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Is Socialism Viable?
- Thread starter Matthew78
- Start date
Mathematician
Reason, and reason again
Don't pursue a bachelors in economics. You can independently study most of the concepts at home. I'm a physics person so I can't comment on math aptitude without being a little biased, but all you really will need to know is some basic calculus for the higher-level concepts.
If you want a rebuttal of Hayek I highly recommend reading about Piero Sraffa and his exchanges. To this day the Austrian school has had to sidestep his conquest: basically he got Hayek to admit that for the business cycle to not occur capitalists would have to stop thinking like capitalists. They would have to no longer operate on a profit motive. Of course this flies in the face of everything we know about economics.
I'm a mutualist so I can't comment on ParEcon, but I will say that not only do I think socialism (actual, worker-owned economics - not the compromising "social" capitalism where the poor are always brought back to defeat) is viable, but necessary for the long-term success of mankind.
If you want a rebuttal of Hayek I highly recommend reading about Piero Sraffa and his exchanges. To this day the Austrian school has had to sidestep his conquest: basically he got Hayek to admit that for the business cycle to not occur capitalists would have to stop thinking like capitalists. They would have to no longer operate on a profit motive. Of course this flies in the face of everything we know about economics.
I'm a mutualist so I can't comment on ParEcon, but I will say that not only do I think socialism (actual, worker-owned economics - not the compromising "social" capitalism where the poor are always brought back to defeat) is viable, but necessary for the long-term success of mankind.
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Matthew78
aspiring biblical scholar
Fascinating! Do you know how I can get a hold of Sraffa's work on the subject? Is there anything in particular that I should keep an eye out for?
Thanks so much!
Socialism is very complicated.
The Wizard
Active Member
I have a small theory that large civilizations cannot keep growing without going into a freeze and breaking down. I mean it seems eventually the diversity and conflicting ideas sort of stagnant and freeze everything up where nothing really gets solved or progresses... moving at the pace of a rock. Small or local isolated communities sometimes seem to flourish much better than huge complex systems full of chaos and and overabundance of competition, infinite problems. I can't agree with socialism, communism or fascism, but maybe it works for some places, don't know for sure... Imo.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
Always pleases me to see propagandists money well spent.
Transferring wealth to a small elite is clearly a superior long term option.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
Of course, it's viable. Any system is viable.
But it's really about values & goals. To over-generalize, socialists seem to like order, equality, control & big government....everyone's a winner.
Capitalists like chaos,vopportunity, liberty & small government....tis acceptable that there are winners & losers. Let the stupid & lazy suffer!
These preferences rule our choices of economic systems, not any logical & quantitative analysis. Sure, there are instabilities in both socialism
& capitalism, but their nature is different. Over-generalizing again, capitalism is more about fluctuating markets (booms, calm, busts).
Socialism is about the system being wonderfully stable until it becomes so inefficient & burdensome over time that it must be over-thrown...
...sorta like the direction we're heading.
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If by "we're" you mean America, this isn't socialism. It's a weak form of social democracy that doesn't use the full strengths of what it could but still takes on all of the weaknesses. It's like trying to run social democracy except with regressive taxation instead of progressive taxation, no universal health care, and expensive education.
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I'm addressing the increasing socialist component of our hybrid system.
Actually, we have both regressive, progressive & even some negative taxation.....it's complicated.
And education of some types is pretty cheap...at least to those consuming it, eg, K-12.
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We've had this chat before. It's progressive up to a certain point until you hit a certain type of income level, and then it becomes extremely regressive (thanks to the Bush-Era tax cuts for the wealthy, primarily.)
Education past high school, which is increasingly necessary for a financially abundant life, typically results in students acquiring tens of thousands of dollars of student debt.
Having paid taxes both before & after those "cuts" (which involved some increases too), I don't see it.
Your calculations showing the change to extreme regressivity during Dubya's reign?
I'd allow that if we dispense with the fiction that the Social Security System is a trust fund, then it certainly is a regressive tax.
But it's function is to provide limited assistance, thus the limits on taxable income. Perhaps we should just roll it into the federal
income tax, & eliminate that artificial separation. (It only goes into the general fund to be spent anyway. There is no "trust fund".)
True dat. But this is market driven. Look at all the universities who build ever fancier buildings, hire trophy professors, & raise
tuition much faster than inflation.....U of Mich had its biggest freshman class ever, & was turning applicants away in droves.
Cheap schools are the sick chickens of academia.
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Revoltingest, like I mentioned we had this discussion before. Maybe we should revive that other thread on the divide between rich and poor if you want to continue it. This is the Socialist Only section.
You say you have paid taxes before and after the cuts- but how much money did you have in partnership units, dividend paying stocks, and the stock market in general? If you had a few million in those things, you'd have noticed the difference. The calculations are simple- look at the tax treatment of dividends and stock capital gains before and after the cut. In addition, see how MLPs and other partnerships have tax advantages (which are a separate tax things altogether).
Criminy! Yipes! I didn't notice the DIR.
I'll limit my participation to the question about how Bush era "tax cuts" affected regressivity.
I'll limit my participation to the question about how Bush era "tax cuts" affected regressivity.
To answer the question,
-Under bush, the progressiveness of the tax brackets was somewhat reduced. This was more of a broad tax cut. The current level of taxes, especially among the highest brackets, is towards the lowest it has ever been in the recent century.
-Also under him, tax rates on long-term capital gains and especially dividends were dramatically decreased. This is what leads to a tax regressive system. Prior to bush, dividends were taxed at one's progressive income tax bracket. Now, qualified dividends are taxed at only 15% for the middle and highest tax brackets. Long-term capital gains taxes have for a while been reduced compared to short-term capital gains, but under bush they were reduced even further. This means that one can literally be a billionaire and pay something like 15-20% in federal taxes while someone in middle class or upper-middle class ends up paying a higher percentage.
-In addition, there are other issues which are not directly related to bush. Publicly traded partnership and master limited partnerships provide tax advantages, which I believe were started in the 80's. They work as pass-through entities, meaning that the partnership pays no taxes, and then investors pay taxes based on their progressive income brackets (so far so good!). But, there are tax advantages because for these sorts of partnerships, cash flows are typically significantly greater than recorded net income, because they are typically asset-heavy resource-related businesses that have their cash flows significantly reduced by depreciation and other reductions, at least on paper. So what happens is,the investor receives a lot of income based on the cash flows, but only pays taxes on the recorded net income, which is significantly lower than what their real benefit was. Therefore, their real tax bracket on this income ends up being fairly low.
-Plus (again this is not a bush-specific thing), for corporations, executives are often allowed to take advantage of lucrative tax saving plans. Many of them have structures similar to 401(k)s that allow them to build long-term wealth with significantly reduced taxation. This, combined with various perks that are worth a lot and yet not technically income, result in them often paying low taxes.
....
The short answer is that tax on work-related income is high, but tax on income derived from assets (stocks, partnerships, etc) is very low, and was specifically reduced under Bush. The richest are those that derive income from assets rather than from employment, and they reap the most benefits.
Mathematician
Reason, and reason again
Fascinating! Do you know how I can get a hold of Sraffa's work on the subject? Is there anything in particular that I should keep an eye out for?
Thanks so much!
Contra Keynes and Cambridge: Essays, Correspondence - TerraLibertas.com
Probably your best bet. It's what I used.
Discussions about "big government" are rather pointless since socialism encompasses everything from anarchism to Stalinism. As a political term, libertarian referred to socialists who favored the abolition of the state or a small state apparatus, so really terming a debate between "libertarian v socialist" is redundant (okay, I'm aware liberals have also adopted the term recently, but you get my point).
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India also implemented this.
You pay tax on interest earned on your salary kept in savings accounts (and this means double taxation) but you do not have to pay tax if you hand over that money to market. And every 3-4 years the market will be made to fall to half -- so that you lose everything.
A nice arrangement.
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