Capitalism- Inherently bad or grossly misunderstood?

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Raw mateials have a world market price

So you depend on free-market capitalism to set prices in your socialist utopia?

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labour has price 1 unit in national currency (which fluctuates against foreign currencies according to global market situation, so it has a world market value too), all else is based on these and derived from these.

What's a "unit" of labour?

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The word is colonialism. Next question.

No. Try again.

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Doesn´t sound very Socialist. Or Capitalist either, since its objective is to use workers as tools for bringing the value of work to the pockets of company owner, not to the worker.

Rubbish. Under capitalism, employment is a market transaction.

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Many discussers use words such as "cannot work", "cannot succeed", "certainly fails", etc.

Yes, and they're right on all counts. They've shown why communism cannot work, and also that it does not work.

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Such claims are meaningless

Wrong.

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because nothing totally fails

Wrong.

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and what does not totally fail, does not fail.

Wrong.

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Success can only be measured with a subjectively chosen measure

Wrong.

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and Socialists do not subscribe to the Capitalist idea that money = purpose of life.

Blatant strawman.

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I discuss from the viewpoint of circumstances where people can freely choose between Capitalism and Socialism, whereas "Socialism" means the system built by those who politically choose it.

All attempts at building socialist states - that is, actually socialist, not just capitalist states with socialism larded over the top - have produced prison camps.

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There are incentives: work to get a fine standard of living

How does that work?

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work harder to get a higher social status or yet higher standard of living.

How does that work?

Under capitalism, these things are automatic. Socialism deliberately destroys the mechanisms that allow such advancement. Everything you have proposed is just inefficient and corrupt mimicry of the free market.

[Virus]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

The word is colonialism. Next question.

Colonialism was a product of superior wealth, not the cause of it.

[Virus]

I think the dictionary should say this;

Socialist.

noun.

1. Somebody that doesn't understand where wealth comes from.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

So you depend on free-market capitalism to set prices in your socialist utopia?

Nope. Even if all humans on the planet were Socialists, raw materials would have some world market price, because they are scarce resources. Only a seemingly infinite resource, such as the air that we breathe, can be left unpriced without any problems of hoarding and latecomers running out of the resource.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

What's a "unit" of labour?

Workerhour. Or workersecond if you will.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

They've shown why communism cannot work

Nobody has shown that Communism cannot exist among people whose political will it is, and reach objectives that it subjectively sets for itself.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

How does that work?

Under capitalism, these things are automatic.

Oooh, _automatic_.

Wait, who are the low-paid, exorbitantly underpaid, and unemployed people then in Capitalism? They have what is automatically left behind, after those who are capable have taken as much as they are capable of taking for themselves. In my system this opportunism and profiteering is harnessed and limited, to open up possibilities and free resources for the rest of people.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Everything you have proposed is just inefficient and corrupt mimicry of the free market.

They are steps to make the free market more efficient and egalitarian, from the viewpoint of mainstream population.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Nope. Even if all humans on the planet were Socialists, raw materials would have some world market price, because they are scarce resources.

HOW. DO. YOU. SET. THAT. PRICE?!

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Workerhour. Or workersecond if you will.

But you've already said yourself that some workers are more productive than others, and should be better compensated for their time.

So why not call the unit a "dollar".

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Nobody has shown that Communism cannot exist among people whose political will it is, and reach objectives that it subjectively sets for itself.

Wrong.

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Oooh, _automatic_.

Yep.

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Wait, who are the low-paid, exorbitantly underpaid, and unemployed people then in Capitalism?

People whose skills are more in supply than demand.

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They have what is automatically left behind, after those who are capable have taken as much as they are capable of taking for themselves.

Wrong.

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In my system this opportunism and profiteering is harnessed and limited, to open up possibilities and free resources for the rest of people.

No. You keep trying to skate past the inconvenient fact of history. We've tried your system. It opens up mass graves.

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They are steps to make the free market more efficient

No, your methods are necessarily less efficient.

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and egalitarian

And by definition less egalitarian, because they are enforced by central rule.

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from the viewpoint of mainstream population.

The what now?

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by Virus

I think the dictionary should say this;

Socialist.

noun.

1. Somebody that doesn't understand where wealth comes from.

Winston Churchill said it well:

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Virus

I think the dictionary should say this;

Socialist.

noun.

1. Somebody that doesn't understand where wealth comes from.

We should be careful not to fall into extremes, here. We already have mentioned that _some_ socialism within otherwise capitalist systems is important. Or did you mean communism ?

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Nobody has shown that Communism cannot exist among people whose political will it is, and reach objectives that it subjectively sets for itself.

So we're talking about fictional people ?

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by Belz...

So we're talking about fictional people ?

Or, possibly, bees.

[Mark6]

Some myrmecologist (specialist in ants, for those who do not know) said about Communism: "Great idea, wrong species"

[Mark6]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Nope. Even if all humans on the planet were Socialists, raw materials would have some world market price, because they are scarce resources.

HOW. DO. YOU. SET. THAT. PRICE?!

JJM_777 keeps avoiding answering that question. "Market price" on say, cobalt means that if socialist country A is willing to sell its cobalt cheaper than socialist country B, country B is stuck with cobalt mines nobody wants, and with non-productive workers. What is country B going to do with them?

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Mark6

Some myrmecologist (specialist in ants, for those who do not know) said about Communism: "Great idea, wrong species"

[NewtonTrino]

Originally Posted by Mark6

JJM_777 keeps avoiding answering that question. "Market price" on say, cobalt means that if socialist country A is willing to sell its cobalt cheaper than socialist country B, country B is stuck with cobalt mines nobody wants, and with non-productive workers. What is country B going to do with them?

What they always do, put them in a prison camp. Next.

[Virus]

Britain had nationalized coal mines. They just sank more and more taxpayer's money into unprofitable mines while coal was dirt cheap on the international market.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by Mark6

"if socialist country A is willing to sell its cobalt cheaper than socialist country B, country B is stuck with cobalt mines nobody wants, and with non-productive workers. What is country B going to do with them?

If countries A and B are truly Socialist, they are one economy, and the question is irrelevant.

Nevertheless, if we assume that countries A and B are racists who hate each other, and therefore two separate Socialisms, the question becomes relevant. And the answer is: the lowest price whose quantity meets demand is generally the world market price. Having ore or oil underground doesn´t always mean that mining it is economically reasonable. Your question is a routine one for mining companies, and its most popular answer is to never start mining in the first place. If mining was started for some reason in circumstances where it is not economically profitable, then the mine is abandoned, end of story.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

HOW. DO. YOU. SET. THAT. PRICE?!

OPEC sets the price by asking as much as consumers are ready to pay. This is the Capitalist way of thinking: set the price so that "profit per unit" x "units consumers want for the price" reaches its maximal value.

Socialism sees such pricing as selfish opportunism. Besides, in fully Socialist circumstances the owner and consumer are theoretically the same, which takes the motive from such profit-maximizing. In fully Socialist circumstances the price of raw materials should theoretically be zero plus the price of digging them from underground. Adjusted upwards as much as is necessary to bring down the consumption to the level of economically and practically viable sustainablility.

So the Socialist answer is: the berry on the ground and the oil underground is your property, and its price equals the price of digging it from there. For some commodities this price needs to be artificially inflated, if scarcity (or environmental aspects) causes supply to be smaller than demand.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

But you've already said yourself that some workers are more productive than others, and should be better compensated for their time.

So why not call the unit a "dollar".

OK, call it dollar EUR then.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

And by definition less egalitarian, because they are enforced by central rule.

Legal and human rights are egalitarianism forced by central rule, for example, so your definition leaks badly.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

If countries A and B are truly Socialist, they are one economy, and the question is irrelevant.

No.

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And the answer is: the lowest price whose quantity meets demand is generally the world market price.

Oh look, free-market capitalism. Yes, agreed, socialism doesn't work. At every turn, you are relying on capitalism to prop up your failed ideas.

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Socialism sees such pricing as selfish opportunism.

So?

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In fully Socialist circumstances the price of raw materials should theoretically be zero plus the price of digging them from underground.

Which causes massive waste and pollution.

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So the Socialist answer is: the berry on the ground and the oil underground is your property, and its price equals the price of digging it from there.

Those statements are contradictory.

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For some commodities this price needs to be artificially inflated, if scarcity (or environmental aspects) causes supply to be smaller than demand.

Yet again, nothing more than corrupt and inefficient mimicry of capitalism.

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Legal and human rights are egalitarianism forced by central rule

No.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Oh look, free-market capitalism. Yes, agreed, socialism doesn't work. At every turn, you are relying on capitalism to prop up your failed ideas.

To be fair, that's pretty much his only option.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Oh look, free-market capitalism.

OK if your dictionary says that "production and services owned by the state" is a synonym for "free market capitalism". My dictionary doesn´t define free market capitalism so.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

At every turn, you are relying on capitalism

You have increasing difficulties with definitions of words. I am relying on money, I don´t abolish money. "A market where money exists" is not a synonym for "free market capitalism", not in my dictionary anyway.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Which causes massive waste and pollution[?]

Short-sighted privately owned profiteering does. Nationwide political decisionmaking less so.

[NewtonTrino]

I just wanted to say that I think this thread has been pretty educational about the communist viewpoint. The idea that people can be that delusional is, quite frankly, surprising to me.

[Belz...]

Seconded. It's almost as bad as Gaetan's money thread.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Which causes massive waste and pollution[?]

Short-sighted privately owned profiteering does. Nationwide political decisionmaking less so.

Probably you are wrong:

http://rinr.fsu.edu/fallwinter99/fea...leaningup.html

Some highlights:

Originally Posted by Roy C. Herndon

America, though, was in far better position economically and politically than most countries to reverse its polluting ways. In regions of the world still under the yoke of communism, for example, the environmental movement faced implacable difficulties.

When the Iron Curtain finally collapsed in November 1989, the world saw for the first time the great environmental cost of decades of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe... Throughout the region, emphasis on production at the expense of the environment led to severe degradation of air and water quality, coastal areas, soils, sediments, crops and forestlands...

Facing much of the same problems that plagued major U.S. industrial regions 40 years ago, such countries also had to deal with an almost complete lack of regulatory incentives essential for stopping some of the worst pollution and for opening the door to Western help in the form of capital and investment.

The upshot is that the new millennium will see a cleaner, safer Europe, thanks to the opening up of markets...

Roy C. Herndon (Ph.D. Physics, FSU) is director of FSU's Institute for International Cooperative Environmental Research (www.iicer.fsu.edu).

I've hilited my favorite part, which I think is especially damning.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by theprestige

I've hilited my favorite part, which I think is especially damning.

Your links deal with dictatorship vs. democracy. They have no direct relationship whatsoever with environmentality of different economical systems, when these are compared under similarly dictatorial or democratic circumstances.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Your links deal with dictatorship vs. democracy.

Since you bring up democracy again, and assuming that we consider Canada, Sweden and Australia to be democraties, please point out a democratic communist state, ever. Thanks in advance.

[Mark6]

In all fairness, JJM_777 is not advocating Communism. He is advocating Socialism. He does not want to abolish money.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Mark6

In all fairness, JJM_777 is not advocating Communism. He is advocating Socialism. He does not want to abolish money.

Canadians advocate socialism, too. Moderately.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Your links deal with dictatorship vs. democracy. They have no direct relationship whatsoever with environmentality of different economical systems, when these are compared under similarly dictatorial or democratic circumstances.

So you're both denying the professor's direct, explicit correlation of systems of government and the environmentality of their economical systems, and doubling down on "no true communist"?

[Virus]

Originally Posted by Mark6

In all fairness, JJM_777 is not advocating Communism. He is advocating Socialism. He does not want to abolish money.

In all fairness he advocated an economic system almost identical to the one in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by Belz...

please point out a democratic communist state, ever.

There you see: stop taking examples from existing countries, because they are not the kind of systems that I have been talking about in this thread.

Originally Posted by theprestige

So you're both denying the professor's direct, explicit correlation of systems of government and the environmentality of their economical systems

Environmentality of economic systems was not even assessed. Correlation existed in the cases, but correlation does not prove causation, the cause was dictatorial leadership not economical system. Environmental concern comes from mainstream population, when they have access to information and the power to decide.

[Virus]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

There you see: stop taking examples from existing countries, because they are not the kind of systems that I have been talking about in this thread.

Yes they are. Socialism has been tried heaps of times and was found inferior to economic freedom.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

There you see: stop taking examples from existing countries, because they are not the kind of systems that I have been talking about in this thread.

They are precisely the kind of systems you are talking about.

The results are different from what you predict, but that's because those countries exist in the real world.

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Environmentality of economic systems was not even assessed. Correlation existed in the cases, but correlation does not prove causation, the cause was dictatorial leadership not economical system.

By your own argument, you have no basis for that claim.

[Giz]

Originally Posted by NewtonTrino

I just wanted to say that I think this thread has been pretty educational about the communist viewpoint. The idea that people can be that delusional is, quite frankly, surprising to me.

Because a lot of ideologies are based on rationalizing our emotional prejudices... not on reason.

Timely Telegraph article:

"The more I read of behavioural psychology, the more I think that ideologies are as much a product of people’s nature as of observed experience. The perverted doctrines that actuated the Bolshevists may be immanent in a portion of humanity. Some people are determined to see every success as a swindling of someone else, every transaction as an exploitation, every exercise in freedom as a violation of some ideal plan, every tradition as a superstition. How delicious that, as we approach the bicentenary of his birth, Karl Marx should have turned into the thing he loathed above all: the prophet of an irrational faith."

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/da...th-you-always/

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

There you see: stop taking examples from existing countries, because they are not the kind of systems that I have been talking about in this thread.

Oh, come on.

If what you say there is true, then you have been talking about fiction. So, of course we've been talking about real countries, and your reply above is an admission that you can't find a democratic country of the type you describe. This should be an indicator that such a system doesn't work because the only way that it remains stable is through dictatorship.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

They are precisely the kind of systems you are talking about.

They are not democratic, and I have been talking about democratic systems only.

Originally Posted by Belz...

you have been talking about fiction. So, of course we've been talking about real countries

We have been discussing whether Socialism can function or not. If nobody has ever tried it, that is not proof of it not being possible. I have mentioned many times the circumstances where I except Socialism to thrive: the population in a political area have the right to choose to join Capitalism or Socialism, and Socialism is what is built by those who politically support it, in these circumstances where they had an equally easy chance not to support it.

Such circumstances don´t exist yet in politics, wait a few decades of evolution of democracies, and majority rule will be seen increasingly as the baseless injustice that it is.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

They are not democratic, and I have been talking about democratic systems only.

Yes, and as we've pointed out, that doesn't work in the real world.

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We have been discussing whether Socialism can function or not.

Yes: It can't.

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If nobody has ever tried it, that is not proof of it not being possible.

It's been tried many times. It doesn't work.

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I have mentioned many times the circumstances where I except Socialism to thrive: the population in a political area have the right to choose to join Capitalism or Socialism, and Socialism is what is built by those who politically support it, in these circumstances where they had an equally easy chance not to support it.

Unfortunately for you, the only way to get people to support communism is to point a gun at them, because it doesn't work.

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Such circumstances don´t exist yet in politics, wait a few decades of evolution of democracies, and majority rule will be seen increasingly as the baseless injustice that it is.

You're only a couple of centuries behind the times: Tyranny of the majority^WP.

Besides, your entire argument is for a totalitarian state controlling every aspect of the economy. The tyranny of the state is better than the tyranny of the majority... How, exactly?

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

We have been discussing whether Socialism can function or not. If nobody has ever tried it, that is not proof of it not being possible.

Of course they tried. Are you now going to somehow argue that the communist/socialist countries, all failures, somehow are not true communism ?

Again, you retreat back into fantasy. Like Gaetan's no money thread, you have an idea. An idea that's been tried before, and failed. And you don't like it.

[Virus]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

They are not democratic, and I have been talking about democratic systems only.

And I deny that the fundamental problems of central planning are solved by electing the party that appoints the planners. In my opinion it's like putting a fish on your head. Irrelevant.

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by Virus

Yes they are. Socialism has been tried heaps of times and was found inferior to economic freedom.

People on this thread have tried pointing this out multiple times....

Socialism can be and has been a very successful when layered over top of a democratic / capitalistic framework.

It's a little frustrating to see such black and white claims made by both sides.

Pure unadulterated capitalism is not healthy and pure socialism has many many downfalls. But a healthy balance can be struck which increases the overall standard of living for the whole while still allowing for freedom of thought and personal expression.

I tend to agree that communism doesn't work, it simply does not take human failings into account. I suppose it could work someplace along the way (I truly doubt that) but the dangers of the experiment are just too great. Everything else is shades of gray, black and white stances should be avoided in my view.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

the only way to get people to support communism is to point a gun at them

Either you are trolling, or then you sincerely believe that 100% of humans would vote for Capitalism in a free vote. In either case, check your facts.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

The tyranny of the state is better than the tyranny of the majority... How, exactly?

There is no tyranny in people agreeing to organize and participate in a specific type of economy.

Originally Posted by Belz...

argue that the communist/socialist countries, all failures, somehow are not true communism ?

Let them be true Communism if they will. I am not arguing for "true this" or "true that", I am arguing exactly for what I have personally written here, nothing more and nothing less. And what I have written is not based on dictatorship, just for starters.

[Virus]

Originally Posted by not_so_new

People on this thread have tried pointing this out multiple times....

Socialism can be and has been a very successful when layered over top of a democratic / capitalistic framework.

It's a little frustrating to see such black and white claims made by both sides.

Pure unadulterated capitalism is not healthy and pure socialism has many many downfalls. But a healthy balance can be struck which increases the overall standard of living for the whole while still allowing for freedom of thought and personal expression.

I tend to agree that communism doesn't work, it simply does not take human failings into account. I suppose it could work someplace along the way (I truly doubt that) but the dangers of the experiment are just too great. Everything else is shades of gray, black and white stances should be avoided in my view.

Welfare programs ≠ Socialism.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Either you are trolling, or then you sincerely believe that 100% of humans would vote for Capitalism in a free vote. In either case, check your facts.

Either you are trolling, or you missed the 20th century.

Berlin Wall? Iron Curtain? North Korea today?

Yes, some people will vote for any damn fool thing you might propose. But when you actually give it to them, you end up having to build fortifications to stop them running away.

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There is no tyranny in people agreeing to organize and participate in a specific type of economy.

When it means the government controls every aspect of the economy, there is no other word for it.

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Let them be true Communism if they will. I am not arguing for "true this" or "true that", I am arguing exactly for what I have personally written here, nothing more and nothing less. And what I have written is not based on dictatorship, just for starters.

Of course it's a dictatorship. That much is obvious, from all your posts about how the government will decide what's best for people. The point is that it's not even a minimally functional dictatorship, the way China is. It will disintegrate into universal squalor and misery the moment you get it set up.