Have you an irrational love of socialism?
It seems that you entirely mis-understand my posts.
Try responding to individual posts with thoughtful
consideration. Then you'll be interesting.
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Public Ownership of the Means of Production
- Thread starter Debater Slayer
- Start date
It seems that you entirely mis-understand my posts.
Try responding to individual posts with thoughtful
consideration. Then you'll be interesting.
Soandso
ᛋᛏᚨᚾᛞ ᛋᚢᚱᛖ
I agree that there should be a private alternative to government funded healthcare, but capitalism certainly isn't a better option for the average person as far as health goes. It's probably one of the worst options to have for basic health, IMO. That's not unique to healthcare, but it certainly is made apperent through it in the way it manifests in this country
The last time I had a major health crisis last year, I waited to see if my pain and my symptoms would just "go away" because I didn't want to have to pay the exorbitant medical fees, and when I finally did decide to go in I called family to try and bring me in because I didn't want to pay ambulance fees. Keep in mind, I have good health insurance that I already pay for, and my tax dollars already go towards public health and ambulences
Not only that, but because health is about profits, they cut costs for the care you get, so you aren't even getting the best care unless you pay extra at facilities that talyor to richer clientel. It's not a good structure to rely on for public health
Sorry, I know it's off topic, but it is something I feel passionate about, heh
Yes - this is what public utilities are. And the internet should've been made a public utility ages ago; a lot of the problems we have with it in this area are because it's fragmented into private ownership.
Yes - this is what public education is. And it needs more support than it is typically given, as it is by far the best way to ensure a broadly educated population. Private education doesn't cut it.
Yes - this is what farming cooperatives used to be, more or less, before farmers were tricked en masse to give up their lands to big corporations instead of family-owned cooperatives supported by the public and each other.
Yes - this is what public education is. And it needs more support than it is typically given, as it is by far the best way to ensure a broadly educated population. Private education doesn't cut it.
Yes - this is what farming cooperatives used to be, more or less, before farmers were tricked en masse to give up their lands to big corporations instead of family-owned cooperatives supported by the public and each other.
I want to address this, but I'm going out soon, and the quotes need to be fixed (which is unwieldy for me to do right now given that I'm posting from a phone).
I'll be back later. Have a good afternoon (when your time zone gets there).
How is health care in countries without capitalism,
eg, N Korea, Cuba?
Capitalism has fostered research for new drugs
precisely because money can be made. If government
wants to use tax dollars to fund drug research, then it
also can....if it so chooses.
Government has also done much to make health
care spendy, eg, no tort reform, heavy regulation,
medical device excise tax (not repealed, fortunately),
requiring emergency rooms to provide free primary
care, record keeping bureaucracy.
Do you have health care insurance?
When profit is eliminated, there are still such
problems, eg, England, where staff strike cuz
of over-work & poor conditions.
Health care is a huge portion of a country's
expense, & it's a problem to address without
being wedded to all private or all public solutions.
Passion is OK....unless it inspires anyone to hug me.
I'll be around...off & on
Government running the internet?
And when the technology was new & rapidly evolving?
I've seen how the IRS & other agencies operate. (Oh,
the stories I could tell you would make you just puke.)
Poorly designed systems run by employees who don't
know or don't care.
If they provided internet access, it'd be like this...
I think the key thing to consider relates more to the matter of how socialism can be implemented. If the ruling class sits on their thumbs and waits until things get so incredibly bad that revolution is the people's only recourse, then it's already too late. If people can be reasonable and flexible enough, who are willing to negotiate mutually beneficial agreements, then I believe power and ownership can be shared amicably.
Historically, I would suggest the reason that some socialist regimes have gotten out of control is because of the wanton greed, stubbornness, and intransigence of capitalists. Trying to appeal to the "better angels of our nature" (as Lincoln put it) doesn't always work as it should. We're talking about people who would rather fight a war and sacrifice 620,000 lives all because they couldn't bear the loss of profits which would have been incurred by abolishing slavery. The same bunch was equally stubborn and greedy throughout the labor movement, which they fought against tooth and nail (and killed a lot of innocents in the process).
Capitalists tend to exude a certain kind of arrogance, a kind of entitled intolerance of the lower classes, whom they see as little more than cattle and work animals. It's that part of "human nature" that socialists tried to change, and since that aspect only appears to be evident in the top 1-2% of the population, it seems a doable goal. When we speak of "human nature" overall, it refers to the concept of natural law - which can also be called "the law of the jungle," which human civilization has tried to move away from.
Still, if you ask the average capitalist why it's okay for them to have more wealth than they could possibly need, living in mansions and luxury, while so many countless millions are toiling in the fields, mines, and factories and living in squalor, the typical answer would relate to natural law in one form or another.
They would say that they're smarter, stronger, or superior to the peasants whom they deride and scorn as "lazy," "worthless," "shiftless," etc. The hierarchy between rich and poor is merely considered the natural state of being, "it's just the way things are" is a commonly heard saying. As demonstrated by a violent and bloody history, it appears that capitalists believe so deeply in this idea that they are willing to kill and die for it. They would quite literally rather die than face the prospect of having to eat at the same table as those ugly, inferior "peasants" whom they despise and scorn so much.
Even after the peasants and workers overthrew their government and turned the tables on the capitalists, the capitalists still stubbornly refused to listen to reason. They just couldn't imagine any other world where they couldn't own huge fortunes and exploit the workers with impunity. Even when the workers revolted and put a gun to their heads, they ostensibly chose to die rather than accept living in a society where they were expected to act like decent human beings. That was unthinkable to them. "If I can't go on accumulating massive wealth and abusing the peasants, then I would rather die." So, in some socialist revolutionary societies, such people ended up being killed or imprisoned. After so many millions had died in WW1 and the Civil War, socialists of that time and place were in no mood to give countenance to the kind of oppositional BS they had been facing all their lives. I'm not condoning what they did, although because I understand the extreme conditions they had been facing during that time, the best way to avoid it is to not let things get so far out of hand.
It was different for the Western liberal democracies, which had gotten a head start in the age of exploration, colonization, and imperialization of the world. It's really no coincidence that liberal and progressive ideals sprung up in France and Britain, being that they were also the most powerful countries of the time, with the largest empires.
Unlike their counterparts in other areas of Europe or the world, they ostensibly understood the necessity of keeping the lower classes contented within the homelands, while gaining wealth via the exploitation of other indigenous peoples throughout their empires. The U.S. took a somewhat similar path, although it still took some goading to end slavery and bring about a stronger labor movement. Support of labor unions and liberal social programs proved to be an effective hedge against the propagation of revolutionary socialist ideals. It was more effective in the long run than McCarthyism or any other "red scare" propaganda.
So, getting back to your original question, the reason why socialists believe it's better to have the workers control the means of production is because it is believed that that's the only effective guarantee that they'll be treated fairly and equitably. However, in many Western liberal democracies, the state offers certain guarantees which gives workers some leverage, along with the right to join labor unions and collective bargaining.
As long as the capitalists are willing to play ball and give some consideration to the lower classes, then the people can still be contented, even if they don't own or control the means of production. That's the Keynesian style of capitalism which was introduced under FDR and continued in the decades which followed. It worked rather well, and it brought about the period of greatest economic growth and improvements in the standard of living across the board. The workers were reasonably content, support for Civil Rights was growing by leaps and bounds, American industry was humming, along with great advancements in science, technology, education, healthcare, transportation - even culminating with sending a man to the Moon.
Whatever capitalists were doing back then, they were obviously doing it right, as exemplified by the obvious successes which were achieved. But whatever changes they advocated for and brought about under Reagan were obviously wrong, as exemplified by the obvious failures we've seen since then. I wouldn't necessarily blame "the capitalists" as such, as I think it was more a political ideological shift which took place for a variety of reasons, probably a backlash against those dang leftist hippies and civil rights advocates. It's from that cultural and ideological shift that took place that capitalism became more odious and regressive, and it's from that same culture that we saw the rise of Donald Trump. He and others like him are a natural consequence of that culture and ideology.
To me, the overall goal is a better society, a better standard of living for the people, a more fair and equitable system of justice and economic remuneration for one's labor. If capitalists are willing to go along with this, then there may not be any pressing reason to take away their ownership of the means of production. As long as they're willing to do right by the people, treating both their customers and workers with respect, honor, decency, and fairness, then a capitalist system could work. In other words, we have to be able to appeal to the "better angels of their nature."
Or as Rush once put it "And the men who hold high places, must be the ones who start, to mold a new reality, closer to the heart."
But if they're too stubborn and naively believe that they're entitled to own everything while leaving billions in this world out in the cold of poverty and squalor, then they might end up having to face someone like this:
Great OP, glad you're still here
I'm pretty sure I agree with your goals, but I'm not sure about this solution? First off, to some degree we already have a public ownership model with the stock market. So I think it's important to distinguish between "ownership" and "control". Let's say we implemented your proposal, how would a given service be run? Pick one, a utility, an appliance factory? How would the operational decisions get made?
I think this is a better perspective. Every economic system is a man-made machine, and all man-made machines need to be tweaked, and monitored and yes, regulated.
I don't think it's a good idea for the "collective" to determine HOW a service gets provided. The "collective" doesn't have that sort of expertise. But I think we should slowly - say over a generation? - give the taxpayers a MUCH bigger say in WHAT services get provided.
I would guess that if taxpayers got to vote on WHAT is provided, we'd see - for example - defense spending get reduced, and education and healthcare spending increased.
I think later you mention the importance of invention and innovation, and I agree - there MUST be a mechanism to reward invention and innovation. But I also agree that we must curb the widespread corruption we see in DC, that's allowed our current oligarchy / kleptocracy to emerge. I don't think it's inevitable that capitalism degrades into oligarchy, I think UNREGULATED capitalism is the problem.
Government running the internet?
And when the technology was new & rapidly evolving?
I've seen how the IRS & other agencies operate. (Oh,
the stories I could tell you would make you just puke.)
Poorly designed systems run by employees who don't
know or don't care.
If they provided internet access, it'd be like this...
That doesn't look like any government computer I've seen. That looks like the computer of someone who can't afford to buy a regular computer - no doubt an employee of a capitalist company who is paid so little that he can't afford to buy a computer from another capitalist company. Even the TV looks like it was made in 1975, so he probably also couldn't afford to buy a new one.
In contrast, I've gone into quite a number of government offices, and they have some really nice furnishings and late-model, state of the art computer systems. Some employees even get their own laptops to take home, as a lot of them have been working at home lately. The public sector also includes an extensive public university system and the military, though they work in close coordination with the private sector - private universities, defense contractors, etc. But even though they're private, they would not exist at all if not for government.
It is not "the problem" because it doesn't exist.
Is anyone here even advocating that it be
unregulated?
That's cuz even government has computers made by private industry.
Geeze Louise...me joke flew over yer head.
Oh, government can sure spend the money to
look flashy. But when one actually deals with
them, we discover how primitive their systems
are.
A 60-year-old IRS IT system won't finish modernizing until 2030
Michigan jobless agency to replace troubled computer system
What do you mean by public ownership? Company with publicly traded stocks IS publicly owned are they not?
Agriculture falls under essential services right. Do you mean to say that a farmer cannot own his own land? Or, if he hires a tractor driver to till the land, he must share the land ownership with that driver?
Perhaps you are thinking of cooperatives. There are many coops all over the world and it's a successful model.
Difference Between Cooperatives and Corporations | Difference Between
Even though some can't distinguish between government and employee owned business, I can. The Employee Ownership 100: America's Largest Majority Employee-Owned Companies | NCEO is a list of ESOPs (employee owned in whole or part) from 10/22. I'm in favor of this kind of ownership.
I know that people tend to think differently about where they work if they have a say in the business and a stake in the outcome. It's called motivation. And I'm, familiar with DGAS that I saw where people felt like overhead that the business tolerated because the owners had not yet found a way to get rid of those so-called "***-ociates".
Libertarians automatically and blindly hate government in any form. (How does that shoe that you tried to shove on my foot feel when I shove it onto yours?)
I too have suggested that employees buy
stock in the company they work for.
I'll tell you where you can shove your shoe.
And you can use your rent control as lube.
Hah!
That was fun.
Thank you for your kind offer but I don't accept it and hand it back in the spirit it was offered.
That's only because if there was a proposal in Congress to have the government to build its own computer factory, the pro-capitalist politicians would throw such a hissy fit in opposition that it wouldn't even get through committee. It would be dead on arrival.
No, I got the joke, so I made another joke, which apparently flew over your head.
I would suspect corruption. Who would benefit more from an antiquated IRS system? The government or the capitalists?
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Not when the word public is just another term used for government and not citizens.