Socialism Vs Capitalism

Let’s take a look at Socialism and Capitalism.
With Capitalism businesses are owned by individuals or corporations. Some (perhaps even many, but not all) are owned by greedy selfish individuals or groups who don’t care about anyone but themselves. They exploit their workers and/or cheat their customers. Others are owned by hard working individuals or groups who are just trying to make a living. They provide fair products and treat their employees well. In a Capitalist society, ANYONE who has an idea or product that can make money can be rich or well off. If a company doesn’t treat its employees well, they have every right to quit or just not show up for work. The company has no right to force people to work for them. If anyone continues working for a company that mistreats them then it’s their own fault. If a company produces a bad product or cheats their customer then the customer can go somewhere else to buy from or even start a competitive company to run the cheaters out of business. NO ONE is forced to buy a product from any given company! If you don’t like a company you can go somewhere else.

With Socialism ALL of the companies are owned and run by the Government. And as we all know, the government is a divine entity free of human corruption, right? No the Government is owned and run by LYING CORRUPT GREEDY SELFISH POLITICIANS! What does that mean? It means that with socialism ALL of the companies in the entire country are owned by a small group of lying corrupt greedy selfish politicians who are also in charge of making the laws. You can’t choose for yourself what to buy or where to buy from. You’re told what you have to buy and who to buy from, by “the state”! You can’t choose where to work or what job you want to do. You are told by “the state“ where you’re going to work and what you’re going to do! So if you don’t like where you work, you can’t quit or you will be arrested as a “dissident”. If you don’t like a product you’re told to buy, you can’t refuse to buy it or you’ll be arrested (sound familiar?)! If you complain or speak out against ANYTHING then you get arrested as a “dissident”! The normal person can’t start their own business. You can’t claim “intellectual property” as everything is owned by the politicians in control of the government. ALL of the wealth, and everything else, is controlled completely and totally by these corrupt lying politicians.

Which is better? Ask yourself “how do you feel about politicians?” do you trust all politicians? Well if you’re a lying corrupt greedy politician, and you’re able to stay in charge, then Socialism is fantastic! If you’re ANYONE else, rich, poor, or in-between, then socialism is the WORST form of government. The fact that they always name themselves as “Peoples republics” even though the “people” have no control over anything (including their own lives) and they don’t have free elections so are in NO way a “republic” shows what liars socialists are.

I keep trying to make this point, but it just provokes a flame war.

An amazing number of people on this forum are socialists.

The companies are private and workers as well as consumers have free choice, except that choice is limited by government regulation.

The owners of a company are free to make a profit, except they will have their profits confiscated by taxes.

The only people that can prosper are those who have a product that can be sold at an extremely high profit margin or who have political influence to get special tax breaks or government loans.

Lol, the trouble with socialism is that those who end on top of the pile become capitalists and the problem with capitalism is those down the bottom become socialist.

I would prefer to discuss not Capitalism and Socialism but the nature of property rights. Instead of Capitalism focus on strong property rights of individuals where the state cannot easily take them away and rather than Socialism argue for weaker or no property rights where the state assigns what privileges individuals might have regarding property.

Discussing the two -isms carries too many distractions from the core competing issues. What people can do with their property is what is important in this discussion, not what the system is called.

namelessfly wrote:An amazing number of people on this forum are socialists.

Thats why I cut my last line (on FB): people who support socialism are idiots...oops

namelessfly wrote:The companies are private and workers as well as consumers have free choice, except that choice is limited by government regulation.The owners of a company are free to make a profit, except they will have their profits confiscated by taxes.

Actually that is Fascism. The difference between Communism and Fascism is that under Fascism (NAZI) the private citizens are allowed to retain ownership of companies but are controlled by the government in every aspect by “regulations”. Of course the companies that are owned but political rivals are taken over or "regulated" out of business and the owners arrested as “dissidents", just as the NAZIs did in the ‘30s (particularly to Jewish and Slavic owned businesses) – which was great for German owned businesses! In a full socialist country (where all competition has been squashed ) the government takes over the companies directly and “regulates” employment (forces people to work where they are told to – or else). Many “socialist” countries today are only partially socialist. This would change if the US turned socialist. Their governments would be less timid and take over their industry as well. Who would stop them? The government?

PeterZ wrote:...Discussing the two -isms carries too many distractions from the core competing issues. What people can do with their property is what is important in this discussion, not what the system is called.

If it’s my property then it’s my property & I should be able to do what I want with it as long as it doesn’t damage your property. But that’s the thing, what constitutes “damage”? We can agree that if I have a pasture with a creek running through it, and allow a company to dump radioactive waste in my creek, then that would damage your property next door, downstream. But, does my company taking your companies customers from you constitute “damaging” your property? Or is it that your company doesn’t provide as good a service/product cause the damage?

This however is not the topic. The topic is how much control do we give the lying cheating corrupt politicians who (for some stupid reason) we allow to run the government?
I ask people what they think of politicians? Invariably & regardless of culture or ethnic background, they virtually always denounce politicians as lying, greedy cheats who can’t be trusted with a pen without running off with it in their pocket. Yet when asked about a favorite candidate they say “I like what he says”. What? Are you stupid? You just said politicians are lyres! So what would you care what s/he says? you just said it’s a LIE! And then these same morons what to turn everything over to their control through socialism? Dumb!

Annachie wrote:Lol, the trouble with socialism is that those who end on top of the pile become capitalists and the problem with capitalism is those down the bottom become socialist.

…and they both end up shafting the poor slobs in the middle.

As with everything political, its a case of balance beam walking. too far one way and the system fails. too far the other way, and the system also fails. Both socialism and capitalism as thought of by you have advantages and disadvantages. while socialism can lead to a government monopoly, so too can fully free market capitalism, as evidenced by the attempts of the cable companies in the US at the moment.

The problem is not the systems. the problem is human nature.

Your argument does nothing to remove the corruption from the process. You're simple replacing one corrupt bunch with another.

The real problem with any debate between isms is that when you actually look at the problems of both you find that the best system borrows from both. You need a government with the ability to counter destructive trends.

Today we've a problem that comes not from over regulation but the removal of most of the checks an balances in our system. It has resulted jn a system that favors Multinational Corporations and the extremely wealthy. Citizens United is allowing the complete and wholesale purchase of our government through hidden campaign funding through superPACs. Much of our current problems track back to the bi-partisan Free Trade Agreements which were sold to us as exporting our standard of living. We'd export jobs so that we exported our ideals. What we got was less jobs and importing of the rest of the world's plutocrats ideals.

Simply put, capitalism needs regulation or we cease to be a nation and become serfs working for the Lords (Corporate Managers), many of whom are foreign investors. Socialism as you seem to think it exists has the same dangers, too much is bad. Small Government with the power to limit the powers of the corporations and rebuild the middle class in this country.

So, can we please quit with the running to the fringes and work out something somewhere in the middle?

Bright Soul, have you been reading about the Australian Prime Minister?