What are my socialist credentials if I prefer a Canuckistanian single payer health care system to Obamacare?
Hows 'bout if I'm OK with public roads?
Hows 'bout if I'm OK with public roads?
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Are You Both a Capitalist and a Socialist?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
work in progress
Well-Known Member
Pop quiz:
1. Does the Earth represent a set of finite resources?
2. Is our civilization reaching a time in history when we are confronting those resource limits right now in real time?
3. Can a capitalist economic system function properly if it cannot grow the money supply, debt levels, and consume ever-increasing amounts of energy and natural resources?
My answers:
1. Yes, and that should be obvious at face value!
2. Also yes, most of the present worldwide economic malaise is related to the fact that the exponential growth in economic activity over the last 150 years has been made possible through the extraction of cheap sources of energy. And we've already picked the low-hanging fruit -- when the oil age really took off in production totals in the 1930's with the discoveries of the large oil fields in Texas, the Gawar in Saudi Arabia, and Iran, the energy return on energy invested EROEI was 100 to one -- the energy equivalent from one barrel of oil produced 100 barrels. Now that the easy to access oil has been steadily running out and is in rapid decline now, so the world's industry, agriculture and commerce is increasingly dependent on the use of unconventional oils. Today the EROEI for producing oil from Alberta tar sands bitumen is between 5 to 1 and at best 6 to 1. The Oil Drum: Net Energy | Unconventional Oil: Tar Sands and Shale Oil - EROI on the Web, Part 3 of 6 Deep sea oil extraction doesn't do much better....between 6 to 1 and 9 to 1, depending on depth of the deposit.
This system will either destroy us with a sudden collapse into chaos, or we start working on a cooperative socialist system that promises fewer rewards and riches, but could manage the distribution of food and functional products in a much simpler world, where the human animal has had to come to terms with an end to growth in population and its demands for more products to enjoy. So, all the reluctant socialists here will have to embrace it, since the other option appears to be the wealthy and powerful engaging in a fight for what's left, as resources get used up, food becomes scarce, in a polluted, hotter world.
1. Does the Earth represent a set of finite resources?
2. Is our civilization reaching a time in history when we are confronting those resource limits right now in real time?
3. Can a capitalist economic system function properly if it cannot grow the money supply, debt levels, and consume ever-increasing amounts of energy and natural resources?
My answers:
1. Yes, and that should be obvious at face value!
2. Also yes, most of the present worldwide economic malaise is related to the fact that the exponential growth in economic activity over the last 150 years has been made possible through the extraction of cheap sources of energy. And we've already picked the low-hanging fruit -- when the oil age really took off in production totals in the 1930's with the discoveries of the large oil fields in Texas, the Gawar in Saudi Arabia, and Iran, the energy return on energy invested EROEI was 100 to one -- the energy equivalent from one barrel of oil produced 100 barrels. Now that the easy to access oil has been steadily running out and is in rapid decline now, so the world's industry, agriculture and commerce is increasingly dependent on the use of unconventional oils. Today the EROEI for producing oil from Alberta tar sands bitumen is between 5 to 1 and at best 6 to 1. The Oil Drum: Net Energy | Unconventional Oil: Tar Sands and Shale Oil - EROI on the Web, Part 3 of 6 Deep sea oil extraction doesn't do much better....between 6 to 1 and 9 to 1, depending on depth of the deposit.
So arguments that cite vast oil reserves 10,000 leagues under the sea or in the poles as evidence that peak oil will not matter need to realize that in terms of economic growth, oil per se isnt enough. Cheap oil is needed for economic growth, and we are simply running out of the good, cheap crude.
The Oil Drum: Net Energy | EROI, Insidious Feedbacks, and the End of Economic Growth
And that's just the problems associated with running out of cheap energy supplies. Many other natural resources are also hitting somewhere near peak supplies. So, from where I see it, capitalism would be fine for managing some aspects of the economy if properly regulated EXCEPT that the capitalist system the whole world runs under now is built around the need for continuous growth, and we don't have that option anymore! So, as much as it surprises me to see capitalism enthusiasts on a socialist forum (I have to ask if the libertarian and conservative forums call for a mix with socialism!) we cannot afford capitalism any longer! The Oil Drum: Net Energy | EROI, Insidious Feedbacks, and the End of Economic Growth
This system will either destroy us with a sudden collapse into chaos, or we start working on a cooperative socialist system that promises fewer rewards and riches, but could manage the distribution of food and functional products in a much simpler world, where the human animal has had to come to terms with an end to growth in population and its demands for more products to enjoy. So, all the reluctant socialists here will have to embrace it, since the other option appears to be the wealthy and powerful engaging in a fight for what's left, as resources get used up, food becomes scarce, in a polluted, hotter world.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
I tend to think that if our society could be retrained to not be so wasteful and over indulge in material items (such as a new car every year, a new iPad whenever the new model hits the shelfs, the bigger televisions and houses, and so on), and if we could get the ball rolling on switching to renewable energy sources (which would also mean less air conditioning, but people went without it at all alot longer than we have had it), then our societies economic styles could become sustainable. We can have our cake, with icing, and eat it as well, albeit a cake that isn't so big and not so much icing to cover it with.
But it doesn't matter how much government regulation there is, when people are so demanding to have everything and have it now then our society may just be doomed after all.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
A lot of the problem is personal greed and avarice like you say. And people can learn to avoid being sucked in to the consumer traps by first of all, stop watching TV, or limit the amount of time you watch, and especially limit the amount of TV your children watch. The advertising agencies on Madison Avenue started to realize back in the early 60's that television was a medium that was an effective tool for brainwashing. Behavioural psychologists have long noted that people go into a quasi-trance like state when they are viewing, which is much different than reading or listening to the radio. Advertizing became about selling the sizzle, not the steak, as they say. Someone who watches several hours of TV a day has seen thousands of commercials during their lifetime that directly assault their feelings of insecurity to create a product need. Why do they need a new car? Some people are driving around, spending on the average of $10,000 per year on their own car, even when they could take the bus to work or ride a bike...which would provide a number of other side benefits. And the same thing goes with all of the personal products that are sold through lifestyle advertising that play on the consumer's insecurities.
But, let's just get back to the car issue again: the private automobiles are usually the most expensive purchase that the average person makes after buying a home. Our car culture has become woven in to our economy and will be difficult to unravel, but it will have to be done nevertheless! If we look to China, and want to understand why they have become the largest producer of carbon emissions and by the end of this decade, will have double the emissions of the United States, we need look no further than the transformation from a society where the bicycle was the standard form of transportation to one where everybody who can afford one, is buying their own cars. So China has gone from being a net exporter of oil to one of the largest importers. And the promise of electric cars is just as much a pipedream as it was when I was a kid reading Popular Science magazines in the late 60's. The techno-optimists are always promising that we are on the brink of some new breakthrough in battery technology and fusion power to provide the electricity to power them. But, the real truth is that the more efficient batteries are also more expensive, because of the high amounts of exotic rare earth elements needed to make them. And fusion? Total lost cause! Even if we could solve these issues, we would still be facing the conundrum of reaching peak availability of many common metals like copper and even iron itself.
So, I am left with the conclusion that a sustainable future...if such a thing is possible, will not include an economic system designed to fill impulsive consumer needs for novelty and increased energy and resource use. Instead, the future will look much like the past unfortunately, if a human race is going to be around a thousand years from now. On the present course, we will just keep fighting for what's left, and everything will get used up eventually, even if nothing like a nuclear war interrupts the fight for resources.
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Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
Off topic, but something I love to bring up when dealing with the absurdities and fallacies of advertising in Lysol's soap dispenser, so you don't have to touch a dirty, dingy, germy soap pump. But if you are washing your hands, and because just about all soaps now are to varying degrees anti-bacterial, then why does it even matter if the pump itself is dirty and covered with germs if you are just going to wash the dirt, grim, and germs off anyways?
I really wouldn't see the future as more resembling the past as unfortunate. People have become so attached to being constantly plugged into their iphones, tablets, and so on, that in many people it is causing OCD-like behaviors, increasing depression and anxieties, is dumbing people down, causing psychological breakdowns, and is overall taking quiet the toll on society. I don't remember the exact number, and while I don't think it was a large number it was large enough to be mentioned in an article I was reading (I think the percentage fell between 10-20%), but there are many people who check their cell phone, tablet, or whatever to check for messages before they even get out of bed in the morning.
Personally I think when our society of blind, mass, hyper, and mindless consumerism falls the rest of the world will begin to prosper because our society won't be such a leech on everybody else's resources.
I'd say I support a mix, too. I recognize that market forces exist and that they will have effects. I think they can also be guided to a certain extent toward particular ends, and that an understanding of how they work is important to this.
At the same time, I think that it's important to recognize the limitations of market forces. I think that one of the proper functions of government is to "tweak" those forces to achieve good ends, such as providing the financial penalties or regulations to turn things that were externalities (e.g. the effects of pollution) into direct costs for the people making the decisions that cause them, or by providing services directly when the market can't provide them, or isn't good at providing them.
As an example of what I support, I'm a fan of P3 projects (public-private partnerships) when they're done properly: when their goals are clearly identified, and where thought has gone into which aspects of the project can be best handled by the private sector and which can be best handled by government. For instance, I heard one case study where a private company was given a contract to maintain and operate street lighting in an area. The company immediately converted all the streetlights in the area to LED units, since they recognized that the cost-benefit ratio of doing this and reducing their energy costs right away justified it... however, if the government had kept on operating the street lights themselves, their budget would have allowed them to only replace a few units every year. In that case, bringing the private sector into the mix of delivering a public service created good all around: people still got their streets illuminated while much less energy was being used to do it.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
Great! As long as you identify yourself as a social democrat, not a socialist!
There is a difference, and I've tried to make this point previously, but you can't be "both a socialist and a capitalist" so this whole thread is an absurdity right from the outset.
From what I've seen of the religious DIR forums, they have at least one sticky thread where a moderator has some pertinent information identifying the creed and the beliefs of the religion. Maybe there should be something similar here, because most of the people who've posted threads in this forum have no idea what the word "socialist" means:
Socialism
/ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/ is an economic system characterised by social ownership and cooperative management of the means of production,[1] and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises.[2] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.[3] They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets versus planning, how management is to be organised within economic enterprises, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4]
Once we get to Market Socialism, referred to in subheading 4, then we're on the way to blending and smearing definitions. Is the Socialist Party in France socialist by any reasonable definition? I would say no, no more than the Greek Socialist Government that signed on to Angela Merkel's loan agreement and plunged the nation into neverending debt servitude. If most of the economic activity, especially banking, is privately owned, there's no real socialism regardless of what the tax rates are, or the amount of tinkering around the edges that a self-proclaimed socialist government wants to do.
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work in progress
Well-Known Member
I imagine that more than 50 years ago, prior to the development of sophisticated, fear and insecurity-based advertising, the promotional campaign would have been stuck with trying to argue that their product was better, and repeating some stupid jingle over and over again endlessly. Now they can just play on the irrational fear of disease and contamination to get consumers to buy cleaning products that give off potentially toxic fumes.
My other beef with the dizzying array of variations on the original product that soon pop up. Psychological tests have found that consumers in a supermarket can't reasonably evaluate more than three choices, so the marketers respond by producing at least six different variations of the original product, and forcing the consumer back into impulse-buying mode, especially when pressured by time.
I wouldn't be surprised if the effects of constantly needing to be plugged in that so many young people feel who've grown up with all the personal hand-held devices leads to more attention deficit problems, but I think the biggest problem with all electronics - starting with television, is that it promotes isolation, self-absorption and egotism. There have been a number of studies in recent years that claim the average person today has about half the number of friends and close personal contacts as people who lived in the 1950's, just as the TV Age was beginning.
I don't know if there have been any rigorous studies of the effects of new technology on political thinking, but I don't believe the growth in right wing thinking and libertarianism of all sorts, is just a result of media and think tank propaganda produced by a few right wing billionaires. Growing income gaps play a role in isolating populations into separate, competing groups, and the technology has surely played a significant role in creating this 'center of the universe' sense of self-absorption that leads people to value personal freedom over social responsibility, rather than seeking a balance of the two. In today's political climate, the liberals in politics and media never mention poverty or the poor or ask people to support anything without trying to connect it with something that will directly benefit them. Working for the common good, which was accepted by conservatives at one time, has almost completely vanished today, and that makes it even a greater challenge to deal with big problems like environmental destruction and degradation...where people have to be promised jobs making windmills or something stupid to try to motivate them to reduce carbon output.
I should add that high tech dependance may also be a limiting factor on the ability of organizers to get people out on the streets to protest or demonstrate against...well you name it! The Occupy demonstrations have faced more brutal and targeted attacks from police than similar Vietnam War demonstrations in the 60's. And the authorities are using high tech to quickly identify organizers and harass them, but people do not take to the streets when faced with injustice as they would have in years past. There is a greater sense of apathy now than in previous times, or in other parts of the world that are less dependent on high tech.
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BS. You need to lay off reading propaganda late at night when you should be masturbating.
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Vile Atheist
Loud and Obnoxious
In that case, the only truly "capitalist" country in the world is probably Somalia. Only due to the fact its government literally controls almost nothing and is completely powerless.
Every country has something that is state-owned: prisons, schools, hospitals (in most countries), roads, parks, airports, seaports, not to mention actual companies themselves like: mining and oil companies, banks, insurance companies, postal service, etc.
The basic differences between capitalism and socialism, if you want to put it EXTREMELY simply, is private ownership versus public ownership.
A mix of the two is considered to be a social democracy, especially where you have universal social rights, public health care, public education, strong unions, etc.
Capitalists generally push for privatization of government-owned institutions while socialists push for the public accumulation of the means of production, especially the nationalization of natural resources.
Vile Atheist
Loud and Obnoxious
*Curiously notes the time of your post....*
Mr Spinkles
Mr
Like Sunstone, my position is still evolving ... but I think I at least sympathize enough with Socialism to post on this thread.
What is the right mixture of capitalism and socialism? I don't know. But what I don't understand is the religious fervor and dedication some people exude on this question.
Case in point: Obama's budget calls for an increase in capital gains tax on people earning $250,000 or more from 15% to about 23%. That is lower than what the capital gains tax was under Ronald Reagan, that hero of Capitalism. Romney's budget OTOH would have kept it at 15%. This is not the epic collision of philosophies (Socialism vs. Capitalism) hysterical white people claim it to be. This is more like my wife arguing the thermostat should be set at 73 degrees while I want it set at 70 degrees. To hear some people you would think that the Republic is doomed because of an 8 point difference of opinion on taxes.
What is the right mixture of capitalism and socialism? I don't know. But what I don't understand is the religious fervor and dedication some people exude on this question.
Case in point: Obama's budget calls for an increase in capital gains tax on people earning $250,000 or more from 15% to about 23%. That is lower than what the capital gains tax was under Ronald Reagan, that hero of Capitalism. Romney's budget OTOH would have kept it at 15%. This is not the epic collision of philosophies (Socialism vs. Capitalism) hysterical white people claim it to be. This is more like my wife arguing the thermostat should be set at 73 degrees while I want it set at 70 degrees. To hear some people you would think that the Republic is doomed because of an 8 point difference of opinion on taxes.
Alceste
Vagabond
I think your credentials are that you recognize that universal health care and roads are socialist in nature, which is a pretty enlightened opinion in the current political climate in the US, but since every nation on earth has all these things and just about every human on earth believes in them, your recognition of this fact doesn't really make you a "socialist". To borrow an idea from one of your own posts, it's more about the direction you're pointing and which way you want to go than where you happen to be standing.
Alceste
Vagabond
So capitalist countries have no schools, roads, hospitals, police, armies, etc? And the citizens of socialist countries have no private possessions?
Dingbat
Avatar of Brittania
I think this highlights a good point. No Socialist/Marxist/Communist thinker I know of, who I would consider serious, thinks Socialism is the opposite of Capitalism but rather grows out of capitalism and attempts to use the powerful manufacturing capabilities for the betterment of humanity instead of the empowerment of profit. Socialist policies are about a paradigm shift not a dramatic earth shattering change of current policy.
Marx specifically felt that industrialization and technology would lead to the ability to provide enough to satisfy, clothe, feed, and take care of all.
Alceste
Vagabond
I saw the debate between John Stewart and Bill O'Reilly, and the very first thing Stewart established was that O'Reilly supported some popular government program (can't remember which - Medicare or Social Security, I think). As I recall, it went a bit like this...
Stewart: "Do you believe in Social Security?"
O'Reilly: "Sure I do."
Stewart: "Great. Then we're both socialists. It's just a matter of degree."
I thought that was a smart move. It prevented O'Reilly from framing the rest of the debate as some grand cosmic battle between capitalism/good and socialism/evil.
My opinion is that there are things we do best together (via our elected representatives, our taxes and publicly owned and controlled corporations), and other things we do best on our own (via private enterprise). Health care, education, infrastructure, research, defense, law enforcement, environmental protection, community planning, food, water and energy security and public transportation are examples of things we do best together, via transparent, accountable, non-profit government institutions. Non-essential, call them "value added" goods and services - everything above and beyond the minimum required to provide comfort to the least capable members of society - are best provided by the private sector.
I believe nobody should be living in the street in this day and age, but if you're not satisfied living in a government-issued recycled shipping container modular home (for example), you should be able to buy yourself a fancy bungalow! Those who can't afford it should not be paying for public transit passes, but those who want to buy a Tesla sports car should feel free to do so.
I was surprised when I learned the extent to which "Capitalism" is supposedly expected to take its premises. It seemed, frankly, insane. Respect to demand and offer is all well and good, it is only common sense really. But to try and pretend not to notice that people have needs and that there is a fragile social structure that needs to be taken care of in society strikes me as naive and dangerous.
Î Î¿Î»Ï ÏÎÏÏÏν Îʹ
Member
I am in a way against both Capitalism and Marxism. To me they represent two sides of the same coin, both claiming to be a way forward, but in their modern incarnations, both highly approving of exploitation and decadence.