothing wrong with capitalism collapsing when literally everything is automated. As has happened before, automation will make people lose jobs; this time it will be much more extreme, and likely they would not be able to recover. But because it would be so extreme this time, they would also not NEED to recover, and space communism would come about naturally, maybe costing people jobs for a few years, but eventually it will stabilize, albeit not into capitalism. I do wish it had more time left, but whatever. I considered advocating for socialism for a while because I wanted to see economic growth curbed and postpone the singularity, since losing my humanity or my appreciation for art is my biggest fear.

hazerddex said:
@Monad
you don't need money to be motivated.

actually a lot of the greatest things out there come from people who do it because they enjoy it and not because they need money.

do you think things like Fiction books would be good if the author did not enjoy writing?
or anime if the person did not enjoy making anime?

omfgplzstop said:


Business owners are the ones providing services and making your life easier.
They're also the ones providing jobs to people who need money to survive.
If the government doesn't interfere, which almost always results in either everyone suffering or the rich playing around the government regulations because they can afford it, competition allows businesses, workers and standards of living to prosper.

greenteaweasel said:
It's an interesting juxtaposition to see movements for socialist leaders (like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders) gain traction while Venezuela, a government based on socialist ideology, has pretty much collapsed.

Do you guys think socialism works or is it just a fallacy young people are consumed in?

Yomiyuki said:
the u.s is not a purely capitalist country.
this is just not true.
a capitalist country closer to a free market would be much more successful than outright socialism countries. without the povery too.

JustaBrer said:
Yes, it does. No job should be worth more than another. We all must work together, and it is important that people receive equal acknowledgement for all their hard work. However, we are not ready for socialism. Some day.

daky-kun said:


Amen!

I just hope that day will come soon.

hypocrite_tenma said:
no, but I dont think thats what Sanders wants. He just wants us closer to a democracy than an oligarchy, or whatever ruled by money is called. Being closer to a democracy appears to be socialism to some people though.

But I do think capitalism works in the long run. The problem is selfish individuals that rip off consumers/selling them junk they do not need. But this isnt really capitalisms fault, it is the individual's fault. So we should just be more wary of white collar crime. But anti white collar crime =/= anti capitalism, although they usually homogenize for some reason.
Also consumers should be held accountable too. I think they complain about rich CEOs yet they keep spending money on stuff they dont need and supporting the CEOs. Why people spend so much money is a psychological issue though, I dont really know the answer to why.

AnnoKano said:


The economic collapse of Venezuela is far more complicated than simply being a result of socialist economic policies. You are ignoring factors like the collapse in value of its main export (oil) and economic sanctions placed on it by the United States.





Please identify a "more" capitalist country.

IcyGlacier said:
Im from Venezuela and the main reason we are kinda fucked up is because of our Retarded President (Used to be a bus driver, No education and its funny to heard the stupid words he uses when giving a speech etc.), before our current president, we had Hugo Chavez which was a socialist as well but the country was running better than it is atm, but at the end, if Chavez didn't die, the socialism was going to fuck the country up at some point in the future.

The government robs the money from the country and doesn't uses it the way its supposed to be used and the president is a Muppet that lets our country die with its people, many people are starving here, the salaries are not enough to be used in groceries the entire month, you cant buy anything good besides food to survive and you cant buy anime unless youre rich here.

edit: sorry for my bad english.

Yomiyuki said:

thats not what i meant.
i meant its not u.s. capitalism that people support or mean when they say they prefer capitalism or communism. idk how people dont notice that its full on crony capitalism.

Grey-Zone said:
It would probably not. Sure you can enjoy your work if you like it even if you don't get something like money, but what if unfortunately, say, 70% of people just happens to enjoy something like taste testing and nothing else for work?

What if only 1% like working in food production? And less than 0.001% like to work in garbage collection?

Now you might say "but wait! perhaps now it wouldn't work, but what about when automation reaches a certain stage where it may work out?" that might be so, but there are still some dangers like we could easily become a Dystopia similar to the one in "Brave New World" and as we have witnessed in recent years, the more mass production we get into to rise the quantity, the more the quality falls.
For example a toaster from 20 years ago that has been in constant use since then would often keep working longer from this point on than even a newly made toaster you buy today. The decrease of quality in products would probably not get much better, escpacially if it's to sustain the whole of at least the western civilisation with automated food-production, as well essential limited-lifetime electronic devices.

Then there is also the "human factor". As everyone should know by now pretty much every system sounds quite perfect on paper and as long as it's untested for whatever reason, you can just insist on the delusion that it will work EXACTLY as the theory states. But even in an "automated socialistic society" someone has to "regulate" things, be it establishing and maintaining the limits of what people could do and what not (e.g. legislators and law enforcement/police) as well deal with outside threats assuming the automated socialistic society hasn't completely taken over the world yet (military) and most importantly it needs someone who allocates/manages the robots/machines. In the end you have to amass power somewhere (government, even if only locally), or less risk anarchy, or take the risk of giving the control to the robots, which would require pretty much unlimited trust to whoever built/programmed those robots, both in terms of skill as well as trustworthyness, which would again indicate higher risk than before.


Compared to that with our cronysm-infested capitalism it seems that at least relevant powers somewhat neutralize it each other enough for there to be a sufficient level of stability. Even though it sounds like the most ridiculous and unscientific out of everything about Capitalism in itself, the so-called "invisible hand of Capitalism" still seems to be the most important aspect of it and what gives it the edge over systems like Socialism.

Monad said:
Bullshit. State handling things isn't capitalism by default. It is communism.

Monad said:


Seriously are you people that diluted? No job is worth more than another?
I recently had an operation. An amazing surgeon fix my problem amazingly well and saved me of a lot harder life without even leaving a sign of the problem.
The guy was amazing and saves so many people.
Are you telling me his work isn't worth more than the guy cutting movie tickets?
Just get out of here.

Takuan_Soho said:


...................

Neo-X said:
Socialism can't work as long as the human has egoism.
But here in Germany we are teached that Germany itself is a semisocialist state.
Because everyone get's et least the existence minimum from the government. And yeah, many people are abusing it, so what? At least we have nearly no homeless people, and who is homeless in Germany want's it.
Every homeless can go to German officials anytime and demand the socalled "Hartz 4" or "Sozialhilfe", wich are basically social security systems. They don't have to work for it and get a small flat plus some money monthly for free.
Even if you get too few money from work you can demand Hartz4.

So yeah, it works if it's established partly, but socialism like in the USSR with "Everyone gets the same" and 5-year-economy-plans can't work with humans. Too much egoists.

Grey-Zone said:
It would probably not. Sure you can enjoy your work if you like it even if you don't get something like money, but what if unfortunately, say, 70% of people just happens to enjoy something like taste testing and nothing else for work?

What if only 1% like working in food production? And less than 0.001% like to work in garbage collection?

IcyGlacier said:
Im from Venezuela and the main reason we are kinda fucked up is because of our Retarded President (Used to be a bus driver, No education and its funny to heard the stupid words he uses when giving a speech etc.), before our current president, we had Hugo Chavez which was a socialist as well but the country was running better than it is atm, but at the end, if Chavez didn't die, the socialism was going to fuck the country up at some point in the future.

The government robs the money from the country and doesn't uses it the way its supposed to be used and the president is a Muppet that lets our country die with its people, many people are starving here, the salaries are not enough to be used in groceries the entire month, you cant buy anything good besides food to survive and you cant buy anime unless youre rich here.

edit: sorry for my bad english.

SurprisedKyou said:
It does if you are a democrat I guess.

traed said:
No there has been several. In fact before capitalism and serfdoms all capital was owned by workers and money didn't exist as a goverment regulated currency.

j0x said:


the main goal of capitalism is maximizing profit while minimizing cost though so that is why its prone on making people greedy and doing cheap labor, Bernie Sanders knows that the rich gets more richer while the poor gets more poorer currently, you will hear news that only 8 rich people holds the same wealth as half of the world population and that shows that the new wealth are mostly going to the top 1% only while your middle class there in USA for example continue to decrease so there are actually more people entering poverty

traed said:

It's called state-capitalism. Just look it up. I didn't say it's normal capitalism.

traed said:

Venezuela isnt socialist. It's a planned economy with protectionist policies in a capitalist framework. It's not fully capitalist though obviously so it's a bit complicated. Your economy is fucked because of the US pairing up with Saudi Arabia to commit a financial attack on your country by fucking up oil prices which is what a large part of the Venezuelan economy is backed on. The rest is from the president not handling that type of economy well.

Grey-Zone said:
It would probably not. Sure you can enjoy your work if you like it even if you don't get something like money, but what if unfortunately, say, 70% of people just happens to enjoy something like taste testing and nothing else for work?

What if only 1% like working in food production? And less than 0.001% like to work in garbage collection?

Now you might say "but wait! perhaps now it wouldn't work, but what about when automation reaches a certain stage where it may work out?" that might be so, but there are still some dangers like we could easily become a Dystopia similar to the one in "Brave New World" and as we have witnessed in recent years, the more mass production we get into to rise the quantity, the more the quality falls.
For example a toaster from 20 years ago that has been in constant use since then would often keep working longer from this point on than even a newly made toaster you buy today. The decrease of quality in products would probably not get much better, escpacially if it's to sustain the whole of at least the western civilisation with automated food-production, as well essential limited-lifetime electronic devices.

Then there is also the "human factor". As everyone should know by now pretty much every system sounds quite perfect on paper and as long as it's untested for whatever reason, you can just insist on the delusion that it will work EXACTLY as the theory states. But even in an "automated socialistic society" someone has to "regulate" things, be it establishing and maintaining the limits of what people could do and what not (e.g. legislators and law enforcement/police) as well deal with outside threats assuming the automated socialistic society hasn't completely taken over the world yet (military) and most importantly it needs someone who allocates/manages the robots/machines. In the end you have to amass power somewhere (government, even if only locally), or less risk anarchy, or take the risk of giving the control to the robots, which would require pretty much unlimited trust to whoever built/programmed those robots, both in terms of skill as well as trustworthyness, which would again indicate higher risk than before.


Compared to that with our cronysm-infested capitalism it seems that at least relevant powers somewhat neutralize it each other enough for there to be a sufficient level of stability. Even though it sounds like the most ridiculous and unscientific out of everything about Capitalism in itself, the so-called "invisible hand of Capitalism" still seems to be the most important aspect of it and what gives it the edge over systems like Socialism.

traed said:

Venezuela isnt socialist. It's a planned economy with protectionist policies in a capitalist framework. It's not fully capitalist though obviously so it's a bit complicated. Your economy is fucked because of the US pairing up with Saudi Arabia to commit a financial attack on your country by fucking up oil prices which is what a large part of the Venezuelan economy is backed on. The rest is from the president not handling that type of economy well.

Soverign said:


So let me get this straight. The US and Saudi Arabia stopped the entire world from buying Venezuela's one export. Oil.

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/venezuela.aspx
Executive Orders

13692 - Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela (March 9, 2015)

Then to top it off, we somehow caused their Government to really stick it to us by creating a food shortage and doing like the dude just told you about squandering tax money.

Damn. We are good!

Monad said:
There is no such thing as state-capitalism. Wherever you read that bullshit you should go and slap the idiot that wrote it in the face. Is like saying sour-sweet. It's ether the one or the other. Capitalism at it's core is about free trade and antagonism between individuals and companies. You can't have that with the state controlling everything therefore you can't have capitalism.

Monad said:
Now Venezuela isn't socialist ether. Just about anything to excuse your communistic delusions.
You think you are dreaming of a utopia but you are dreaming of a dystopia. Get it to your damn head.

traed said:

They didn't stop them from buying it they devalued it. Look it up. You will find different countries blamed but it's always the same story the economy collapsed from oil.

traed said:

They didn't stop them from buying it they devalued it. Look it up.

Monad said:


The reason 8 rich people hold so much wealth worldwide is not because of capitalism but because of the national banking system that allows central banks to print money as debt with interest that other people have to pay while the stockholders of central banks get richer and richer.
Capitalism doesn't have any chapter where it demands that money are created as debt with interest.

It's really funny how naive dreamers you are about that Bernie dude or your little socialistic dreams. You fail to get reality completely. But your dreams for utopia only lead to dystopia and you fail to realize as such. His wife tried to run a university with this little socialist dreams and it went bankrupt. I kind of wish you get the big socialist you are dreaming about just to see the reality of your delusion.

Monad said:
No decent economy collapses by a single thing falling in price. Also oil like many things will have ups and downs in price. It will be inevitable that at some point it will have a low price.

Soverign said:


I don't need to look it up. If Venezuela could export more efficiently, (cough Capatalism) then they could easily compete with Saudi Arabia. They would have no shortage of customers for their oil. You know... the same thing kinda sorta helped bring down the USSR. Just sayin. Or do they need dirty US Pig dollars to stay afloat? I mean, that is kinda funny.

traed said:

Saying capitalism like that doesn't mean anything to me. What are you considering efficient or inefficient? You're being far too vague.

Soverign said:
[I can't really explain it to you since I doubt you have ever worked. Correct me if I am wrong here.

But the assumption that you can produce a good or service in a very inefficient manner and still compete with the very efficient is a symptom of all Socialism and Communism.

In your little society after all, everyone is rewarded the same. No more or no less correct?

I mean, if it even works as intended and the party officials don't need just a little more than everyone else, am I right? I mean, they work so hard dang it!

It is also the height of arrogance to believe that you can bite the hand that feeds and there will be no repercussions.
If you need the US to buy your fucking trade good, then probably not the best idea to make them an enemy no? But I mean, this can apply to everyone.

traed said:

That's not an argument because it's irrelevant to your further points and is nothing but a personal attack.

This is just retarded. Not only are you claiming it's always inefficient you refuse to define inefficient or efficient. You refuse to explain why you think it's inefficient and prove it always leads to that. This is just meaningless rambling.

Not correct in most cases and certainly wrong with Venezuela.

Your point?

The US started bad relations by performing an attempted coup, or at least allegedly did which is definitely in it's playbook.

Nothing you said answered my question which tells me you didnt know what you meant either.


*sigh* people in this thread

Chávez's version of Bolivarianism, although drawing heavily from Simón Bolívar's ideals, was also drawn from the writings of Marxist historian Federico Brito Figueroa. Chávez was also influenced by the Hispanic American tradition of cooperativism early in his life,

traed said:

They would do what needs to be done out of a stronger sense of community obligation or you just have mandatory work. Like oh say everyone works in a particular field of work for a certain amount of time if necessary or it is automated. You'd have to be full retarded to think people would intentionally starve themselves. Also although I understand your point you're also highly underestimating diversity of interests and how people actually make a living in socialism. How exchange works differs on what type of socialism it is. They could use money, labour vouchers, mutual credit, bartering, gifting, or a resource based economy. Being a taste tester isn't a full time job so it would never pay much in money, labour vouchers, mutual credit, or bartering. Taste testers don't work a full work day constantly eating.