Socialism Vs. Capitalism

If you want to criticize me, support your claim & arguments with logical or factual evidence. And you know what, until you do, don’t criticize because it does not mean anything.

A very wise, old, foreign diplomat once told me that \”idealism is directly proportionate to the distance from the problem\”. You seem to be a very ernest and caring person. It is sometimes difficult to project how humans will respond to seemingly well thought out social theory such as that conceived by Marx. Imagine how difficult it will be for socialism to take root on a wide spread basis when a country like Sweden with several million people that look, think and act from a common culture have difficulty making socialism work. At a near 80% effective tax rate, extensive social programs and wide social safety net, Sweden was seemingly the beacon of successful socialism in the 1980s. Unfortunately, their most productive citizens and corporations started to leave the country to find an environment that was less taxing of their creativity. As a result, Swedish GDP contracted and the country found it difficult to sustain the social infrastructure it had created. Ultimately it found no other choice but to lower taxes and reduce benefits to be able to retain their intellectual capital. Just imagine how well socialism will play out in Canada between the ethnic French, British, Punjabi, Chinese and Inuit cultures. It will eventually become a huge hit with our friends south of the border that enjoy even grater social, cultural and religious diversity than we do.

First I have to say proud to be an American. This article is written by either some one who is narrow mined or lazy. In this country we can not be held back. In Socialist and Communist countries you can not mae a million dollars. But here you can. How much money you make is dependant on your wants and needs and how much effort you are willing to put forth.

“The war will leave its meed of great problems, problems of internal social organisation… Business men and aristocrats, the old ruling classes of Europe, had their chance from 1919 to 1939; they failed to take advantage of it. They rebuilt the world in the image of their own vested interests… The ruling class has failed; this war is the proof of it. The time has come to give the common people the right to become the master of their own destiny… Capitalism has been tried; the results of its power are before us today. Imperialism has been tried; it is the foster-parent of this great agony.

Given power [the Labour Party] will seek, as no other Party will seek, the basic transformation of our society. It will replace the profit-seeking motive by the motive of public service… there is now no prospect of domestic well-being or of international peace except in Socialism.”

— Harold Laski, The Labour Party, the War and the Future (1939)

well done
this is exactly what we need to be doing
its fine claiming that socialism is faulty because humans wouldnt co-operate, but capitalism is no better.
People are forced into work and if they choose not to exploit people, they are burdened masses of debt that prevents them from any form of freedom.
The minimum wage in England is 5.25 an hour. The people earning this are working to support a family, and yet one hours wage is around the equivalent of buying a sandwhich from subway, yet young executives can earn anywhere up to £100′000 a year from doing basically nothing
we need to at least try, for if not, society will never change

SweetLiberty, if the CEO fails, their company fails, everybody loses their job. That company fails, which means a piece of the market is giving to another company, that company will hire more people to meet the demand, people will get their job back. If a guy throwing out the trash quits, the garbage will build up, CEO must find another guy to throw out the garbage. Everybody will have job. One thing though, when people loses their job, they got no money, that period will be really hard on them before they get their job back. A perfect is example is right now the economy recession in the U.S., people got no jobs. Why? Because a capitalism or a market economy allows to people to get too greedy, to a point that it implodes, and the whole thing collapses, and there goes your sweet liberty.

Matt, you oversimplify and fail to see the big picture. As usual, leftists set up straw men and then come in to heroically knock them down. I never said a “pure capitalist” society is obtainable or practical to implement. The debate here is on the relative merits of socialism/communism vs. capitalism. Speaking as an American, I would much prefer a system closer to that set up by the U.S. Founding Fathers than the one we have today with ever increasing government involvement. But I must say, you seem to have quite a ridiculous world view when you advocate the withdrawal of capitalism from poor countries. China’s recent economic growth is due to capitalism, as is India’s. If they had the proper governmental infrastructure set up, they would flourish all the more. And you are the type of bleeding heart that would rather deny a poor starving village any work at all as opposed to allowing a company to move in and “exploit” their workers for pay you feel is unjust. But you go ask those villagers if they would prefer to be unemployed or earn what to you seems unjust. They are BEGGING corporations to come and set up shop close to them. I support laws which defend individuals against human rights violations, but this does not include restricting trade and organizations from doing business in what has increasingly become a global economy and paying workers the local market rates. And finally no, I do not pretend to know it all after having read the Communist Manifesto. But it is highly apparent that you haven’t read or understood Marx’s philosophies, otherwise you would know that Marx envisioned reaching communism only after developing a robust capitalistic society. The failure of communism in China and Russia is attributed by Marx’s apologists as having failed to first achieve capitalism. Perhaps it is you who needs to read and understand more about human nature, economics, and the dangers of governments run amuck. I’ve shared with you some of my reading list, and I would welcome taking a look at yours – but my guess is that you probably aren’t well read on these subjects and just follow what your bleeding heart tells you to do.

Communism, capitalism, both are economic systems, one is called the command economy, while the other called the market economy. There are three fundamental questions that any economic system need to answer, What to produce, How to produce, and For whom to produce. Both of the systems answers the three questions logically. For communism, all the three questions can be answered: determined by the state in the best interest of its people. For capitalism, what to produce is determined by consumer, how to produce is determined by market competition, and for whom to produce are determined by who has the money. Now, communism place the control of the economy in the hand of the state, whereas capitalism place the control on individuals (consumer, competition, who has the money). Now, the fundamental flaw with capitalism is individuals are selfish animals, by nature we want to hoard resources. So, people who have the means to hoard resources will get most of the resources, while the vast majority will not. So, for the majority (>50%)of us, we would be richer if all the wealth in the nation are distributed equally. You may ask, if we are richer if we lived in a communist regime, why aren’t we? Because most people are natural followers. The ones that do not benefit from equal distribution of wealth are the ones with leadership qualities, and thus people follow what they say, and the nation goes capitalist. However, just as I said, greed will implode itself, the great depression, the hyperinflation of Germany in WWII, the current collapse of the US economy (3 of the 5 major invest banks declared bankrupt or is trading at penny a share, Lehman, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae. Bear Steam sold to JPM for $2 a share, also government bail out of more than 1000 billion dollars, ban on shorting investment companies stocks, and a major slide in NASDAQ, don’t tell me this is not serious).
Perhaps a more vivid example will help you understand. The sub prime mortgage crisis in U.S., you know where it all started? Mortgage specialists giving out mortgages to people working part time at McDonalds, with low or unstable income. Why would they do that? Because they wanted to maximize profit, so they ask these people to pay the house off in 30 or 40 years. But can they make regular payments for 30 or 40 years? I don’t think so. And boom, the collapse of the economy. Lehman brothers recently declared bankrupt, for those who do not know what Lehman brothers is, its a major investment company, if you graduated from Harvard with a business degree, your dream would be getting a job at Lehman Brothers.
I want to say this again and again, greed will cause capitalism to implode, that is a fact.

I’ve found that absolutely nothing We(The human race) stress over or hope to achieve, morally rich or poor, will ever amount to anything. Who the hell ever said that We are so important? Only other significance starving pieces of evolutionary waste like Ourselves. We need to strip ourselves of what We comprehend of Our place in the universe and evolve where it matters. Take a new look at the picture. Because it is very, very big.

(I’ve read through all the posts thus far and…)
Capitalism seems to me, to be flawed at the core. Imagine the Capitalist America without all the poor nations around the world making ultra low-cost products American’s so love. If not for the people in the poor nations accepting very low wages, the average American life would most likely resemble, more closely than we would like, those of poor nations. Capitalism is greed and the enslavement of the less fortunate. A few keep getting richer, while the majority are stuck in the lower social classes they were born into for their entire life. The promoters of Capitalism say, “you can make it if you only try.” Then finally, when one finally makes it big, as if they were winning a lottery, they are brodcasted to our television sets as they tell us how you can make it too, while 98% of us never do. Its a fallacy to say that everyone can make it. We all know deep down inside that everyone cannot, but some keep perpetuating the illusion that Capitalism works for the common person when we all know most will die in the social class they were born into. I can help but feel it is those who have or are succeeded in the Capitalist system as the ones most afraid it may collapse. I suppose the selfishness and greed created by Capitalism runs deep. Capitalism is but a system where the advantaged take advantage of the disadvantaged for their own selfish gain.
Now, like everything, Socialism is not perfect, but I see it as a step toward a more perfect world.
Perhaps, a world more like this: http://www.thevenusproject.com/

How on earth can we acheive the balance everybody seems to desire when there are no guarantees on how good and fair people will be. Evil and greed exist. It always has and it always will. There is no Utopia. Sadly, it does not exist. That is the reality we are all in. So, how can we force things to be so equal and fair. As much as I would like that, it is impossible to impose. It is just an ideal. In the meantime, at least capitalism should keep spurring growth. Growth leads to progression. We all want to progress don’t we?
If there is one thing I learned the hard way, it’s that you can be just as perfectly fair as you can and then somebody will come along and throw a large wrench at you, screwing everything up. Because there is always that person who doesn’t care about being fair. We are human. An imperfect species. Not decendants of Spock. This isn’t political. It’s human nature. What can we do to fix that? Are we going to start looking for the “Fair” gene? and only breed those people? Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?

unfortunately Lily, greed and jealosy will have to be forced out of people. that is the purpose of the dictatorial phase of communism, i.e to reprogram the populace, to teach it, to unlearn its capitalist or corrupt ways. this is the problem with communism: the control of every aspect of human life, the infringement on individual freedom. it’s a noble ideal to have a perfectly just society but it can’t be achieved by force. greed and jealosy can’t disappear like that. maybe through some long evolutionary adaptation but not through forced reprogramming. on the other hand they do need to be checked. capitalism if it is unchecked encourages these traits which results in abuse. there has to be a balance. individual freedoms must absolutley be protected, but so must the good of the community. the trick is to find that balance.

Sweet Liberty, I appreciate all that you have shared and agree with every word of it. Thank you. It only makes sense that human nature will prevail. In all cases. Yes there are good people. Yes there are bad people. But we all have the same innate nature residing in us all. When it comes down to it you are right about how people, if given the choice, will choose to improve their own family’s situation first before anothers. Even the people who believe whole heartedly in Socialism do this now. I know many. They just loath that they do I suppose or maybe just don’t even see that they live that way right now. Do as I say, not as I do. It’s weird actually. To see how somebody can outwardly be so self rightous about this type of lifestyle and yet be so selfish at the same time. It is such a contradiction they live in. “Help everybody! But wait, Me first!” If we split the country between Socialists and Capitalists. It would be like Lord of the Flies on the Socialist side. LOL Everybody wants a leg up. Everybody wants it their way. Just some of my thoughts on the matter.

The socialist aspect of America is why a good amount of its peoples living standards are so high, not because of its capitalistic aspect. In a purely capitalist state, only the people at the top would enjoy high living standards. Imagine if the U.S. government did not step in to mandate an acceptable minimum wage. How great would the, so-called, fully ‘capitalistic’ America be without the unacknowledged socialist forces backing it up?
As I had hopefuly proved to you, socialism is not all bad in this imperfect and greedy world we live in. This however does not mean capitalism needs to be completely wiped out, just that more socialism is not a bad thing for society.

Lily: I can understand how you see socialism as an intrusion upon others hard fought victories. However, most who have won their battles never share their plunders. The capitalistic system is greed of those lucky few who actually had their hard work pay off.

I’ll tell you why capitalist systems always seems lead up to socialist systems. At the beginning of the all-great capitalistic America, all those cute little mom and pop shops started to pop up across the landscape. Those shops with the most resources usually thrived and left other shops to rot. Eventually, some of those resourceful cute little mom and pop shops reached the national scale, then meeting other shops who had similar success. They then duel it out on the national scale over and over agian with similarly successful shops untill a few are left standing in victory. These few victorious shops that do stand the test of time then grow into corporation’s of monstrous proportions, practically spreading like a virus across the whole nation. In their wake they leave countless little mom and pop shops out of business. The extrememly successful of these gigantic corporation’s then take root soo deep across the nation that they are unshakable, often even putting out new buisnesses before they are even started.
In capitalistic nations, corporation’s eventually become so big that they then become the endgame, the pinnacle of capitalistic achievements.
With these monstrous unstoppable corporation’s at the pinnacle, how then can we expect other buisnesses just starting out to perform just as well in this environment and to also reach the pinnacle? What then is left for those of us who are not the ceo’s of those large corporation’s? Work for those mega businesses or try a suicidal move and compete with them?
That is why socialism keeps returning.

As for a loss of ambition in a welfare state. I believe you can still have ambition in a welfare state, you just need to have ample rewarding incentive’s for achievments.

Sorry Go Left, but we need to take a look at our Federal Reserve and the Federal Government who is overseeing our spending. We need to cut Federal Spending because the rates at which were spending and the intrest rates we are being told by the government aren’t matching up. Thats what happend to us during the Great Depression, capitalist America is not to blame. If we are told that our intrest rates are low by the federal govenment, then investors think its a good time to invest so we spend and invest. The Federal Reserve can keep putting in credit to keep this cycle going but at sometime they need to pump thier brakes. The worst thing we could do now is Bail out these companies. Now it will be a slow painful recovery. We need our free market to allow everything to line back up. That is the beauty of Capitalism. Fredrich Hayek economy 101. Socialsim is not what we need.

All of you who think that socialism is “for the lazy” and that “all you have to do is work hard” to move up in life, you really need to think about those ideas. Can we all really move up? Can we all be rich? Can we all really make our dreams come true? No, the vast majority of us cannot.

We have to have farmers, truckers, laborers, factory workers, janitors, cooks and other blue-collar or no-collar workers. Without them our lives as we know them grind to a halt. A capitalistic society creates a class of slaves, who must work to create, distribute and care for the things that the middle and ruling classes enjoy.

Think of two children; one born into wealth and another born into poverty. Does the poor child have an equal chance to enjoy life? Is it the poor child fault that he was born to poor, working class parents? Should the poor child not have food to eat, and doctors, and education? Does the wealthy child have more rights to these things?Shouldn’t we, as humans, strive to make life good, or at least survivable, for our entire race?

that is a stupid coment u r supost to be talking about socialism vs capitalism

I dream of a world when people main concern are to find unconditional love and peace where ideas are not dividing us and pointing fingers about who is right and who is wrong. We have in our society today too many problems to concern ourselves with who is right and who is wrong, young people in this world are being killed everyday because of war and poverty. I have no magic key on how to fix this problem alone, I just know that we can fix these problems together, but we must first have to set aside our massive egos and double standard policies. I for one am an american I truly understand the success and the loses that we have endured in our history, we did not become the country that we are today without the help of others and the unity of all races for the common good of independence. It must be noted to have a great understanding of our past so that we have a good future,we must come together now and fight for love,peace and brotherhood of the world or give power to hell.

I live in the northeast and have been here my entire life. Life is dog-eat-dog, but especially vicious in these types of urban areas. You cannot wish this away with a 60/70’s mentality of peace and love. You cannot force people to care. Even if you appeal to their intellect you will always have the ignorant. Humans, just as any other animal, are opportunists. It is instinct; survival of the fittest. No matter what you choose, socialism or capitalism, people will ALWAYS be looking out for number one. I would rather work harder to achieve a higher standard of living than be oppressed into somebody else’s idea of what my life should be. I couldn’t agree more with EVERYTHING SweetLiberty has been saying. Survival INSTINCT is what makes Capitalism work, and it is the best way to turn a negative into a positive.

I do believe that anybody who wants to be rich can be. The problem is nobody REALLY wants to be. Most people will be happy doing what is necessary to “get by”. Perfect example is in school. If you are willing to put the time in you get better grades. If you are not you fail. But as I said, most people do whatever is necessary to “get by”. Socialism breeds laziness. We work for what we want! That is what “MEN/WOMEN” do. Cowards and losers make excuses as to why they couldn’t make it happen and they turn to everybody else to place blame. As I told my hippie parents. GROW UP THIS IS THE REAL WORLD, NOT MAGICAL PIXIE HAPPY LAND!

Socialism is crap. The people who are demanding that they be given more for less, would feel quite differently if the shoe was on the other foot. If they spent their lives day in and out striving for their children, grandchildren, etc. just to see their earnings given to someone who’s a drain on society. Why don’t we just give tax breaks to those companies that donate to charities of their choosing. Oh wait we do. People these days believe they are entitled to everything without anything back. I believe you’re only entitled to what you work for. Otherwise stealing should be legal. People are mad that someone invented something that everyone loves and is now rich because everyone bought it of free will and choice. Envy is just as big a problem as greed. Maybe you should stop being so envious/whiny and work harder to get what you want. But when socialism takes over you’ll only get what the gov’t says you can. The only exceptions are single parents, disabled, seniors. They are a little less able to provide efficiently due to constraints unavoidable. There are systems in place to deal with those specifically.
Maybe socialists are wannabe greedy capitalists. I’m not rich but I work for what I have and I’m ok with that.

Throughout history there have been two basic forms of social organization: collectivism and individualism. In the twentieth-century collectivism has taken many forms: socialism, fascism, nazism, welfare-statism and communism are its more notable variations. The only social system commensurate with individualism is laissez-faire capitalism.

The extraordinary level of material prosperity achieved by the capitalist system over the course of the last two-hundred years is a matter of historical record. But very few people are willing to defend capitalism as morally uplifting.

It is fashionable among college professors, journalists, and politicians these days to sneer at the free-enterprise system. They tell us that capitalism is base, callous, exploitative, dehumanizing, alienating, and ultimately enslaving.

The intellectuals’ mantra runs something like this: In theory socialism is the morally superior social system despite its dismal record of failure in the real world. Capitalism, by contrast, is a morally bankrupt system despite the extraordinary prosperity it has created. In other words, capitalism at best, can only be defended on pragmatic grounds. We tolerate it because it works.

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another’s wealth but also the desire to see another’s wealth lowered to the level of one’s own. Socialism’s teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: “Common good comes before private good.” Fascism, said Mussolini, is ” a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests…realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies.”

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals’ psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders–that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one’s birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient.

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.

But how does the entrepreneurial mind work? Have you ever wondered about the mental processes of the men and women who invented penicillin, the internal combustion engine, the airplane, the radio, the electric light, canned food, air conditioning, washing machines, dishwashers, computers, etc.?

What are the characteristics of the entrepreneur? The entrepreneur is that man or woman with unlimited drive, initiative, insight, energy, daring creativity, optimism and ingenuity. The entrepreneur is the man who sees in every field a potential garden, in every seed an apple. Wealth starts with ideas in people’s heads.

The entrepreneur is therefore above all else a man of the mind. The entrepreneur is the man who is constantly thinking of new ways to improve the material or spiritual lives of the greatest number of people.

And what are the social and political conditions which encourage or inhibit the entrepreneurial mind? The free-enterprise system is not possible without the sanctity of private property, the freedom of contract, free trade and the rule of law.

But the one thing that the entrepreneur values over all others is freedom–the freedom to experiment, invent and produce. The one thing that the entrepreneur dreads is government intervention. Government taxation and regulation are the means by which social planners punish and restrict the man or woman of ideas.

Welfare, regulations, taxes, tariffs, minimum-wage laws are all immoral because they use the coercive power of the state to organize human choice and action; they’re immoral because they inhibit or deny the freedom to choose how we live our lives; they’re immoral because they deny our right to live as autonomous moral agents; and they’re immoral because they deny our essential humanity. If you think this is hyperbole, stop paying your taxes for a year or two and see what happens.

The requirements for success in a free society demand that ordinary citizens order their lives in accordance with certain virtues–namely, rationality, independence, industriousness, prudence, frugality, etc. In a free capitalist society individuals must choose for themselves how they will order their lives and the values they will pursue. Under socialism, most of life’s decisions are made for you.

Both socialism and capitalism have incentive programs. Under socialism there are built-in incentives to shirk responsibility. There is no reason to work harder than anyone else becuase the rewards are shared and therefore minimal to the hard-working individual; indeed, the incentive is to work less than others because the immediate loss is shared and therefore minimal to the slacker.

Under capitalism, the incentive is to work harder because each producer will receive the total value of his production–the rewards are not shared. Simply put: socialism rewards sloth and penalizes hard work while capitalism rewards hard work and penalizes sloth.

According to socialist doctrine, there is a limited amount of wealth in the world that must be divided equally between all citizens. One person’s gain under such a system is another’s loss.

According to the capitalist teaching, wealth has an unlimited growth potential and the fruits of one’s labor should be retained in whole by the producer. But unlike socialism, one person’s gain is everybody’s gain in the capitalist system. Wealth is distributed unequally but the ship of wealth rises for everyone.

Sadly, America is no longer a capitalist nation. We live under what is more properly called a mixed economy–that is, an economic system that permits private property, but only at the discretion of government planners. A little bit of capitalism and a little bit of socialism.

When government redistributes wealth through taxation, when it attempts to control and regulate business production and trade, who are the winners and losers? Under this kind of economy the winners and losers are reversed: the winners are those who scream the loudest for a handout and the losers are those quiet citizens who work hard and pay their taxes.

As a consequence of our sixty-year experiment with a mixed economy and the welfare state, America has created two new classes of citizens. The first is a debased class of dependents whose means of survival is contingent upon the forced expropriation of wealth from working citizens by a professional class of government social planners. The forgotten man and woman in all of this is the quiet, hardworking, lawabiding, taxpaying citizen who minds his or her own business but is forced to work for the government and their serfs.

The return of capitalism will not happen until there is a moral revolution in this country. We must rediscover and then teach our young the virtues associated with being free and independent citizens. Then and only then, will there be social justice in America.

Hear Hear to you SweetLiberty! I have read every posting under this discussion, and I must say I am relieved and terrified to read someone writing exactly what I have been trying to explain to so many. I stumbled on this site looking for the source of the quote I believe Lily used “that history shows Capitalism eventually leads to Socialism which inevitably leads to Communism.” Given the results of the election tonight I am sickened by what the masses have asked for- a bigger piece of the pie. What many of my fellow Americans do not understand is that redistribution of wealth is Socialism. I refuse to believe that I have (beginning very poor) worked a full-time job going to school full-time with three children so that when I graduate I can give a piece of my pie to others content to just get by?!?! I suddenly feel so…unmotivated. Socialism, and eventually communism, is idealist utopian, and wholly against human nature. It is enslaving and leads to the erosion of its society. Soviet Union anyone?

School Helper,
I have the feeling I am responding to a witty grade school girl or Jr. High student, which I applaud. If you are not that person, I am sorry. Keep expressing yourself, but be prepared for rebuttal.

You commented on free food, hoarding, greed and survival instincts, which I don’t agree with. How can free food guarantee survival? There are many more elements to survival including housing, clothing, protection, education, work, and individual achievement. Do we need to supply all those for free also? I can see my taxes growing to 80% or higher like someone above said about Sweden. Survival wouldn’t be guaranteed then.

You also said quote. “people will become tolerant and not greedy, for all you religious people, isn’t greed one of the deadliest sins?
Exactly, communism is a step towards perfection, or God.”

I agree, greed is sin and degrades people, however I couldn’t disagree more that Communism is working towards perfection or God!

You need to distinguish the difference. Since you brought up religion I will correct you what Communism is. Satan’s plan was and is to destroy the agency of man, or free choice of humanity. He wanted to force his plan on everyone so we could to return to God, no choices. Satan was cast out because God’s plan was to give us free agency to choose how we behave in this life. (Bible) Communism wasn’t ever freely chosen by the people of Russia neither the brutal massacres of millions of people who resisted communism. I know that is an extreme case but socialism can lead to forced communism, less liberty and freedom to choose. Communism, Satan’s plan, does not lead to perfection.

I also disagree with this statement by you,”You are essentially the one who switched on the big engine of capitalism that runs on other people’s misery.”
That is incorrect, Capitalist don’t cause misery. People choose how they react to every condition in their life. If a person breaks his arm the natural reaction may be to yell out in pain, but all people don’t react that way. A class mate of mine died at age 43 from cancer last year. Before she died, She choose to be an inspiration to others by being friendly and cheerful to relieve suffering of others during cancer treatments. You see, she did not choose gloom, despair, and misery, she chose hope and happiness.

In conclusion I would agree that Capitalism has it’s flaws which are the flaws of individuals. I also agree with your philosophy to help other people, especially people with the least amount of opportunity. We would all be better to relieve suffering of other people. However, this should be carried out by our own free will or choice through our religious convictions or belief system not forced on us by the government

I am a Entrepreneur, capitalist, and believe in the free market, which is very tough at times to compete. I also believe I am working towards perfection and God under capitalistic economics, because I have created opportunities for others.

Take Care.

Do some of you really believe that if you work hard, you can get ahead? Hah…in the United States, it has too much to do with who you know, your neighborhood, your parents ability to support you in school and a gazillion other factors other then how hard you work. Do you really think Richard Fuld was worth his salary? If capitalism continues as it has been in the US, don’t be surprised to see some home grown terrorism.

As Joe pointed out up there, socialism and capitalism both have incentives. Socialism’s incentive is – “Well, why should I work hard? No matter what I do, I’m still gonna end up with the same amount of money. There’s no point in doing my best if I don’t benefit. So I think I’ll just slack off and do what I want. It’s not like it’s going to affect me.”
Inversely, capitalism’s incentive is – “How am I going to make any money if I don’t earn it? If I’m shiftless and lethargic, I’m gonna suffer. On the other hand, if I work hard and do my best, all my effort will really pay off. And the best part is, I get to keep all my earnings!” Unfortunately, as we all know, America is no longer a capitalist country. We’re now a mixed society, slowly declining toward communism and a fate similar to China and the USSR. Yeah, socialism was popular in Russia, too, at first. Please, people – educate yourselves. That’s the only way out of this mess.

The flaw of Marxism is that it believes everyone cares about money. I enjoy my work/job, I program computers, I do not want the responsibilities or work of a CEO. I hope the CEO that runs my company does a good job, I do not care how much he earns, I will make a decent home for myself no matter how much I earn and would do the same work even for less or more money. It is not about money. It is about feeling satisfied that I have made a contribution to making the world a better place. I prefer Capitalism because it is less oppressive and certainly produces more interesting results with the ongoing creations of things and services.

The socialism I would support, where workers would elect and have oversight over their managers, would be far superior to the system of capitalism. People forget that capitalism is a planned economy propped up by force, corporations are after all centrally planned institutions and third-world nations enter into very unfair trade arrangements because they are held at gunpoint. Socialism is undoubtedly prone to failure because well, capitalists have always had the money/guns/power every time it has been tried, nevertheless there have been great economic achievements by states that called themselves socialist, Soviet Russia was undoubtedly far more modern with far higher living standards than it was before Lenin, and after they abandoned socialism they experienced the worst peacetime economic disaster in human history, I don’t in any sense support the Soviet system, but these facts are something to keep in mind before you internalize the inane propoganda spewed out by the wealthy and powerful about the miracles of the market.

I said MORE modern than it was before, it was a feudal state with very little industry in 1917, a generation later it was the second leading industrial producer in the world, it was the first country to send a satellite into orbit, the first country to send a human being to outer space. You can’t possibly say the economy didn’t grow from 1917 on. It was undoubtedly less modern than the United States, (again I wasn’t arguing that it was the most modern nation by any means) but look at the rate at which it modernized. Russia wasn’t a superpower before communism.

Let’s deconstruct the statements and assertions James has made. First, worker election and oversight of their supervisors is a ridiculous idea. People would naturally elect the individual who promised the greatest rewards for the least amount of effort – the exact opposite of what makes a business successful. I sincerely hope you start a business one day James and allow your workers to dictate to you what they think you should pay them, the hours they should work, their benefits, and the amount of work they should produce. I will open up a shop right next door making the same widget you are selling and use the old Capitalist model. While you may find an initial surge of workers want to work for you (a.k.a. Santa Clause), the time it takes you to burn through your startup capital will be the stuff of legends.

Your next irrational statement: “Capitalism is a planned economy propped up by force…” Capitalism or a free market economy is the OPPOSITE of a planned economy. No one forces anyone to go into business, nor work for anyone else. Bill Gates didn’t plan Microsoft’s enormous success from day one – it evolved from a series of intelligent decisions, extraordinary vision, and probably a good deal of luck and timing. When he bought DOS and sold it to IBM, he didn’t anticipate Xerox would invent what has become Windows. He didn’t anticipate Microsoft Office the way it looks today. He didn’t even anticipate becoming a billionaire. That you can even spew such crap about Capitalism shows that you haven’t a clue as to what you are talking about.

Comparing Russian achievements military and aeronautic achievements must be balanced with how well their general population faired while the government spent all its time and resources competing with America. If rationing food and toilet paper in the State run grocery stores was the price of putting a man on the moon, we would have let Russia have the distinction of landing there first. Comparing what you call higher living standards post Lenin, you must weigh those standards against America. The American middle class has traditionally been the envy of the world. American’s weren’t clamoring to defect to Russia, it was the other way around.

What you call facts are gross misrepresentations and specious analysis. Before you criticize Capitalism, you should first know what it is and what it isn’t.

Daler the whaler: We are the richest because we are now the masters of cheap labor exploitation, free trade zones, NAFTA, etc. The only fairy tales that exist are people that pull the wool over their own eyes, in the form of the United States flag and proclaim that american capitalism will always be and is always superior to any other government, its all typical arrogance, like how there is only ever one “true god,” yet it/he/she can never be proven. I am willing to be almost every single person that posted on here that they believe any one can work from rags to “riches,” never made it past 50-60 grand a year albeit comfortable, not rich at all. People like to believe in making it from rags to riches to reinforce the American dream, but how practical and how often does it happen? Most of the richest people in america and the most successful come from families that already have had the american formula for success for years in the family, money. Those who do make it are statistical flukes, like movie stars, musicians etc. As you can see, the federal government is already turning socialist as we speak, bailing out companies that rightfully should have failed under capitalism, why? Because if they let them fail it would have serious backlash to our country economically and moral wise, yet if we did let them fail and endured the hardships, it would bring a definite closure to the economic problems affecting main street America. The elected officials and the “real patriots,” people like to parade are nothing of what they appear, both main parties in the U.S. are turning socialist, to me it seems sometimes socialism is the only answer to help get a country back on its feet, it doesn’t mean all socialism will be bad or that it will never give way to capitalism, the world is a series of give and takes. Hybrid capital-social is not such a bad thing. European sub-socialism is not all that bad, besides most of you have never been to europe to actually see how people live, you just read stats and articles all day, yet nothing can trade itself for real life experience of living in a situation or visiting a place you can only read and talk about like an expert. There are not nearly enough people around that can just let go of what they have been taught to believe and understand that capitalism and socialism can co-exist albeit perhaps in a modified form but make no mistake a hybrid government is coming and we are just going to have to get used to it. Desperate times call for desperate measures and economically it seems the feds are calling for economic socialism. before any total fools start flaming me understand I am a registered independent and have no care voting for who I think is right, both main parties in the United States are TOTALLY at fault. The Democrats have been advocating big socialist spending plans JUST AS MUCH as Bush and his cronies have been doing for years. So, please no one get caught up in the partisan politics that the money rakers and their lobbyist friends in washington want you to get caught up in. before I go, this one goes out to all the people that are going to cling to the founding fathers. George Washington exploited and owned 216 human being for his personal profit and Benjamin Franklin and his wealthy Philadelphian associates lobbied the government to help keep Western PA farmers from voting (the farmers wanted a far more rights and democracy when voting) if they owned less than 50 lbs. of property and X acres of land. Why? to help keep the wealthy owning a majority of the wealth to a small percentage of top tier people. Never forget the truth never let textbooks brainwash you, you think you know it all but you never will, I never will and I will never be stupid enough to be brainwashed by fools on this board into consistently believing that capitalism is and always will be the moral right choice for humanity, it depends on what the state of country is at the time, and, if you follow democracy will depend on what the MAJORITY of the people want, not the top tier. Real talk, welcome to a plutocracy, it’s just what our founding fathers wanted.
Peace, Love, Empathy and respect to all.
—Noah C.

moore is an idiot, I think socialist healthcare is a joke.

I did not post #68 but anyway…

Noah,

I did see your point and chose to point out a couple of things to you. I agree that moves of late economically are more socialist in nature but you indicated a few things that I addressed in post #67.

Noah C.: You may claim to be Independent, but you are Socialist in proposed action and philosophy. The fact the you write, “I know what I am saying is broad, I cannot deny that because it is hard to think of the possibilities of a hybrid socialist-capital system on the fly I would have to really sit down and draw it out” indicates that you think centralized public planning can achieve your goals. This is Socialism. You think if we could just raise taxes a little bit more, you could fund all the programs YOU think are necessary. But again, that’s Socialist in concept. The abuses of power which you claim to disapprove of are funded by American tax dollars spent on programs you don’t like. But you can’t have it both ways. You either bend over and let the government rape you blind and hope that some Messiah will come along, sprinkling the tax dollars just where you think they should go, or you realize that government abuse and corruption are unavoidable and begin advocating for less interference, not more. Seeing America go down in economic flames because of socially engineered policies such as low-income housing subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, Interventionist Foreign Policies, etc., your solution is to tax us more and add fuel to the fire. Brilliant.

T_J_B: You are an idiot. Walmart is perhaps the greatest rags to riches story in American history. Do a little research on Sam Walton. And big businesses don’t screw over small businesses, consumers do. If Walmart opens next to a small business, consumers are free to frequent whichever retailer they want. They favor Walmart. Allowing people to freely choose is what modern liberals and socialists (now virtually synonymous) cannot tolerate.

So more or less you and the Libertarians are going to make everything hands off government… brilliant, no one will take advantage of that, nor did it ever lead to the great depression.

Much the same as you made a mistake and realized that laissez faire, in part lead to the great depression, you knew it, and now are covering your tracks. As for me being childish, perhaps I was in that diatribe, but that prevents you not from having a civilized debate with me now. I think you can clearly tell I am no longer as upset as in previous posts, so do as you wish. You can A. stand for your position, or B. walk away because I said something right.

Who are you trying to prove you are sweetliberty, all you have been doing is metaphorically thumping your chest for months on the same forum, does that make you proud that you troll a forum “defending,” liberty? haha get a clue, you must be a lifeless bastard.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/19/autos.ceo.jets/index.html

Are you sure you guys still want to talk rags to riches and capitalism. Let’s take a look at just how much some of these people care about the economy.

I guess when people start pulling out facts and sources sweetliberty finds a quick exit strategy, SWEET YOU CAN’T LEAVE IRAQ YET!!!!!

I will watch, Un Maracucho Chavista, But quite honestly with a man like Chavez running a socialist country I can’t help but think, wrong man for the job. hahaha

This is the stupidest thing I have ever read. Really greed is conditional. Do you not know anything in history or human nature. Socialism is flawed, if people get things for free there is no need to work. After Hurricane Katrina my friend went with 100 jobs to the astrodome to give jobs to the unemployed victims. Guess how many people he hired, 3. No one wanted to work because it would screw up their welfare. They would get more money from being on welfare than working. That is one example of how if people get things for free they are lazy and greedy. In capitalism at least these people don’t drag everyone else down. Socialism has never worked, thats what the cold war was about. Read a book and educate yourself, please!

Thanks!

T_J_B: To address your first point, your fallacy is to assume Capitalism assures a fair outcome – it does not. Sam Walton is indeed an exception, but his exception proves the rule that in a society that supports entrepreneurs and allows them to flourish, such achievements are possible. Under Socialism, individual achievements are crushed as soon as they are recognized and can be hijacked by the state.

To your second point, Walmart is in business to compete for the consumer’s retail dollars. What of it? This is Capitalism and how a free market should work. However, the existence of Walmart does not prevent other companies from competing, it just makes it less likely that a consumer will want to go to a smaller store that has less selection at higher prices. Walmart does compete against Target, REI, Grocery Stores, Kohl’s, Amizon.com, and myriad other businesses that sell product lines similar to Walmart. But Walmart is so big because they deliver a variety of retail products to consumers in the most cost-effective and efficient manner possible. If this were not the case, consumers would shop elsewhere and Wal-mart would be no more.

The difference in our philosophy T_J_B is that you would somehow attempt to force or manipulate the market to allow for more businesses that operated less efficiently. And as soon as one business began to lead the pack due to innovation or its superior ability to meet consumer demand, you would rush in to clip their wings, insuring that no business ever attained top efficiency. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is a book I’d recommend for you as several characters espouse the same contempt for success that you seem to harbor. However, the free-market philosophy of the protagonists is clearly superior and self-evident.

No they don’t go bankrupt…case and point watch the news Kevin.

So you guys want to talk capitalism, economy and taxes, eh, fair enough.
———————————————————-

Seven states (Connecticut, Florida, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia) did not ratify the amendment, and it was reported as such.
Two states (Kentucky and Tennessee) did not ratify the amendment, but Secretary Knox reported that they did.
Eight states (Delaware, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and Wyoming) were reported by Secretary Knox as having ratified the amendment, but the States actually have missing or incomplete records of the ratification procedures or votes, and there is no conclusive record that they ratified the amendment or reported any ratification to the Secretary of State.
Six states (Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington) did approve the amendment, but the Governor or another official who was required by their respective state constitutions to sign the legislation into law did not sign the legislation.
In twenty-five states (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming), the legislature violated a provision of its state constitution during the ratification process.
Twenty-nine states (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming) violated “state law” or procedural rules during the ratification process.
Additionally, Benson asserted that:
Twenty-two states approved the amendment, but with changes in wording, and the inexact version was accepted as a ratification of the original version.
One state approved the amendment, but with variations in spelling, and the inexact version was accepted as a ratification of the original version.
At least twenty-six states approved the amendment, but with changes in punctuation, and the inexact version was accepted as a ratification of the original version.
Benson asserted that the Oklahoma State Legislature changed the wording of the amendment they approved so that it meant the opposite of the original amendment as it was submitted to the States by Congress, but that Secretary Knox counted Oklahoma as having approved the amendment.
Benson also asserted, as an example of a state’s violation of its own Constitution, laws, or procedural rules, the claim that the Tennessee State Constitution prohibited the legislature from acting on any proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution submitted by Congress until after the next state legislative elections. According to Benson, the Tennessee legislature acted on the proposed 16th amendment the same month it was received (prior to any new state legislative elections).

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.
(Sir Alex Fraser Tytler) (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian

sound familar??…(aka the 2008 election)

The problem with your argument lies in the assumption that people will continue to produce at current rates. As you say, “if food is free people will no longer have to rely on their survival instincts and will become more tolerant.” You fail to consider that if food is free, why continue to work? Why produce if you can take from your neighbor? If it’s free you have no need to produce, you can go about an do other things you may find more enjoyable in life rather than toiling in the fields. Will producers become tolerant of the parasites? As more and more citizens turn to an unproductive way of life food supply will diminish until there is no food to feed the population. Without food your civilization will perish.

Why don’t you write a book? What a windbag. Say something Americans do not already know. This is like listening to a broken record of American values. Thats fine and dandy, but if you were half as intelligent as you clearly try to prove, you would have realized: What you say is idealistic, just the same as socialism, communism, anarchism etc. YES, America should be that way, but it hasn’t been, well, ever. Allusions my dear sir, allusions. The biggest critique I have seen on here is from people downing every other form of government except capitalism for being too “idealistic,” soon quickly turning around to say very idealistic things about their own choice government (Capitalism.). The irony is F****** painful.

There is an intelligent comment.

Man, you need to read a history book.
Seriously.
Please, I’m begging you – EDUCATE YOURSELF.
But start s-l-o-w….read the newspaper first.
Then tell us with logial supportive arguments what the hell you’re talking about.

\”…communism is a step towards perfection, or God.\”

You may want to watch what you say. People, such as myself, find it offensive to have communism compared with God.

You seem like you may be educated, but you are poorly mistaken on the \’Good Outlook\’ on Communism.

If you would like to have all the achievements in your life taken from you and redistribute all the things you\’ve gotten in your life, then feel free to move out of the United States.
We, The United States, are a mixed Economy just as you said, but I\’m sure that Communism isn\’t a good idea.
It\’s unfortunate that more people arn\’t educated about the details of Socailism and Communism or even Capitalism.

I don\’t like that we should have to pay for the lazy people who think they really have it bad. If they really don\’t like to work then that\’s their own problem and they can live on the streets and realize that they need to get off of thier butts and do something and if they would really don\’t like to have to work for thier achievements then they can MOVE to a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY and really see how it is to starve and have it bad, but if they really want to sit on thier butts then let them but I don\’t think that we should be taxed for thier stupidity.

It\’s a shame that people have to pay for the people who are too lazy to pay for themselves. I also think that by having a Capitalistic society that we could get \’rid\’ of the lazy people. It\’s like servival of the fittest. The people who don\’t want to work need to leave, the people who don\’t want to be an actual functioning being can leave. Those are the types of people who make the United States worse.

Just some food for thought I guess.

Think it over.

Socialism vs Capitalism is an abstract arguement that is well and good if you want to read a blog that is pages long and months old. But to me, in my own biased opinion of course, the arguement is simple because socialism is merely a parasite on capitalism. I compare in a way much as fauna are parasites on flora. Hope thats not over anybodys head.

Socialism as we know it, or even imagine it, cannot exist without some form of financing it. That means the socialist system requires money in order to function. This money must ultimately be produced using some form of wealth producing system. The best system so far has been competative markets backed up by human, civil, and property rights.

The main ingredient really is property. If humans cannot own property there is very little value which can be exchanged, as discovered very harshly in China during Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”, or something like that, when the Chinese government attempted to banish vested interests. This was disasterous because without property what does one trade? The answers is not very much. You can’t even trade your own labor very easily because ultimately someone has to pay you. Where does the money come from?

I obviously didn’t come up with this stuff myself. The info I have given has been conjured many years ago, but the fundamentals still stand true through the tests of time. Value producing systems based on competative markets and property rights have simply and completely out performed other more centrally planned systems such as socialism.

To quote Alan Greenspan, “The ultimate arbiter of all such paradigms is reality.”

Anyways, I just thought I would chime in to this little (actually long) debate.

This article explains it all perfectly.

Socialism vs. Capitalism:
Which is the Moral System
On Principle, v1n3

by: C. Bradley Thompson

Throughout history there have been two basic forms of social organization: collectivism and individualism. In the twentieth-century collectivism has taken many forms: socialism, fascism, nazism, welfare-statism and communism are its more notable variations. The only social system commensurate with individualism is laissez-faire capitalism.

The extraordinary level of material prosperity achieved by the capitalist system over the course of the last two-hundred years is a matter of historical record. But very few people are willing to defend capitalism as morally uplifting.

It is fashionable among college professors, journalists, and politicians these days to sneer at the free-enterprise system. They tell us that capitalism is base, callous, exploitative, dehumanizing, alienating, and ultimately enslaving.

The intellectuals’ mantra runs something like this: In theory socialism is the morally superior social system despite its dismal record of failure in the real world. Capitalism, by contrast, is a morally bankrupt system despite the extraordinary prosperity it has created. In other words, capitalism at best, can only be defended on pragmatic grounds. We tolerate it because it works.

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another’s wealth but also the desire to see another’s wealth lowered to the level of one’s own. Socialism’s teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: “Common good comes before private good.” Fascism, said Mussolini, is ” a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests…realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies.”

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals’ psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders–that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one’s birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient.

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.

But how does the entrepreneurial mind work? Have you ever wondered about the mental processes of the men and women who invented penicillin, the internal combustion engine, the airplane, the radio, the electric light, canned food, air conditioning, washing machines, dishwashers, computers, etc.?

What are the characteristics of the entrepreneur? The entrepreneur is that man or woman with unlimited drive, initiative, insight, energy, daring creativity, optimism and ingenuity. The entrepreneur is the man who sees in every field a potential garden, in every seed an apple. Wealth starts with ideas in people’s heads.

The entrepreneur is therefore above all else a man of the mind. The entrepreneur is the man who is constantly thinking of new ways to improve the material or spiritual lives of the greatest number of people.

And what are the social and political conditions which encourage or inhibit the entrepreneurial mind? The free-enterprise system is not possible without the sanctity of private property, the freedom of contract, free trade and the rule of law.

But the one thing that the entrepreneur values over all others is freedom–the freedom to experiment, invent and produce. The one thing that the entrepreneur dreads is government intervention. Government taxation and regulation are the means by which social planners punish and restrict the man or woman of ideas.

Welfare, regulations, taxes, tariffs, minimum-wage laws are all immoral because they use the coercive power of the state to organize human choice and action; they’re immoral because they inhibit or deny the freedom to choose how we live our lives; they’re immoral because they deny our right to live as autonomous moral agents; and they’re immoral because they deny our essential humanity. If you think this is hyperbole, stop paying your taxes for a year or two and see what happens.

The requirements for success in a free society demand that ordinary citizens order their lives in accordance with certain virtues–namely, rationality, independence, industriousness, prudence, frugality, etc. In a free capitalist society individuals must choose for themselves how they will order their lives and the values they will pursue. Under socialism, most of life’s decisions are made for you.

Both socialism and capitalism have incentive programs. Under socialism there are built-in incentives to shirk responsibility. There is no reason to work harder than anyone else becuase the rewards are shared and therefore minimal to the hard-working individual; indeed, the incentive is to work less than others because the immediate loss is shared and therefore minimal to the slacker.

Under capitalism, the incentive is to work harder because each producer will receive the total value of his production–the rewards are not shared. Simply put: socialism rewards sloth and penalizes hard work while capitalism rewards hard work and penalizes sloth.

According to socialist doctrine, there is a limited amount of wealth in the world that must be divided equally between all citizens. One person’s gain under such a system is another’s loss.

According to the capitalist teaching, wealth has an unlimited growth potential and the fruits of one’s labor should be retained in whole by the producer. But unlike socialism, one person’s gain is everybody’s gain in the capitalist system. Wealth is distributed unequally but the ship of wealth rises for everyone.

Sadly, America is no longer a capitalist nation. We live under what is more properly called a mixed economy–that is, an economic system that permits private property, but only at the discretion of government planners. A little bit of capitalism and a little bit of socialism.

When government redistributes wealth through taxation, when it attempts to control and regulate business production and trade, who are the winners and losers? Under this kind of economy the winners and losers are reversed: the winners are those who scream the loudest for a handout and the losers are those quiet citizens who work hard and pay their taxes.

As a consequence of our sixty-year experiment with a mixed economy and the welfare state, America has created two new classes of citizens. The first is a debased class of dependents whose means of survival is contingent upon the forced expropriation of wealth from working citizens by a professional class of government social planners. The forgotten man and woman in all of this is the quiet, hardworking, lawabiding, taxpaying citizen who minds his or her own business but is forced to work for the government and their serfs.

The return of capitalism will not happen until there is a moral revolution in this country. We must rediscover and then teach our young the virtues associated with being free and independent citizens. Then and only then, will there be social justice in America.

C. Bradley Thompson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashland University and Coordinator of Publications and Special Programs at the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs.

Will everyone stop with the “choice” bs? You say people have a choice between prosperity and destitution, but even if that were true — even if everybody had an equal chance under the capitalist system — what about the people who would like to “choose” to commit their life to doing something that won’t make them money? What if they want to make art or live in a tree or be a transient or pray all the time or write poetry and then burn it? The only way to make everybody free to do whatever they want is to provide for everyone’s basic needs (food, shelter, and healthcare). People are saying that in socialism the needs of the community overtake the needs of the individual, but in fact it’s the opposite: socialism is the only individualistic system, whereas the only way to live under capitalism is to do something that enough people will pay you to do. “Market demand” is the true tyrant, because it’s really just another word for the will (or rather, wants) of the people. Saying that people who don’t “contribute to society” deserve to not make as much money as the people who do (or, I suppose, given that a lot of you think there shouldn’t be any welfare, that they deserve to starve from want of food and other necessities) is saying that people who work for their own self-fulfillment and not for the demands of society don’t deserve to live as well as those who do. I can’t think of a more flatly anti-individualist position.

P.S. Can everyone also stop with the copypasta? (I’m looking at you, StevieB. I noticed how you let SweetLiberty think you wrote that.)

P.P.S. If you would like to reply to this comment, please notify me at ana.ng64(at)gmail(dot)com, as I’m not a regular on this board and would otherwise forget where this even is. Thanks

Never heard more utter nonsense in my life. Anyone can help anyone they choose, but no one should be forced to.
Who is “school helper?”.

Name one country that has or is operating under he approach of socialism and has successfully reduced its number of poor. That is correct, you can’t. It does not work. Ask the people of Canada or England if socialized health care is working for them. They will tell you it is not. The system is extremely expensive and people have to wait forever for needed medical care. Their doctors are moving to other countries, leaving only the incompetent.

When you remove the reward for working, you remove the incentive for working. So, is it any surprise socialist countries have poor productivity?

“You can’t make the poor rick by making the rich poor.” Even if we gave the poor a million dollars each, many of them would be poor again soon. There is a reason most of them are poor. It is not because of the lack of opportunity. Not in this country anyway. If you don’t want to take advantage of the poor in China, don’t. That is a choice we make, it is not a necessity.

Can you say “Nut Job!”

So, J, my first piece of advice will be to lose the profanity. It makes you sound stupid and immature, and discredits your argument before it’s ever read. It’s also bad for the children.

As to what you’re saying that isn’t expletives– it is true that everybody dies in the end. It is true that people SHOULD help each other. I don’t disagree with this. I made about 5,000 last year in a combination of part-time work and a speech competition for Rotary (I am in college, the economy has tanked– money and work are hard to come by). Probably dropped eight or nine hundred into charity funds. I’m no rich guy, but I do as I can.

Now let me ask you this– who are YOU, or who is the PRESIDENT, or who is CONGRESS, to determine how the money I earn, or the money Donald Trump earns, is to be allocated? How is it FAIR to suggest that even though I spend my life earning money, I have no say in how it is spent?

And in any case– when I die, maybe I want to leave some stuff for whatever children or relations I have on this planet at that time.

Society keeps going after you die, and if you need an altruism to convince yourself to work, think of it like that– after the end of your life, your labor continues to be a benefit. Henry Ford has kept giving years after his death through the repeated use of his innovation– the assembly line is what made our commuter society possible, and for this to be a country with more cars than there are drivers. And how much better off were his workers after he managed to make cars so efficiently? He raised their wages some 50%, if memory serves.

Smith’s invisible hand is still at work– you work for self-interest, society improves. You do better at work, get a raise. Now your family can eat better, and you can offer your income in more goods elsewhere, providing someone else with more wealth.

Maybe you choose to invest a surplus in the stock market, and your investment enables a company to open a new plant in some random small town, providing more jobs for people.

Maybe you give it in charity, and halfway around the world, a starving family is given their first healthy meal in years.

Maybe you save it for a rainy day by locking it in a vault, and ten years from now, your brother gets in a car accident, and you can spend that money helping him pay his hospital bills, and save him from years of debt and expenses.

The honest truth is that while most people are naturally self-interested, they’re also naturally compassionate. Left to their own devices, few people like to watch their neighbors starve. Altruism and human compassion do not need compulsion to succeed–in many cases, the mere fact of compulsion will serve to destroy compassion.
“The socialist sees a millionare’s estate, and all the extravagances and wealth, and says to himself ‘nobody should have this much.’ The capitalist sees the same estate and wealth, and says, ‘everybody should have this much.’”
I don’t remember who said it, but that quote is the finest summary of the two politcal/economic views I’ve ever seen.

The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World
This book explains the philosophy of our founding father and our constitution. This is important information for Americans to read because currently we are losing sight of freedom and the American Dream. This has been steadily occurring for years now: no matter which party is in office. The fact of the matter is that the Government seeks control and should be kept small. We as a nation can depend on the free market and competition to keep businesses in place, however, there is no way to keep government in it’s place. The more power we give the government, the more freedom we lose.
Read the book The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World
and the book Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. In his book he explains the invisible hand that allows for spontaneous growth of the market and natural homeostasis (thus the success of AMerica– which is dwindling as govt. grows. We cannot trust people to do something that should happen by cause and effect. People are only human and egotistical. They will always seek power. Therefore, the government should not be in control of the market.
link to book:
http://www.amazon.com/5000-Year-Leap-Miracle-Changed/dp/0880801484

Would someone name me the socialistic countries in the world that are successful?

To the previous poster:

As you admit, you are a bit naive. I can understand your frustration at not being able to get a $30K/yr education, but I think you are missing some points:

(1) Since the military has to compete for volunteers, they offer incentives, such as paying for your education. Once you get out of the military, the military should pay for all or most of your education. So even though you come from a poor family, you will have the opportunity to get a degree. And since graduate students in science & engineering are usually paid, you can even get a PhD if you want one. It will just be a few years later than you might have preferred.

(2) Slightly off topic, but whatever you do, DO NOT TAKE OUT STUDENT LOANS. They are a trap. Consider yourself blessed that the banks declined to put the noose over your neck. A family can live on $40-50K/yr if they are aggressive about avoiding debt (including most mortgages). But if you fall for the debt trap, then you will most likely live in debt for the rest of your life – even if you manage to make $100K/yr. A man in debt is a slave.

(3) Capitalism is not about “getting rich”. It is about having a decent lifestyle. This appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding that is fairly common in this thread. One in a million may get rich, but if a person works hard, it is an almost certainty that he can make $50-60K/yr. Which, if you avoid debt (and taxes), is enough to provide for a family and to build up savings and capital for retirement.

(4) As has been previously stated, socialism is not an improvement because it saps the will. Socialist systems do not invent things like air conditioning, MRIs, computers, etc. This is because invention and innovation takes a VAST amount of effort over a long period of time. And most people are not so charitable as to expend this effort with no hope of return. The vast majority in a capitalist system will never invent or innovate. But people who live in socialist and capitalist systems enjoy the fruits of those who do, and the standard of living of everyone is raised. If there are no more capitalist systems, then innovation will also be greatly reduced. And that means that standards of living across the board will stagnate.

(5) If you actually implement radical socialism with price controls or “free” necessities, then shortages will eventually result, because no one will be motivated to produce more than what they need. A farmer will produce enough to feed his family and friends and no more, because he will not be rewarded for his efforts. You can reason about how a man ought to feel, but as Dostoevsky pointed out a century ago, you cannot love a man in the abstract. Such “love” is merely a headless abstraction. Small communities can implement something like communism (think Amish); large nations cannot.

(6) I do admit a major flaw in capitalism. Ziph’s law applies to wealth creation; very few will have a great amount of money, and very many will have little. This is reality. Capitalism in itself does not enthrone a hereditary “elite”. But the nature of money is such that it can be used to circumvent justice. A capitalist system can only survive if almost every major fraud is prosecuted. You have to jail the evil men who use their position to bully others. If you fail to put an Andrew Carnegie or JP Morgan in jail, then you lay the seeds for the transition from capitalism to a fascist command economy. [N.B. these two belonged in jail - Carnegie for using a private army against striking workers, and Morgan for his racketeering monetary manipulations, leaving aside his conspiracy to create the Federal Reserve]. A capitalist system cannot survive if fraud is overlooked.

(7) Once fraud becomes accepted, it will become the norm among moneyed men, and they will begin to corrupt the system of laws to favor themselves. Since men are in general corruptible, it is almost inevitable that fraud will be allowed at some point, and from there it will grow like a cancer on the body politic. We are now at the point where the cancer has metastasized. No capitalist system can last forever. But it is a more stable system than socialism, which never seems to last more than a century, and usually lasts not more than a couple of decades.

(8) Socialism is equally corruptible as capitalism, but it becomes corrupted much faster. A command economy must always have planners. Who are these planners, and what are their motivations? How are they to be chosen, and what qualifications should be looked for? Reflection on these questions will reveal that just as fraud will come to dominate capitalist systems over time, socialism will almost from its very onset be dominated by power-hungry and ruthless men. For if a very few men are to have the ability to dictate the activity of the whole mass of humanity, then they must have instruments of sufficient force to accomplish this purpose, since it is not the nature of man to submit sheepishly to the will of another. Socialism demands conformity – conformity of thought and action. The application of this conformity must grow more rigid the more “equality” is guaranteed. The men who gain authority in extreme socialism will of necessity be the sort of men who take pleasure in controlling the lives of other. I need not discurse further on what it would be to live under the rule of such men.

(9) Even in social democracies such as in Western Europe, this rigidity is still a problem. Consider how a man might react to a neighbor who constantly tried to give him advice, without taking the time to understand his situation. Such a neighbor would be termed a “busybody”, and would be thought of as a nuisance. Social democracy is nothing other than government by busybodies, constant interference by other people who think they know best.

(10) Social democracy does not have a good record of constraining the greed of the rich or in promoting social mobility. Quite the opposite, the experimental outcome of social democracy in Europe is that societal strata become ossified. Poor immigrants have difficulty escaping poverty; this has led to almost annual riots in Paris. The wealthy classes sustain themselves by means of regulations that quash competitors due to the cost of compliance. Thus social democracies tend to provide and sustain monopolies on wealth. Education for a career may be free, but you won’t find a job unless you are connected to someone with a job to offer. The reason for this is because once hired, you cannot be easily fired, so companies want to know up front that they can trust the new employee. Also, because of the higher overhead incurred by the social safety net, employers have less jobs to offer and prefer buying high-tech equipment over hiring workers.

(11) In my opinion, we need capitalism in this country, but we first need a restoration, a leveling of the playing field. Those who have engaged in fraud should be jailed or executed depending on the level of fraud. Those who have explicitly benefited from the fraudulent behavior of others should be stripped of the bulk of their assets. Any entity of sufficient size to overpower the political system should be broken up into subunits (including political parties). And then we should go back to free enterprise. But free markets can only be sustained as long as the people remain vigilant for the exercise of justice. This is a constraint that cannot be removed.

(12) While the idea of socialism is appealing, the reality is not. Capitalism is a system of economic freedom that works well to promote general prosperity. But capitalism degrades slowly over time into fascism, mercantilism, or some other oligarchical form. When that happens, the people must unite and rise up together to restore freedom and punish fraud and deceit. If they are unwilling to throw off the yoke, then the oppression of socialism or some other oligarchical or authoritarian system that will follow may convince their children or grandchildren otherwise. But it is important to recall that freedom, once lost, is only regained with great difficulty and hardship.

Wow what a cool debate. Socio-Capitalism is of course the answer? Hey why not? Why does it have to be one way or the other? There are many things that lend themselves to socialization, such as collective farming or some types of manufacturing where consolidation is cost-effective, and I’m beginning to think maybe health care, but still can’t quite buy into it. Capitolism however is necessary for the inspiration to know that if you can create and innovate you can generally improve your lot in life. (By the way I heard a great saying”Capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without hell”) Kind of depressing that our society in the U.S. has changed from one that used to make the things it invented to one that imports thinkers from everywhere and then has its stuff made somewhere else. Although people as a rule are inherently good, some aren’t, which screws up both ends of either system. robber barons on one side and welfare slackers on the other. Keep debating though! Its all good info, from the idealistic kids to us “locked in” old men.

It’s all the goddamn same, in capitalism, you work to make the wealthy wealthier, never having anything more valuable than your labor. In socialism you work or are punished (everyone seems to think that you get shot for not working). In anarchy (my personal preference) we wouldn’t have modern medicine.

I also feel like I need to explain the difference between socialism and communism a bit; in communism everything is owned by “everyone” (likely the oppressive government) while socialism is the IDEA that the means of production for any particular company are controlled by the workers and everyone has an equal share in the profits.

We absolutely can not have a totally free market system. The reason for this is because monopolies and trusts will develop and thats the only business that the banks will loan to (and they will actually help these monopolies develop) because they are by far the best investment. Once you have a monopoly on a certain product, say cigar making, you also have a monopoly on the skilled cigar rollers and can pay whatever you want. The rank and file will form a union which will be brutally crushed. If some of you don’t believe me I can promise you this happened all the time in the 19th century. We may have a democracy but the vast majority of our politicians are coming out of the business world and thats where their sympathies lie.

A socialist society wouldn’t be all that different from our current one. A big problem is that it would be nearly impossible for a small business to grow. If three people start a glass blowing business or something and at the end of the year they have a profit of 120k they can either hire another worker and collectively make 30k a year or they can all make 40k a year. They’ll probably take the extra 10k. Their proffits would have to be enormous for them to hire another worker. It is also worth mentioning that a socialist society would be completely defenseless against outside attack.

Now consider this, small self sustaining hamlets, with absolutely no contact with anyone outside their hamlet, no systems with influence reaching farther than you can yell. The advantages are increased freedom and an all around happier life style (people talk of technological progress but technological advancement could freeze right now and I wouldn’t a flying duck). The disadvantages are complete defenselessness from disease and outside invaders.

All economic systems are the same because they are all systems. The only act any system can make is one of self preservation, and the surest way to insure survival is to keep things the same as they were in the past, when you knew you were alive. Its easy to see now that any system will resist any fundamental change; so now yo can laugh whenever a politician offers change, because nothing will.

Great discussion. I really think that Capitalism is best – however the problem with Capitalism is that the person who succeeds the most is usually the greediest. Greed then breeds corruption, theft, manipulation, lack of respect for others and a host of other traits. This in turn brings greater wealth. At some point either the law catches up or the Government puts restrictions on the business. Currently though, too many in the Government are being bought by the Capitalists. Thanks to the Internet we have this great research tool. Still too many people are not using it to their advantage and are just listening to what they are being told by the National Media which is again controlled by the Capitalists. So while Capitalism is absolutely the best system it’s also destructive. Capitalism is the best as long as the management has morals and accepts the responsibility to it’s employees and society to be fair to everyone. Unfortunately that is not what happens.

Kent had a very smart comment, that is exactly the problem and what I haven been leaning towards.

The questions is, what is a positive way to enforce that without making any drastic changes which could lead to a complete downturn.

And to make something like this permanent it would be a step towards Socialism, but it would be better for all classes, the Lower class and middle class making more money. While the higher class (business owners and CEO’s) will have more reliable and basically put, happier employees.

BTW I forgot to add something that I think you all forgot. We ALL live in different parts of the world. For exampe some here live in America, The Big USA. Some of us, including me live in Canada where yes we all like maple syrup and say “eh”. But the point is Even in different parts of Canada we are not all happy with Capitasm, for example I was one of the lucky ones to have a roof over my head, food in my stomach and good schooling. But in the streets in Montreal you see teens my age living there, blazing their lives out and becoming drug adicts. Not everyone is happy. No one is ever happy in a Capitilist way of live because we are AMERICAN PIGS. We ALWAYS want MORE and will NEVER be happy with what we have.

Yeah socialism it works great just look at every booming socialist economy in the world, oh wait a minute, there arent any. There is something every socialist or communist dreamer forgets, in order to have free things, they have to be paid for somehow, or aquired somehow, if a farmer isnt making anymore than a grocery store bagger then why farm? after that, guess what, no more food. socialism and communism are dreams of a bunch of lazys sitting in their moms basements jerking off to al gore talking about global warming.

This has been quite a debate. Beginning with Molly’s post on November 7, 2007 at 8:35 am and ending with Dirk’s on December 22, 2009 at 8:03 pm. (Madihwa’s on January 10, 2010 at 2:31 am didn’t really contribute so much.) This is obviously an emotional issue for those who were motivated to contribute to the discussion. From Molly’s “wet behind the ears” comment to Dirk’s claim that anyone who is depraved enough to believe in socialism masturbates in their basement while watching Al Gore. Yes, well there you have over two years of intelligent debate from our best and brightest. But, now for my contribution (oh, you’ll just love it!)

Perhaps we should just break down the meaning of capitalism and socialism to their most basic definitions. In capitalism, the people who have the capital control the economy. In socialism, the people who work for the people who have the capital control the economy. Read that over as many times as it takes for you to grasp those simplistic descriptions.

In this context, capital is the physical assets, such as a factory, machinery, raw material. Social is the community who does the actual work. Not just laborers, but engineers, lawyers, scientists, etc. The capitalists deserve to make the rules and have control because they have the assets. The capitalists make money because they have money to invest. The workers, part of the society that does not have the capital, have skills to sell for wages. By this very basic definition – assuming you are looking out for your own best interests – if you own a business and employ people, you are a capitalist. If you work for someone who owns a business, you are a socialist.

Obviously, there needs to be cooperation between the capitalists and the socialists. In the USA, we had 8 years of strictly capitalist control. It didn’t work out so well and now we are in a hell of a mess. The theory that capitalism is self-sustaining and the “better” of the choice between that and socialism has been proven false. Unchecked capitalism will invariably destroy an economy just as surely as unchecked socialism.

Now here is the word that the uneducated detractors of socialism in the USA are looking for: nationalism. The US partly nationalized the banks and the auto makers because they were deemed “to big to fail”. They were to big to fail because of unchecked capitalism. This is not an opinion by any means. This is now historical fact.

It seems obvious to me that there needs to be a balance between socialism and capitalism with sufficient nationalism to assure the two are policed properly. And just to through a last definition in here, an oligarchy is a form of government where all of the power is in the hands of a small, elite group. This is opposed to a democracy. A person could argue that we actually have an oligarchy in the USA. How do you Canadians feel about your country and an oligarchy?

Your definition of socialism is too strict, and there are many more socialist countries than you would think. For example, the UK is a socialist country. Just because a country is socialist, it doesn’t mean everyone is payed equally. In fact, that isn’t the case in most socialist systems. They just have higher taxes, especially on those who make more money, and provide equal services for all citizens. It is effectively redistribution of wealth and lots of government run social services. Businesses still exist, but are regulated and taxed much more than in capitalism. I think you are confusing socialism with Marxism/Communism.

If u ask me, this whole country is naive and ignorant. Wake up! Socialism in itself isn’t bad! it is the way u use it. people in the UK don’t just hand out free stuff. and i have to compare the two systems. Their medical system over there has potential to save more lives, because they don’t have greedy people demanding money before they drop dead. When i came to the US, one of the first thing that happened to me is that i had an asthma attack. what happened? i was demanded money to pay for an inhaler that would save my life. could i pay later? no. so i had to put my own family in a dangerous financial position just to get an inhaler that is much cheaper in the UK. Don’t give me crap about China ect. Socialism doesn’t have to consume an entire economical system, it only has to exist in some form or another. Do u think the US could have survived the Great Depression without the TVA and other programs, which i remind u were socialist? No, we culdn’t have. It shouldn’t be overused, but socialism shouldn’t be shunnd either.

Okay seriously??? Socialism sounds great in theory, but really it can’t work. First, no matter who you put in charge they will naturally become greedy because we are all human after all. We just aren’t prone to sharing as humans. Second, if you give everyone everything they need then nicely ask them to “pretty please” go to work, they’re not going to do it! If I got paid without working I’d be sitting on the couch watching gossip girl all day. Socialism is a joke.

all i have to say is to any red or pinko is three names of the last century stalin,hitler,mao three murderers that used the fraud idea to blind thier nations into thinking some sort of economic utopia was possible look what happened murder not just murder genocide is that what you lefties want genocide cause for anyone to agree with marx you have to agree those three guys and for someone who says they have compasion for humanity to agree with monsters on their prefered form of government sorry i dont use spelling or punctuation correctly

Even though that comment is really long, I encourage you all read it.