Capitlism, Communism, and Socialism discussion and debate

Posted on Safehold forum:

Keith_w wrote:

PeterZ wrote: Because many in the west like to think socialism and communism is a morally superior system to capitalism? This butchers you mention had the saving grace to trying till implement that morally superior system while Hitler tried to retain much of capitalism for his version of socialism.

That's my guess anyway.

Why do you equate Communism with Socialism?

Communism is (technically) concerned with ownership of the means of production being invested in the people of a country and managed completely by the government.
Socialism is concerned with the support of the citizens and residents of a country. The ownership of the means of production is, generally in private hands.
Capitalism is more concerned with the expansion of the capital resources of a country with little or no regard to the effects on the population of the country.

CCCP or Union of Soviet Socialist Rebublics

NAZIs officially the German Socialist Worker's Party

Shows the Twentieth Century European definition of socialism differs, and has led to confusion

Poker

No, Keith.

Socialism intends that the "means of production"
(and they shouldn't forget the railroads)
are owned by "the People" (represented by the gov'ment).

Communism intends that "the People" (government) owns
all production *and* distribution (stores), and maybe
even everything else!
They make an exception for individuals' clothing, books,
and other portable goods, but not for homes.

HTM, Pointy-Headed Liberal

pokermind wrote:Posted on Safehold forum:

Keith_w wrote:
Why do you equate Communism with Socialism?

Communism is (technically) concerned with ownership
of the means of production being invested in the people
of a country and managed completely by the government.
Socialism is concerned with the support of the
citizens and residents of a country. The ownership of
the means of production is, generally in private hands.
[snip - htm]
Keith

Poker

pokermind wrote:Posted on Safehold forum:

PeterZ wrote: Because many in the west like to think socialism and communism is a morally superior system to capitalism? This butchers you mention had the saving grace to trying till implement that morally superior system while Hitler tried to retain much of capitalism for his version of socialism.

That's my guess anyway.

Keith_w wrote:Why do you equate Communism with Socialism?

Communism is (technically) concerned with ownership of the means of production being invested in the people of a country and managed completely by the government.
Socialism is concerned with the support of the citizens and residents of a country. The ownership of the means of production is, generally in private hands.
Capitalism is more concerned with the expansion of the capital resources of a country with little or no regard to the effects on the population of the country.

CCCP or Union of Soviet Socialist Rebublics

NAZIs officially the German Socialist Worker's Party

Shows the Twentieth Century European definition of socialism differs, and has led to confusion

Poker

All that tells me is that the names weren't accurate.

BrightSoul wrote:All that tells me is that the names weren't accurate.

The NSDAP's name was (in modern terms) a deliberate marketing ploy to use an already established brands' pull (namely, the Social-Democrats' and the Communists') with the worker class to get voters on board.

Socialism, as a PolSci term, is the overall umbrella term for all political ideologies that put the needs of the community above the needs of the individual; Communism (or, more accurately, stalinist and leninist socialism) is a particular branch of this general philosophy. There are quite a few others.

Also, what exactly are we supposed to discuss and debate here?

I believe that some confuse the socialism, communism, and capitalism debate with the type of government that implements these economic systems.

The debate is often about totalitarianism versus various degrees of democracy. I fully agree with The E's comment about marketing ploys, and socialism variations.

All modern western democracies have economic systems that are varying blends of socialism and capitalism. While the USA leans more to capitalism than most, the amount of socialist programs would surprise politicians from a century ago.

Totalitarian countries like China nowadays have much more capitalism in their economies than would have been imagined to be possible a generation ago.

Classic communism has been proven to be a failure as modern systems are too complex to be detail managed centrally, and there is no incentive to excel. A supposedly true story of the communist Soviet Union was that chandelier factories were lumped in with other industries that were judged on the weight of their output, and thus produced impractical cast iron light fittings.

A somewhat obsession of mine is to point out that countries that have - full democracy, free press, a well regulated financial system, an encompassing welfare net, and capitalism that has many small businesses; are the most prosperous, resilient to shocks like the GFC, and are regularly rated as the best places to live by the UN, IMF, OECD, and others. Take a bow all of Scandinavia, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. Germany, France, Japan and the UK get honourable mentions as well.

The E wrote:

BrightSoul wrote:All that tells me is that the names weren't accurate.

The NSDAP's name was (in modern terms) a deliberate marketing ploy to use an already established brands' pull (namely, the Social-Democrats' and the Communists') with the worker class to get voters on board.

Socialism, as a PolSci term, is the overall umbrella term for all political ideologies that put the needs of the community above the needs of the individual; Communism (or, more accurately, stalinist and leninist socialism) is a particular branch of this general philosophy. There are quite a few others.

Also, what exactly are we supposed to discuss and debate here?

Daryl wrote:I believe that some confuse the socialism, communism, and capitalism debate with the type of government that implements these economic systems.

Yes, there is a problem.

Classic communism has been proven to be a failure as modern systems are too complex to be detail managed centrally, and there is no incentive to excel. A supposedly true story of the communist Soviet Union was that chandelier factories were lumped in with other industries that were judged on the weight of their output, and thus produced impractical cast iron light fittings.

Well, it's entirely possible. There was a lot of stupid thing made in Soviet Union.

As i recall, there was a stopry about one perfect highway road, built from one tiny village to another small collective farm somewhere in 1970th.

The reason was, that the local party leaders (and so the civilian authorities) were eager to exceeded the plan on road construction, and it appeared that the road in question was actually shorter then planned. They were afraid that the smaller numbers than planned wouldn't impress the comission and they wouldn't be rewarded.

P.S. Actually, the "exceeding the plan", that was so popular in USSR, is a complete nonsence from the point of communism theory. The main reason of the plan in communism is to produce exactly as many as you need, with a small supply for be on the safe side, and to avoid the crysis of overproduction.

Daryl wrote:Classic communism has been proven to be a failure as modern systems are too complex to be detail managed centrally, and there is no incentive to excel. . . ..

A somewhat obsession of mine is to point out that countries that have - full democracy, free press, a well regulated financial system, an encompassing welfare net, and capitalism that has many small businesses; are the most prosperous, resilient to shocks like the GFC, and are regularly rated as the best places to live by the UN, IMF, OECD, and others. Take a bow all of Scandinavia, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. Germany, France, Japan and the UK get honourable mentions as well.

Complexity theory states that as a complex system gets larger, the chance of a maximum possible breakdown goes up as an exponential function. The theory seems to show two ways of improving stability: by increasing constraints to disallow breakdown, as in integrated circuits, or by reducing the interdependence of the agents involved. An example of the first would be tyranny, whether by an individual or a group. An example of the second would be an electrical grid made up of micro grids which disconnect when the stress level gets too high. If remembered right, when asked what kind of government the constitution gave, Benjamin Franklin said something like: "A republic, if you can keep it." An example

The supercomputers of today do not use a super fast processor, which is input/output limited. Instead they use a multitude of less capable processors, which are connected in a manner to reduce data flow choke.

Also, you might want to look at the Economies: Extractive vs. Inclusive thread.

I remember a Murray Leinster short story which ended with all brass hat personalities being banned from positions of authority. I WISH

CCCP or Union of Soviet Socialist Rebublics

NAZIs officially the German Socialist Worker's Party

Shows the Twentieth Century European definition of socialism differs, and has led to confusion

Poker

All that tells me is that the names weren't accurate.

Always true in politics. There is a cottage industry of thinking of cool deceptive names for political interest groups. The sad truth is that it works. There are always people that believe the name and that's why they do it.

are regularly rated as the best places to live.

I tend not to trust those best places to live studies as the consistently reflect the author's biases. Every place has it's good and bad aspects and the authors of those studies tend to pick the issues that matter most to them. For example an author who likes universal healthcare will include that as a plus, therefore the US would score poorly. An author who likes freedom of speech as a virtue would score the US highly. These studies generally only look at 5-10 indicators of what a good place to live is and they choose those 5-10 to reflect their personal preferences.

Take a bow all of Scandinavia, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. Germany, France, Japan and the UK get honourable mentions as well.

All nice places to live. But then so is the USA. It's all in what individuals want. Talk to people from virtually any first world country and most will say that their country is the best country in the world. That's my criteria for a good country, that most (not all, you'll never get 100%, there are always a few in every society...) individuals who are from there believe it to be the best country in the world.

IMNSHO, the One Thing that a country needs to be free,
is an Independent Judiciary!

England had Independent Judges,
and therefore was (pretty much) Free,
before Democracy, the Press, the Bank of England,
Welfare, and Capitalism,
were even invented!!

Daryl, you didn't even mention any Judiciary.

Howard Wilkins, Pointy-Headed Liberal

Daryl wrote:[big snip - htm]
A somewhat obsession of mine is to point out that countries that have - full democracy, free press, a well regulated financial system, an encompassing welfare net, and capitalism that has many small businesses; are the most prosperous, resilient to shocks like the GFC, and are regularly rated as the best places to live by the UN, IMF, OECD, and others. Take a bow all of Scandinavia, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. Germany, France, Japan and the UK get honourable mentions as well.
Daryl