Socalism: Do we need it?

[Bankai]

Capitalism and Socialism are two differing methods of wealth distribution. Where the capitalist system is strongly individualized, Socialism places the responsibility of distributing the wealth on the shoulders of the government. The system of capitalism has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, in a capitalist system, people are encouraged to do well and make things better. In the system of socialism, the drive to succeed is significantly weaker due to the limits on gain. On the other hand, socialism provides to all equally, where a worker in a capitalist system may find themselves without money if they cannot perform in the work environment. While the American economic system has its weak points, the benefits often outweigh the downsides for the citizens.
The powerful force behind capitalism is that there are no limits on gain. A worker who starts sweeping streets may one day become the owner of a multi-million dollar corporation. The amount of money you get is only controlled by your skills and ability to work. Therefore, people are encouraged to do well, in order to gain. Rather than having the government give them work assignments, a worker is free to do whatever he believes will make him the most money. This drive to do well creates a nation of people who will constantly seek new and better ways to do things, in order to gain more. In a society that pushes for betterment, people often have a high quality of life.
One of the best ways that capitalism provides this quality of life is the user driven market. In order to succeed, a business in the capitalism system must anticipate and deliver the customers’ needs. Since the government is not deciding the direction of goods, businesses and consumers decide the flow of goods. This control of goods and services is done through a process of supply and demand. When the demand for a good or service goes up, and more people begin to make it, the price will naturally fall within an average. With this, the price and availability of goods is determined by the people buying and selling it.
The user driven nature of capitalism is also its greatest weakness. Unlike socialism, gaining wealth in capitalism is solely based on the person. A worker or business that cannot compete in the market will not have the money to survive. In the capitalism system, the changing nature of a market could render a product obsolete, or create a better method of providing a service. When the market changes, those who do not, or cannot, adapt to the new conditions quickly become overtaken by the people who do adapt. In addition to the market flucations, it is not uncommon for those who do have money and goods to gain even more, even as the people who do not have money lose even more of it. Capitalism is a system of opportunity, but often at others expense.
A second problem lends into the first, the lack of stability for the citizens. People who fall between the cracks of the competitive drive often end up with nothing. Just like there are no limits in capitalism, there are no guarantees. Much as a poor man can become a millionaire, a millionaire can lose everything he owns in a matter of days. While such drastic events rarely occur, it is not uncommon for someone with a stable job to lose that job because the company has to change to meet the demands of the market. The government of a capitalist economy has minimal power to prevent the sudden loss of wealth and quality of life. The very lack of control that makes capitalism a free system prevents it from protecting the citizens from loss due to market changes.
Capitalism works best when combined with the political system of Democracy. In order for a free market to truly be user-driven, the government must be elected by those same consumers. In a free country, people are driven to collect and become better than their neighbors. To fill this desire to collect more goods, people would provide goods and services to trade for more money and goods. In addition to this, a person with the desire to collect stuff would also want a government that would allow them to gain more. In this way, a free government and a free economy support and maintain each other.
Now with a basic understanding of capitalism and how it works in America, we can see that capitalism is the best economic system to start a business in. While it does lack the security of socialism, small businesses have much more to gain under a capitalist system. In fact, where a socialist country would provide a business with what to produce and how much, capitalism allows the freedom to choose how to distribute goods and services. This freedom, while a little overwhelming to the new business owner, is a great asset to becoming wealthy. With the freedom to produce new ideas to market to customers, the quality of life will naturally increase. As a result of this improved quality of life, people spend more to continue to improve their own quality of life. An innovator in this self-sustaining system could stand to make a lot of money by providing products and services in new and better ways.

This was written by me. All my words.

[zapnosis]

OK here we go...

There are quite a few points that I would argue here, but the accuracy or otherwise of individual points is not really the difference between my views and those expressed.

You write almost entirely about the individual, and no doubt the individual is often the motivation for our actions. I believe that nothing can save us from self-interest... it is built in to the very structure of life and to remove it would be to change everything that we are and have been.

But, for the individual who goes from sweeping the street to being a millionaire, what is their money worth? It is worth a share of what the economy produces. Dollars and Euros do not produce, or design, or create. People do those things. Human ability is the resource that makes all other resources useful. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

How did we get this far? When did we realise that we didn't have to find our own food, heat ourselves, shelter ourselves and so on? By forming a community, a society, by understanding the needs that we have in common and working together, human beings prospered. We specialised, allowing each individual to work to their advantage, allowing individuals to learn, to pass on knowledge, to become more efficient and then to free up time for study.

Everything that we have learnt, everything that we have a achieved, is a product of society. Without society, Newton, Einstein and whoever else you fancy would have been too busy chopping wood for the fire and growing potatoes to apply, develop and record their understandings. Without the security and support of a community, all individual ability is wasted.

Capitalism too cannot work without the support of a community. People seem to think that capitalism alone is stable, but it is not. Without a community, capitalism would become a system based on conflict where those with the strongest weapons would steal from and repress the weak. Capitalism requires a stable society to be worth anything and it will benefit from that society being healthy, educated and provided for.

So if our first thoughts are for our own gain, our second thoughts must be for our community. Capitalism has it's place, but it is not perfect and it is certainly not The Answer. Investment in the community is an investment in human beings, that is what has got us this far and that is what will secure our future... if anything can.

ZAP

[sarnoga]

Im sure many of you are asking the same question I am asking myself. Why do I bother to respond to such posts? Why don't I just keep my opinions to myself? Hell, I don't know, but here goes...

Socalism: Do we need it?

Need is a word that is often bandied about with little regard for what actual need is. So is the collective "we." Who is "we?" Does "we" include me?

There are various ways of organizing both economics and politics and various names one can apply to different methods of organization. Each particular arrangement has strengths and weaknesses. Certainly such things exist and provide a benefit to some. One question might be who are the ones who benefit the most from any particular arrangement, regardless of what you call it.

But do "we" "need" any of them? Some parts of "we" might "need" them. This particular part of "we", the Sarnoga part, wouldn't give a damn if all fell into chaos and anarchy. In fact this part of "we" would probably rejoice. And quite frankly I wouldn't give a rats ass if "Einstein" had spent his entire life chopping wood rather than helping think up the theories and laying the foundations that others later used to build nuclear weapons.

One might even say that the collective "we" would be better off had "we" been too busy surviving to think of better ways to kill each other in greater numbers and with more efficiency. "We" might even be better off if "we" were too busy surviving to think up new reasons to imprison record numbers of people every day and every year. "We" might even be better off with a complete failure of the economic system that provides us the funds to continue to imprison people for all the reasons "we" have thought up.

No, I would have to say that "we" don't need any of the ism's that you might dream up. And this part of "we" would be happy to see them all perish.

As Zap so aptly pointed out, one can not divorce an economic system from the social system that supports it. It is also true that the economic system supports the social and political system. So if "we" intend to examine the relative value of one part of the beast we must also look at what the other parts of the beast are doing.

And since you seem fond of quoting yourself, Bankai, I might as well do the same, and you can even quote me if you choose.

The primary justification for the existence of any government or political system is to promote and preserve liberty. Any government or political system that does not make the promotion and preservation of liberty its primary concern has an existence that is without justification.

Sarnoga ---> looking around in disapointment for any system that is worth preserving...

or, as the hand writing on the wall said, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin"


I guess this part of we can do without them all.

Sarnoga.

[VeryGnawty]

Economy is a fabrication of the human mind. There is no capitalism or socialism. There is only supply and demand. The only reason government exists to begin with is because there was a demand for it. Someone had a bright idea, and supplied it.

Capitalism is only better than socialism if there is a higher demand for capitalism.

[sarnoga]

There is only supply and demand. The only reason government exists to begin with is because there was a demand for it.

Sounds good in theory. It is an especially useful theory for use by those in power to attempt to convince those over whom they exercise control that they are ruled because they want to be ruled. It has a tendency to placate them and keep them from open rebellion.

In practice what happens is that governments tend not to be an example of supply and demand, rather government is a means by which the strongest bunch of thugs maintain control over those not strong enough or ruthless enough to take their place. The exercise of force and threat of force does not operate along the principals of supply and demand.

Of course there is also another principal involved. Once a particular government and its accompanying bureaucracy reach a certain size the principal of inertia takes over. When something that big starts rolling down hill there is no way to stop it. You just have to let it run it's course until it crashes at the bottom of the hill.

Sarnoga

[VeryGnawty]

In practice what happens is that governments tend not to be an example of supply and demand, rather government is a means by which the strongest bunch of thugs maintain control over those not strong enough or ruthless enough to take their place.

That just means that thugs are demanding their way more than their victims are demanding another. Nature works the same way. It is perfectly normal.

A few hundred people can't control several hundred thousand, regardless of how many guns the thugs have. Trust me, the only reason governments are corrupt is because people allow them to be.

Like I said. Someone supplied government. It became corrupt. There wasn't a large enough demand to fix it.

[Thrideye]

I don't think we need socialism, but we cannot stay where we are now. Socialism scares me because look back to WWII when America gave the most popular socialist Eugenics, and see what came from that (Holocaust).

Our current administration is weakening thanks to the last sixteen years of problems that neither the republicans nor democrats seemed to want to fix, they have begun worrying over our image to much to protect this countries future.

[livelonger8]

Economy is a fabrication of the human mind. There is no capitalism or socialism. There is only supply and demand. The only reason government exists to begin with is because there was a demand for it. Someone had a bright idea, and supplied it.

Capitalism is only better than socialism if there is a higher demand for capitalism.

Nature competes to sustain balance, or 'perfection' in my view. Although balance may occur coincidentally in our ancestral plains, it'll often fall out of balance and a species may divide into two groups, in which either the male or female is dominant, or into multiple where other variants of the species are declared of a distinct race. A government however, attempts to sustain balance by reducing contingency but is inadvertently subject to the same issues as a result of our instinctual components; we compete to dominate (or to heal if one is female), but also to sustain balance, even if it means killing off any form of inequality (e.g. extermination of a species variants).

The problem that occurs is finding the most ethical approach to sustaining balance without committing any form of genocide and to create a global mindset that is both, ambiguous and fair (i.e. is creative, and therefore productive for the future, and balanced (e.g. where everyone has a compatible sexual partner or equivalent monetary income)).

[VeryGnawty]

The problem that occurs is finding the most ethical approach to sustaining balance without committing any form of genocide and to create a global mindset that is both, ambiguous and fair (i.e. is creative, and therefore productive for the future, and balanced (e.g. where everyone has a compatible sexual partner or equivalent monetary income)).

Governments can't create utopia, only education can create utopia. You can't legislate harmony, it must be taught.

Fairness is not a natural discipline. You must convince people to choose to be fair. As ridiculous as this seems, it is the exact reason that there have been very few true utopias throughout human history, and the ones which were (arguably) good societies didn't last very long. It's kind of like the bad apple ruining the bunch. As soon as one person cheats, other people are going to want a piece of that pie.

The irony behind all of this is that if everybody shared everything, then the total amount of work and resources necessary to get stuff done would be much less. Thus, everyone would be better off. If everyone were pragmatists, there would be no such thing as greed.

[livelonger8]

The problem that occurs is finding the most ethical approach to sustaining balance without committing any form of genocide and to create a global mindset that is both, ambiguous and fair (i.e. is creative, and therefore productive for the future, and balanced (e.g. where everyone has a compatible sexual partner or equivalent monetary income)).

Governments can't create utopia, only education can create utopia. You can't legislate harmony, it must be taught.

Fairness is not a natural discipline. You must convince people to choose to be fair. As ridiculous as this seems, it is the exact reason that there have been very few true utopias throughout human history, and the ones which were (arguably) good societies didn't last very long. It's kind of like the bad apple ruining the bunch. As soon as one person cheats, other people are going to want a piece of that pie.

The irony behind all of this is that if everybody shared everything, then the total amount of work and resources necessary to get stuff done would be much less. Thus, everyone would be better off. If everyone were pragmatists, there would be no such thing as greed.

In my view, it's not necessarily governments, but all other forms of life that attempt to sustain balance, and therefore perfection (ironically, sustaining perfection would impede progress and create a result tantamount to the state being non-existent (i.e. an alternative solution to perfection is for whatever it is we thrive to become perfect to occur as an absence of existence)).

I agree that fairness is not a natural discipline, but in my previous post I referred to it as 'balance' (My bad for the bad choice of words). In my view, governments would also thrive to sustain equality - balance - even if that means exterminating any whom differ from their preference (e.g. Nazis systematically eliminating those outside of their norm to create a perfect race).

The problem, as I explained previously, is finding the most ethical approach, and which also preserves ambiguity - to ensure that all production is creative, whilst maintaining equality.

[phryne]

No -ism will ever replace the role of human intelligence.

[bandler]

... in a capitalist system, people are encouraged to do well and make things better.
...
a worker in a capitalist system may find themselves without money if they cannot perform in the work environment.
...
A worker who starts sweeping streets may one day become the owner of a multi-million dollar corporation. The amount of money you get is only controlled by your skills and ability to work.
...
a worker is free to do whatever he believes will make him the most money.
...
gaining wealth in capitalism is solely based on the person.
...
it is not uncommon for those who do have money and goods to gain even more, even as the people who do not have money lose even more of it.
...
People who fall between the cracks of the competitive drive often end up with nothing.
...
a millionaire can lose everything he owns in a matter of days.
...
Capitalism works best when combined with the political system of Democracy. In order for a free market to truly be user-driven, the government must be elected by those same consumers. In a free country, people are driven to collect and become better than their neighbors. To fill this desire to collect more goods, people would provide goods and services to trade for more money and goods. In addition to this, a person with the desire to collect stuff would also want a government that would allow them to gain more. In this way, a free government and a free economy support and maintain each other.
...
small businesses have much more to gain under a capitalist system.
...
With the freedom to produce new ideas to market to customers, the quality of life will naturally increase.

This was written by me. All my words.

More accurate would be to say you regurgitated all that propaganda. And you are clearly proud of your ability to regurgitate propaganda.

The fantasy world of capitalist propaganda is a wonderful place, populated by self-made millionaires who started out sweeping the factory foor. In capitalist propaganda fantasy-land the only reason poor people are poor is because they are lazy.

Here in the real world, children born into the wealthiest families learn about the time value of money at an early age. They owe much of their power and wealth to the 'miracle' of compound interest. As they say, taking 100 dollars and turning it into 110 dollars is work, but turning 100 million dollars into 110 million dollars is inevitable. The children of elite families are shepherded through elite schools and introduced to the powerful people who own the infrastructure of the world. They may end up 'working' for a bank or insurance company that is 'Too Big To Fail.' A place where customer service is non-existent and the company net worth is negative, but they still receive multi million dollar bonuses every year.
At the same time, average children do not learn about the time value of money until they are in graduate school, if they make it that far. They are introduced to the 'miracle' of compound interest when their ARM mortgage adjusts upwards and they are unable to make the payments. Average children go to tax-funded schools which have more in common with prisons than with the elite schools attended by wealthiest children.
And worse, the average children watch TV and are programmed to believe all the capitalist propaganda bullshit and blame their failure to become a millionaire on themselves.
And worst of all, those of us who do become millionaires rise above the fog of capitalist propaganda and see the rigged system that could easily be called 'socialism for the rich' and can do nothing about it. Because the propaganda is too effective. The elites are too entrenched. The billionaires are all members of the same club, and they don't let just anybody in. George Carlin explained it quite entertainingly.

Sarnoga's observations are accurate. And I agree with his statement: 'When something that big starts rolling down hill there is no way to stop it. You just have to let it run it's course until it crashes at the bottom of the hill.'

The 'socialism for the rich' system is rolling down hill gathering speed. When it crashes at the bottom we will all get to start over.

[oraprog]

Do we "need" socialism? No, absolutely not. Nor do we "need" capitalism.

That being said - my belief is that systems which allow the individual to pursue their own desires are the best systems.

Socialism requires that the individual submit to what is available - all people share in the deprivation.

Capitalism affords the opportunity for individuals to make choices of balancing what they want against what is available.

Therefore, capitalism is the system which promotes more individual happiness.

[radar]

Got a nice blend of both out here in Australia.

Citizens are able to earn $$$ and chase their personal dreams while still protecting the vulnerable in our society with free healthcare, unemployment benefits, pensions and low cost education.

I think the extremes of both systems are bad.
There are no winners without losers.
Capitalism lets you win while society loses.
Socialism lets society win while you let your dreams and goals pass.

Get the balance right and you have the makings of a utopia.

[sarnoga]

[quote="radar"]Get the balance right and you have the makings of a utopia./quote]

One person's utopia is another's hell.

[radar]

*Grins* Never said my balance was for everyone.. Find your own balance..