Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
All people need to live within the constraints of the law.
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The One Cause of Poverty That’s Never Considered
- Thread starter Stevicus
- Start date
The law is whatever the government says it is.
The product of your labor can also be the means of production. More limiting definitions used by socialism I suppose.
Probably like many folks, they don't really understand how capitalism works.
I'm not talking about regulation. I'm talking about how the government manipulates the money supply. What causes inflation, natural causes are to little supply and too much demand. The only thing increasing taxes wouldn't really affect much since you'd be equally limited supply and demand.
Second by putting more money into the system. The more money put into the system the less each dollar buys. Third is expectation. When folks expect an decrease in supply or increase in demand. These later two are usually caused by the government manipulating the money supply by borrowing more money from the Fed, there by increasing the supply of money or increasing interest rates, limiting the supply of money. This is basic Keynesian economic theory.
Sure, the stock market.
Yes, supply and demand. This is why competition is important in capitalism so one entity can't control the market. Also why when the government engages in market manipulation as its own monopoly it is bad for the markets.
I'm sure, like with other economic definitions, socialism has a very different definition of capitalism. Marx took pains to define capitalism in such a way that one could blame all the evils of the world on it.
What you see capitalism as has nothing to do with the actual capitalism I've experienced.
No that part is easy. You are given all the power in capitalism to decide what you value and how much you value it. Letting some other entity decide value for you is what is foreign to me.
Why?
Might as well since most socialist arguments against capitalism is just shadow boxing.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Not revolutionary, democratic, allows capitalism for luxury items, no central but local decision making; that all is more social democracy than socialism. Earlier he favored cooperatives and personal freedom which is more like syndicalism.
I haven't really followed the whole socialism debate. I'm an anarchist and working together with socialists/communists didn't do us good in history. A common enemy is just not enough for a cooperation.
As you know, socialism comes in many varieties. Nothing you listed is inherently at odds with all forms of socialism; just some of them. There's even socialist anarchism.
Also, a lot of socialists are socialist in the sense that we view socialism as a desirable end goal, and that doesn't preclude supporting social democracy as a useful transitional stage.
A lot of communists and socialists are also anarchists. Even Marx's vision of an ideal society was stateless and classless.
Either way, I personally believe that neither anarchism nor communism is workable in practice, although both have some ideas that sound pretty good strictly on paper.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Anarchism isn't workable today. It requires a different mindset. Humanity has to grow up for that. People have to embrace freedom and responsibility like adults. I believe we could get there by taking one step at a time but I fear that circumstances (climate change) are in the way of a more liberal society.
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Well, exactly: I don't believe humanity will ever be perfect or reach that point of responsibility. Then again, I also don't believe that human history is progressive; I believe it's cyclical. Human nature will never change, in my opinion.
Heyo
Veteran Member
We don't need perfection, just a much higher level of being a homo politicus.
And I think we can see the progression of human morality, it just isn't monotonous. We have ups and downs (which looks like cyclical when viewed on a small scale) but over a long enough period, we see that the peaks get higher.
Subjective or not, I prefer the capitalist model where things get done.
an anarchist
Your local anarchist.
True anarchists are capitalists
Heyo
Veteran Member
"Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessarily limited to, governments, nation states,[1] and capitalism." - Anarchism - Wikipedia
It's objectively demonstrable that the only
form of socialism that offers both liberty &
prosperity is the kind with market capitalism.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Are you becoming a social democrat?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Capitalism often is different when it comes to size. For example, if one works for a locally owned business, the owners know you on a more personal level and usually live in or near the community. Thus, they have incentives to work with you and the community.
However, if we're dealing with a large corporation, for example, you as a worker are just a number and the owner's/shareholder's "god" is $. We are currently seeing this with Stellantis, whereas they're laying off tens of thousands of employees even though they're making boco bucks. If they knew these people at the personal level, they'd probably be less likely to do this.
However, with that being said, we're well beyond just having cottage industries. But I'd much rather see employee-owned businesses as a compromise.
However, if we're dealing with a large corporation, for example, you as a worker are just a number and the owner's/shareholder's "god" is $. We are currently seeing this with Stellantis, whereas they're laying off tens of thousands of employees even though they're making boco bucks. If they knew these people at the personal level, they'd probably be less likely to do this.
However, with that being said, we're well beyond just having cottage industries. But I'd much rather see employee-owned businesses as a compromise.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Let me give you another example of that one.
Two workers are talking and the one says to the other: I am busy, I have a lot of things I have to do.
Then the thing in the bed says: Am I a thing?
That term isn't defined well enuf to use
because it also includes doctrinaire
socialists, ie, no capitalism.
Adding "social" adds no meaning.
This raises a good point in that many large behemoth corporations have the same flaws and pitfalls that many conservatives and capitalists claim to be inherent in "big government." It seems that, no matter if it's a public institution or a private enterprise, if it's too big, then it can be a problem.
I once had an economics professor who compared the USSR to a giant corporation that owns everything. In other words, they beat/bought out/merged with the competition and cornered the market, which is something most capitalists strive towards. Of course, we have anti-trust laws and legal restrictions on monopolies, although even those had to be hard-won and were fought against by capitalists who didn't want any such restrictions at all.
But that seems to be changing with all the mergers and acquisitions and the huge conglomerates which have arisen, such as the recent Kroger-Safeway merger. Banks, too, used to be mainly confined to states have become international. What used to be called the "Arizona Bank" is now called "Bank of America." What used to be called "Valley National Bank" is now called "Chase Bank." What used to be "First Bank of Arizona" changed to "First Interstate Bank," and now it's "Wells Fargo." (They used to have a folksy commercial where they called it "Hank's Bank," to give people the illusion that they still have that personal touch, but it's really just one of many advertising and propaganda gimmicks.)
One can see similar phenomena in media and other industries. There was once a time when ABC and Disney were separate companies, but now they're the same company.
People see this happening over the course of decades, and while most people take it in stride, it's a phenomenon that people notice and might tend to react to with some degree of wariness. Some might feel justified in asking where all this is leading and what the endgame is projected to look like. Will it be one giant global corporation where all or most of the competition has been eliminated or bought out? Can the concepts of "free enterprise" and "free markets" truly survive if such a thing is allowed to go on unchecked?
This may point up the reason why some people might be more interested in socialism, but it may also be contributing to those who support statism and nationalism. It's rooted in the belief that only the state, by definition, can protect and defend the rights of the people. Capitalists, by definition, have absolutely zero interest in the rights of the people, since their only interest is in profit.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, you really need to control other humans more so they stop using words differently than you. No more multiple definitions for one word even to the point of a contradiction. I see* that clearly now. That* is a joke because even see has 2 contradictory definitions.