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Suicide rates and depression are rising because of Capitalism.   Workers are getting screwed over, the wealth they create is stolen.


I know a lot of you, especially americans are brainwashed.

-Climate change is a direct result of a profit driven society, environment doesn't matter only the dollar
-"hurr durr socialism/communism never worked millions died hurr durr"  Capitalism has killed much more people directly with poverty, inability to afford healthcare, etc
-. Capitalism is nothing but slavery with a new name, owners of capital are the slave masters
-

You can say it out loud. Look at how they're trying to screw crypto-currencies, which turned many young people into millionaires. Whenever a movement tries to shake the status quo, something like what's happening with "highly volatile" cryptos happens.

If you think you create wealth as a worker, ask for more money or go work somewhere else where your "wealth creation skills" will be recognized.

If not, you can start your own company and create wealth for yourself.

Stop complaining about other people's wealth.  Fix yours.

Capitalism is the best, natural system to separate and reward people based on their skills.

Early in my engineering career, I recognized that I needed to go solo, so I quit after 2 years at a multinational company and was immediately hired as an independent consultant by their competitor and paid four times as much. Then I started my own consulting company which I sold 30 years later.

Don't be afraid to demand more money from the "evil capitalists" or better yet, become one.

Invest early, save as much as you can, live within your means, retire early and enjoy your life.

Whatever you do, don't complain.  Nobody likes lazy people who complain for no apparent reason.

Capitalism isn't destroying us. Capitolism is.     8)

I'm laughing in capitalism  ;D

I don't share the same opinion with you for the following reasons:
1) Capitalism provides people with opportunities for growth. If you're not what you wanted to be, blame yourself and not the system
.
2) Do you know the rich dude who for you seems dumb, stupid, idiot and you'll find an excuse to insult him? Stop envying and start emulating what you see.

3) You're saying capitalism is worse than communism? Ha ha! I don't know where you get your facts but, capitalism has reduced the number of absolute poverty in half, all that WHILE THE WORLD GREW UP TO 7 BILLION PEOPLE (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty)

4) Capitalism MUST help the poor for a larger market. Think about a laptop organisation such as Lenovo. They want more people who can afford laptops! Think about Mercedes. They want more people who can afford their S class!

5) Capitalism makes some people rich. If you take the opportunities you have with capitalism (aka setting up your own business and making it successful, investing) you can be one of the rich. But if you believe that working 24/7 while maybe you're not the smartest guy alive will lead you towards making a lot of $$$, then I have bad news for you. Oh and by smartest I don't mean IQ or other stupid measures. I mean proficient in what you do!

On the other side,
I see why capitalism is bad. It makes you feel bad having $5kk when there are people working for $30k a year...
Naturally you want others to be successful like you that's why you help them

Unions dude. When workers striked massively, humans changed. We went from 12 hour days 6 days a week to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Now it's "earth strike" -- however, no unions exists to protect jobs and it's a damned shame.

Yeah, unions are never corrupt right? xD

At present, human beings do not have better aptism. Socialism also has certain problems that can only be realized in the future. Capitalism is now very dangerous, causing extreme uneven distribution of social wealth. The financial crisis will destroy the majority. This world is developing in a wrong way.

Where are you living? I invite you to live in Venezuela, a true socialist country to see how it's good. I dare you can't survive there. Wonder what's happening in Venezuela, read some news about it.

Really?

I don't see how people can say such thing though. USA is one of the worst country towards economic mobility (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#cite_note-6).

Countries like France or Norway which are much more "socialist" have a higher economic mobility. Isn't that a proof that capitalism IS NOT the best system to separate and reward pople based on their skills?

I'd say that with every political/economical system come their own pros and cons and while some might work better in one country (or seemingly work better) some indicators are just indicators and you cannot know what struggles the people really are facing and how implementing the same system will affect another place.

There is a lot of misunderstanding. For example, Social Security deductions are not mandatory. It requires writing a letter to the SSA and to your employer, opting out from SS.

Back when Social Security started, it was not required. It was a method that Government used to get people who volunteered into the program, to get benefits and to start prepping government for the time it would have to pay retirement benefits to people through the SS system.

What we are finding now is, Social Security is not able to provide sufficient member benefits for people to retire on successfully. But people who used capitalism all along, supplementing their SS with some other form of investment or savings, are often able to live in comfort that SS people don't have. And people who got into government, or who figured out how to use the government SS/Welfare system, live in wealth.

But here is how to make capitalism really work:
8)

You struggle with the definition of socialism.

You confuse social programs with socialism.  France and Norway are capitalist countries.

USA is still a #1 country people want to IMMIGRATE to.  When was last time you had caravans of migrants heading towards your precious Russia, Chechnya or Kazakstan? (Or whatever your native land is).

Capitalism rewards risk takers and innovators.  That is why the best products are developed in capitalist countries.  Not in socialist countries like Cuba or North Korea or dictatorships in the Middle East, or Russia.

Socialism kills innovation, it demotivates people, it kills any progress.  It equalizes the outcomes.

Ok so there is so much I disagree and so many things wrong with what you say... I'll try to go pieces by pieces ok? Let's start with the definition!


So let's take the definition of socialism:
"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."

Ok so you've got two possible point of view here:

1/ For you a country is communist if economy is fully controlled by the community. Anything else is capitalism

2/ It's not a binary system and you just have countries being "more communist" or "more capitalis" than others considering how far they go in the regulation or nationalisation of the economy

Which one is yours? Because both are can be argued. Or maybe you even have a third one though I don't see what it could be.

I don't think it is destroying us, I think more laws should be implemented to protect the poor, governments should implement more programs to help the poor thrive, communism has never been the answer, you can see the crisis in countries like Venezuela or Cuba, it's unnatural.

Actually, capitalism is on the way out. The economic system as we know it is going. All we have is cryptocurrency now. Or rather, all we will have. That's my view.

Crypto is ushering in a new age of capitalism. Why? Because now anybody can turn anything he wants into capital, just by tokenizing it.

8)

THE MAJORITY OF INNOVATION COMES FROM THE PUBLIC SECTOR.


Internet, gps, phones, etc were created by government agencies like nasa, military, research programs.  Private companies did not take the risk on these types of innovation, they were funded by the public.  But now these innovations are privatized.


For the idiots naming Venezuela, sorry you are just retarded.

Most people moving to USA?  Most Americans I know have already left for Canada or Europe.

No one is self made, that whole notion is absolutely ridiculous.

Although welfare is important to any modern society, people have conflated the idea to think that socialism is just hyper welfare.  Its not.  Socialism is an economy where workers own the means of production and every stakeholder has a say in the inner-workings of the company. 

This is all false.  The most dangerous jobs that involve risking one's most valuable thing, their life, are not nearly the highest paid but capitalists wouldn't even consider that risk because money is literally the only thing that has value to them.  The concept of a life having more value or risk involved than the financing put forth from one's account with the click of a button is absent. 

Russia is capitalist.  Cuba nor North Korea have given workers control over the means of production. 


https://www.socialism101.com/basic/

I have so much renewed confidence in socialism because I have yet to meet a person who understands socialism and is against it.  Most people against it are against it because capitalists have tricked them into believing it is necessarily authoritarian,  it eliminates personal property, eliminates personal freedom, the USSR revived, or is just welfare for everything. 

I advise everyone to read sites like this, read Marx and Engels, and read socialist platforms like this
https://www.socialistpartyusa.net/principles-points-of-agreement

Not all parties or types of socialists are the same (we are talking about 1/3rd of the political compass) but you will be hard pressed to find authoritarian socialists which is the only thing people have arguments against.

I personally do not think that capitalism alone is destroying us. There are many things that destroys us and there are many reasons why we are getting destroyed. However, when it comes to a type of society and what dominates the society, capitalism of course do have both downside and the positive effect in the lives of every people. Capitalism I think encourages a good competition for everyone. It makes us more motivated because of what the rewards are. On the other hand, it also paved way for others to abuse their powers and get benefit from it in unrightful manner. Hence, capitalism does not destroys us, but it is the people whom truly destroys us.

You are for it because you don't understand it.

If you lived under the socialist system you would understand it.

Humans are all different, different skills, personalities, and ambitions.  When you equalize the outcomes, you kill incentives to work harder than the guy next to you.  This leads to poor productivity, and the economy eventually collapses on its own weight.

Smart people leave and go elsewhere and you are left with idiots who cannot tie their own shoes never mind run a complex economic system.

Be careful what you wish for.

Tough times people 🏃

Ok, if it's so terrible to live in a Capitalist society you could donate all your stuff and go to Cuba, North Korea or Venezuela. They will enjoy a slave citizen like you, so proud of their system, working on their lands.

Where did you get the idea that socialists want to equalize outcomes?  Definitely not in my platform or any of the other links I posted.  Sounds like the same old straw man and further affirms my quoted point.  I argue for democratic socialism, post platforms, and ideological explanations and capitalists STILL argue against the stalinist model. 

People who don't understand socialism also seem to believe in a one dimensional political compass which means they are unaware of about half of all political ideologies. 

Capitalism only destroys those on the wrong end of the stick, those who don't understand the power they also have to use it to their advantage.

I think it is due to a horrible educational system. They essentially sell slavery to people and make it seem like going to work for someone else is the best thing you can do with your life, when becoming the boss, investing in smart assets and never going into debt is the key to "success," not understanding calculus and how to use semicolons. (depends on your line of business though).

If guess if you wanted to find a problem with capitalism, it would be that it's unsustainable in the long-term. The most profitable ventures are often not the most environmentally friendly or even healthy for human beings. Supply and demand doesn't take ethics into consideration and is sometimes cruel. Many profitable businesses are responsible for killing people- pharmaceutical industry, fertilizer business, tobacco, antibiotics (leading to antibiotic resistant bacteria). Maybe this is population weeding though who knows. Not enough good physical resources for everyone.



 

You are even not sure about what you really want.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism

"Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production (including wealth) are socially and collectively owned or controlled alongside a politically democratic system of government"

If you own the factory collectively with all the drunks that don't show up for work, but who control the factory as much as you, no matter how hard you work, how is this not the equality of outcome?

Sooner or later you end up stratifying the socialist society and you end up either with a centralized system with a Politburo at the top or a decentralized commune style of Columbian guerrillas.

Guess what?  It takes intelligence to accumulate wealth, make it productive and grow.  If you just distribute (by confiscation) the wealth owned by capitalists to people who know nothing about the capital, you are going to waste a lot of resources and in the end, everybody will be hungry and willing to rob their neighbor or sell their 14-old daughter for a bag of rice.  Check out Venezuela, or Cuba.

You really have not thought it through.

There is a reason why most rich people are intelligent and most poor people are simpletons.

You are advocating for the destruction of a social structure that worked for hundreds of years and replacing it with your idea of a fair system?  How are you going to reward entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers and punish lazy workers who screw up the costly production lines?

Are you going to force brilliant surgeons to work for minimum wage (decided by the hospital maintenance workers)?  Are you going to kill or imprison all the intellectuals?  If not, your system will fall apart as the intellectuals will expose the obvious inefficiencies and faults in it.  No brilliant doctor or engineer would want voluntarily stay in your system.  Why? because they will not be able to start their own businesses and run them the way they envision them.  You will be left with mediocre managers, doctors, lawyers and engineers,  and no entrepreneurs.  Is this the society you want to have?  Everyone as intelligent as your average cleaning lady?  There is no way this will work.

Who is going to invest in your made-up system if you eliminate the private ownership?

"As socialists, democratic socialists believe that the systemic issues of capitalism can only be solved by replacing the capitalist system with a socialist system—i.e. by replacing private ownership with social ownership of the means of production."

You can't have capitalism without capital, and the banking elite has been sucking the capital out of companies, governments, pension funds and savers. Capitalism has been destroyed and replaced by debt, and that is the source of our current economic ills.

Those are great questions and I applaud you for asking the most appropriate questions related to socialism I have ever seen on this site.
Collective ownership does not mean equal salary and your share of the wealth would likely depend on your share of the work.  There is no specifically prescribed way that this would be done, as workers would vote on it democratically, but most cooperatives have rules and penalties in place for showing up to work.  Keep in mind the entire purpose it to give the wealth to the people who produced it and not some lazy person who isn't even there.  That is how we feel about capitalism.

You still end up with more educated people accumulating more wealth

In a democracy decisions are made upwards.  The government is not dictating downwards how company decisions must be made.  Its hard for our minds to grasp how true democracy works because we have only seen governments where decisions made at the top are enforced downwards.  

Perhaps there are still socialists who want to confiscate wealth but that is a very fringe type of socialist.  We simply want to make sure no new wealth is confiscated.  

 Giving everyone their fair say and fair share doesn't mean talented people cannot be rewarded more for their work.  

Worker cooperatives already exist and some are very successful.  Most cooperatives vote on a salary structure and many have rules where the person at the top can only make x times the person at the bottom.  They all vote on x and they vote in the interest of making the company function because if they vote in a way that runs away the rare talent, then their own job will not be sustainable.  

Any system in place for penalizing lazy workers in a capitalist company could still be implemented in a cooperative.   The difference is that they have democratically agreed to these systems.  Again,  people don't want to work while lazy people next to them benefit, so they wouldn't vote on measures to structure the company that way.  

Large cooperatives vote on board members but always have the ability to call a vote to replace them or overrule an unpopular decision.  Cooperatives that make "bad" decisions will end up with less money to share while more successful cooperatives that make "good" decisions will be the ones that attract and reward talent, make more money, and end up with more wealth to share.  

Entrepreneurs who do not have people working under them would not be affected at all as they are the "workers" and already own the means of production.  
If someone knows of an obvious inefficiency or fault in a company, then they will bring it up at a stakeholder meeting, propose what they are recommending, and people would vote on the change because at the end of the day, they have vested interest in the success of the company they work for and own.  Any company that offered highly skilled professionals minimum wage, would not have any highly skilled professionals and would not have a company.  

If one cooperative fails, it doesn't mean the entire system fails just like if I open a business and that business fails, the economy doesn't crash.  The important thing about a bottom up democratic system is that the largest level of decision making is done at the local community level.  It seems you are thinking about the entire economy running as one cooperative instead of thousands of small ones.

I don't like the doctor example because healthcare is a controversial sector, but lets say its any other sector because your point still stands.  If a brilliant engineer has his own ideas, he could propose them to other cooperatives, become a consultant, or start his own company with these core ideas.   Workers woul flock to join his cooperative and invest their labor because of his great ideas.  
What we mean by social ownership is that ownership of the means of production is never attached to one person.   The key is to distinguish between personal property and private property.  Each person has thier personal property.  Their home and belongings but no ownership over the personal property of others.  You cannot have a large factory or apartment building owned by a single person.

For cooperative companies, the workers of the company all own the company together.  Ownership and decision making is only made by the people affected by the actions of the company.  No external shareholders.   This means no one person should own another person nor should they own another person's personal property which is required to live (labor, home, etc) .

Workers invest their labor by working

The world has begun to divide at two levels. Such problems in any field of any industry may be extinct in the future, or human beings are always selfish. This is a terrible reality. We must face it.

Capitalism is not a good force, at least not any longer. It causes some to buy up medical companies with good cures and kill the medicine, just to protect older patents which has not yielded profit yet, money > medicine. Some also prevent curing dieases while there are expensive medicines that slows a disease down, money > life. We frac, use tar sand, drill oil at sea and devastate rain forests to export meat, money > environment. We work and work and most of the tax money goes to paying national dept interest and the military sector, money devastates our planet and creates a war machine to protect it. We must have better goals then this, when money is the goal, we only enter a state of cyclical consumption, things are simply made and thrown away over and over. A good society should not behave like this, it should stagnate and be maintained like anything else that has been created to its optimal state.

When privatization hit the health care sector and schools in my country it went to shit right away. Rich areas got better schools and hospitals instantly, leaving large groups with few teachers  and long health care waiting times in the poorer and more overpopulated areas.
Capitalism leads to corruption and violence on a grand scale. There is no dam room to start your own company, if 3 billion did that right now do you think they will have costumers??? Do you thing the system can support everyone to get rich from working?
NO, it is designed to make very few very rich and put the rest in day labor, going from pay check to pay check, your story is great but this feat can only be achieved by a very few, the economy is NOT growing, it is impossible for a company to grow without another LOOSING value, its just quick maths, simple facts :)

Resources today is being used to profit, even water are being used to make nice cloths and produce meat, while many have none to DRINK. This is insane, waste away water to create products that only a few % of humanity can afford or enjoy, when we run out of clean water, is capitalism still good? when we have no rain forests and massive amounts of pollution due to capitalistic interests and our atmosphere goes to crap, is it still good?

Anyhow capitalism will be what destroys the earth, we already behave like a virus for the earth and we are growing fast in numbers while the economy is stagnated = more poverty + depletion of resources.

Workers will be deciding what the input costs are?  Are you nuts?

Production costs, as well as the prices of products, should be driven by the free market.  Any artificial tinkering with the economic forces only leads to more chaos down the road.  Your cooperatives will have to synch prices with other companies etc.  This eventually leads to central planning.  And we all know how this ends.

You need to have private ownership, otherwise, all smart people will pack and leave your little experiment.  And you will end up with morons who will run your factories to the ground.

I would not want to live in a society where I cannot own multiple properties, own shares in companies, and accumulate wealth.

Are you going to eliminate personal collections or say 50+ sports cars, or expensive art pieces? 

In the capitalist system, anyone can own Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Amazon or Apple.  In your system, you will only own a share of the company where you work.  How would this make you rich or financially independent?  You will always depend on the other schmucks that own your company. 

Do you even have a basic financial education?

In your socialist system, financial mobility would not be possible.  It would be more like a feudal system where workers will be chained to their workplaces.  I don't even know how would this work.  You are born, you go to school, you graduate, you are given a share in a company and a job that goes with it and work there for the rest of your life?

Sounds like a utopia to me.  No sane person would want to follow the rules of your socialist system.

In the capitalist system, you have the freedom.  You can invest your hard earned money or spend it on useless gadgets.  You can change jobs, you can ask for more money, you can start companies, invent new products etc. 

The capitalist system is the best system invented by humans.  Protection of the environment and natural resources should be the job of the government.  The rules should be set by the government agencies not ingrained in the "economic system".

s/Capitalism/Capitolism/ig

Just to be honest, stupidity of the government has nothing to do with its declared economical policy.
Just compare china to north korea or japan to mexica, and you will see what do I mean.

Eh, that is not completely true. Yes stupidity can corruption can exist under any form of policy, Socialism and Communism just make it exceptionally easy for them.

Cooperative prices are still driven by the market.  Executives decide on salaries and base those decisions on market analysis.  All of those processes still exist in a cooperatives, its just that the decisions are made via democracy (or elected peer executives beholden to the workers) instead of dictatorship.  How does this lead to central planning? 





There are plenty of very successful worker cooperatives that not only have not been run to the ground, but lead their industry.  I've been fascinated with Mondragon in Spain.   Why would smart people leave because there is no external ownership?  As you stated, any moron can own a captalist company with no knowledge of how the company functions.  How is that better for the smart people in the company?











Why would we limit what people can buy?  People can buy whatever they want. 

You are paid more because there is no profit being extracted from your work.  If you don't like your company, you go to a company with more motivated workers and make more money.  The thing is, when people work for their own company, they tend to work harder than they would when working for the man.  What you can't do is earn a fortune off of other peoples' work without working at all.

 If your goal is to earn "passive income" or become rich through something other than work, then no, this system is not for you and you will be absolutely miserable. 

Nothing about this says you have to work for one company for your entire life.  Also, nothing is stopping you from moving up in your company.  Nothing is stopping your company from doing something great and making you a fortune .  The only difference is that you have to work to be part of the rewards and not working disqualifies you from the rewards.  We're talking about a system that incentivizes work.

Nothing about the system I have described would stop you from doing any of this.

Basically you get to choose between the sociopaths being in business or in government. Pick your poison.

You do not understand how the capitalist system works.  I am guessing you have never attended a shareholder's meeting.

You just want the free stuff, but in the end, you will keep the system operating the way it is operating today, i.e. owners decide what is best for the company.

You just want to change the ownership.  From rich to poor.

I am telling you that there is a reason why most poor people are poor and why most rich people are rich.  You want to re-distribute the wealth with a stroke of the pen ignoring the underlying root causes.

BTW, how do you become the owner in multiple companies in your socialist system, i.e. how do you move from company to company?  Buy shares?  I thought you are against private ownership?

I don't get the system you are describing, and I think you do not get it either.  Do you want to start co-operatives?  Go ahead, who is stopping you.  But don't force others to subscribe to your ill-devised business plans.

I am trying to change ownership from rich to workers, not necessarily to the poor.  The working class should have never been poor to begin with.  Capitalism is the root cause of a poor working class.  

You could own multiple companies by working for multiple companies.  Your share of ownership is based on your share of the work.  If you leave a company or stop working, you no longer own that company.  When you are hired and start working, you own shares of the company based on the proportion of work you have done. There cannot be a mandated way for this to happen and each cooperative decides on the bylaws democratically.  

The point is that ownership is connected to labor and it extends from the idea that people are not free if their labor productivity belongs to someone else.  

Yes I want people to be able to start cooperatives but is very difficult for many reasons.  I want tax reform and programs like the Marcora laws that were successfully used in Italy to level the playing field for cooperatives to begin.  There are already cooperatives everywhere but other than Emilia-Romagna (30% of their GDP), where these laws were implemented, its just unlikely workers in a sector will find each other and the funds at the opportune time.  They usually only start because of charity or collectively wealthy workers.  

The mondragon cooperative was only able to begin because the local leader of the catholic church realized his parishioners were being oppressed by capitalism and the church put in the seed money to get it up and running.  

Legally, worker cooperatives are a pain in the ass for disputes/taxes and most of the working class has no idea they are even an option.  People generally want to own their own company but just don't think its possible.  I want people to have the choice. I haven't said anything about forcing anything on anyone.  If people choose to vote for a dictator to run the company because that person is very smart fine.  If they choose to pay that person 3,000 times more than them then that is fine too.  Its just about democracy.



 

And we can see by examples how good socials countries are doing, and how many people are moving to those from those rich slavery capitalist countries :D

The root cause is not the capitalist system.  The root cause the workers are poor are the workers.

In the capitalist system, you can move up on the social ladder.  

In the socialist system, there is no ladder to climb so everyone is poor.

Like I said before, understand both systems before you propose a ridiculous plan to make everyone poor.

There is an economic ladder that you can move up.  Within a cooperative, you can move into a higher paying job or can be elected to the board that runs the cooperative.  Cooperatives often use their extra money to provide education and training in house. 

Where is your understanding of worker cooperatives coming from to claim I do not understand them?  Have you found a cooperative the functions the way you describe?  Its definitely *possible* since anything workers decide is possible under democracy but I have never seen a worker cooperative where everyone is paid exactly the same.  The same job with the same experience will probably give the same pay but thats about it.

The only poor people in this system are people who do not work. 

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/courses-images/wp-content/uploads/sites/1934/2017/06/13202316/roductivity-and-real-wages.jpeg
According to economic theory, wages and productivity should be increasing together, but they aren't because locusts are sucking out the gap between the two lines on the graphs.  This gap is why workers have become increasingly poor.  Workers only doubled their productivity over that time.  So tell me, what did workers do to make themselves poor while doubling their productivity. 

And who is stopping workers from organizing into co-operatives?

You can do all the co-operatives you want and try to compete with other traditional businesses.  See which ones will go out of business first.

Free market competition forces increased productivity.  You either become more productive as a business or you go out of business.

You have this utopian view that you can run the economic system without capitalists and their capital.

BTW, the fastest way to become poor is to continue working on the production line.

You stop being poor by educating yourself, by taking control of your limited finances, by stopping buying goods you cannot afford, by eliminating debt, and by investing in good companies.  

It takes very little effort to start investing in dividend paying stocks.  But what do most workers do?  Drink beer, smoke, maybe do some drugs, buy some shit they should not be buying in the first place and complain.

You don't need to change the system to become successful.  You need to change yourself.

People who want to do 9-5 jobs will behave the same way, no matter if they work for a traditional business or they work for a cooperative.
You give them more money, they will blow it off on some gadgets or drugs and that is about it.

Capital is precious and it must be utilized properly. People are poor because they don't understand the value of their capital.

It's funny how you mention the following : ''Workers are getting screwed over, the wealth they create is stolen.'' Whilst the opposite is true, ordinary workers keep most of their wealth in a capitalist economy. Do you actually think that in a SOCIALIST system that is implemented in my country : The Netherlands, ordinary workers get to keep more of their wealth? Just in income tax alone the workers here (including me) pay over 52% in taxes. It's over 70% if you include what the employer has to pay.

So what is the answer? People that are criticizing capitalism never have the answer, but are you able to name a single economic system that has been proven to work better than capitalism?

All I want to do is allow everyone to have the choice of workplace democracy or not.  I don't want to ban capitalism.  I just want a system where people aren't coerced into it.  I can't trust people who want to prevent democracy from being an option.  

Cooperatives still operate by market forces.  Of course things can function without external shareholders who contribute nothing but money.  It should be obvious that things will not only function, but function better if the surplus value of labor is kept in the system instead of being siphoned off and put into offshore accounts or who knows where.
  
There are organizations who currently work in communities to help people start cooperatives but it is always an uphill battle because cooperatives face more government regulation and tax problems than corporations.    In many states it is basically impossible.  I just want policy that encourages cooperatives instead of discouraging them.  







A lot of questions here.

1. Why do you think the people who work the production line should be poor?  This means you actually want there to be poverty.  I can't relate to the notion that people who work full time SHOULD be poor.   There is no ethical value to a system that insists workers be poor.

2. OK, where is the education being provided for poor, assembly line workers?  Its non-existent in the US and provided by government in more sensible nations.  This is actually one of the great ways worker cooperatives do with their surplus value.  They build worker skills within the company by providing extra training and education to the workers.  

3.  When you make less money, everything becomes "goods you can't afford", so you inevitably take on debt.  People who earn livable wages have disposable income.   Funny how that works.  Who are you to dictate what they "should not be buying"?  You just got done worrying about weather or not people would be able to buy 50 cars.    It is here where you are suggesting people who work certain jobs should not have any freedom, entertainment, or leisure.  These people work all day, have their money robbed, struggle to break even, and then you wonder why they abuse substances.    Then you expect them to magically come up with a fortune to spend on education.  Either you are out of touch or you are being dishonest.  

Drug addiction is not a choice.  Poor people suffer from addiction at a much higher rate which has a lot to do with their lack of healthcare and awful circumstances overall. Gallup poll suggests the poor drink less so there goes that.

@coins4commies Protip. Can you please learn to prune the quote pyramids a little? I'm sure that we will all get the context of what you are replying to, even with substantial pruning.

Capitalism is destroying us by making new phones, cars, medicines, computers...
God damn it's bad!

You're making one HUGE mistake here. You're forgetting the entry cost in an established market.

Let's take ANY MARKET YOU WANT! Food, distribution, internet, auto, construction... Anything you want. In any country. There are giant corporations that already own the market and are able to spend billions in marketing, adds or just to buy a possible concurrent.

The problem is that capitalism leads to totalitarism... Totalitarism of big corporations.

When you're small you just CAN'T compete with a company that is able to both corrupt/lobby politicians to keep laws and reglementation in their favor and to attract customer from dubious mass manipulation.

So those companies keep growing and keep gaining more power. Making them even more difficult to compete with.

Sure. But where does that come from?

It's a systemic problem, it comes from capitalism itself.

What's capitalism? The reward of capital. It means rich people get richer faster than anyone else. It means few individuals get most of what is produced. It means the very rich peopl get more and more power.

Capitalism leads to the power being owned by a small group of people, that's basically dictatoship with more steps xD

Capital comes from natural resources brought into the market by the induction of labor, usually by issuing credit. "the reward of capital" That is quite a detailed explanation!

Rich people get richer faster than anyone else because the market is willing to pay them the most for the goods and services they provide, because they have value. If they did not have value no one would pay for it. Now if you are talking about fraud and theft, that is not Capitalism, that is crime.

There is ALWAYS going to be a power hierarchy. It is the way it is in nature, and it is a natural organic structure within human society. Some people are natural leaders some people are natural followers. None of your wishing, praying to the ghost of Karl Marx, or theorizing will ever change that.

Also, the Rick & Morty reference used as if it has academic value gives you loads of credibility. After all, you have to have a high IQ to get most of the jokes in that show right?

How are entry costs enforced beyond regular market forces? How are monopolies maintained? Government. Monopolies can not exist without government to enforce regulations upon potential competing upstarts, raising the barrier of entry. This is not Capitalist. Capitalism encourages actual competition so that not only are resources used the most efficiently, but accurate price signaling can be created by free markets creating a timely and accurate pricing mechanism for resources.

Capitalism leads to totalitarism does it? Before impugning the system that gives you all of the things you enjoy in your daily life, maybe you want to look up the word totalitarianism, and you know maybe how it is spelled. Big corporations can't take control without the complicity of government. Even under a Socialist system this is still exactly just as much of a problem, so I am not sure what your argument is here. The world isn't perfect therefore Capitalism is a a failure?

You know who does need a centralized entity to regulate their lives for "the common good"? Socialists do. Otherwise how else can you rob people to pay for your handouts unless you have a government powerful enough to take the resources by force?

Why says the competition should be easy?

You don't go into the lion's den when you are hungry!

IBM ignored Microsoft and Apple.  K-mart and Sears ignored Amazon, Home Depot and Walmart.  Time Warner did not care about Facebook.
Banks are still ignoring cryptocurrencies.  Most companies completely ignore AI.  You get the picture.

Capitalism is natural as it mimics nature.  Big conglomerates eventually fall under their own weight as smaller, nimble competitors come from behind and cut their Achilles tendons, then private equity firms move in to feed on their carcasses.

The legal system should take care of any illegal actions by any business or individuals.

If competition would be easy it would not be competition.

And here you get the two factors that make capitalism a complete and utter failure.

1/ Conglomerated eventually fall under their own weight. That was right and that might still be although internet is really making it difficult to see if this logic will continue. But the problem is that if the company fails, the individuals behind wown't fail.
When a company collapses what happens? First ones to run and take their toll are the shareholders. Shareholders don't fail, when the company collapses they take everything they can, sell everything and after they secured their benefits then the company collapses.

Collapses of big companies is NOT the collapse of the people behind, which means you have a society with 0 or nearly 0 economic mobility. And the more capitalist a country is, the less economic mobility they have...

2/ Legal system is decided by who? By the people in power. Who are the people in power? Those who are currently the shareholders of all major companies... So don't you think there is a problem here?

Best example would be EU which is just a creation of big companies and is clearly an abuse of power from there side. Yet governments encourage it simply because they're owned by big companies.

System is rigged and the winner is clearly identified.

This is true right up to the point when those same conglomerates become "too big to fail"...  At which point the capitalist solution is to turn to the state and the people to be bailed out.!.!...

Mobility is determined by your skill set.  If one company dies, you go and work for a competitor, or change the industries.

Your goal should be to improve your financial position and move up on the social ladder.

In the capitalist system, your success is only limited by your ambition and your abilities.

In the socialist system, your success is limited no matter your ambition or your abilities.

BTW, you don't need to get to the top to be financially independent.  Many small business owners are financially independent.  So are their children and grandchildren.

In the socialist system, you cannot achieve this.  You and your descendants will always be poor.

Lol, if only... You're missing the big picture here which is that capitalism doesn't hand out enough work for everyone and number of jobs is only decreasing. This means it's not a question of skills only, but mainly a question of luck and being known by the right person.

You talk about capitalism as if it was able to allocate ressources and work in an efficient way while our world is showing it is NOT the case, not AT ALL.
This is an utter lie. Or you're saying that, by chance 99% of rich families children are gifted and ambitious while 99% of poor families children are incompetent and lazy?

You can't justify a 99% economical immobility saying it's a question of "abilities"...

Socialist system doesn't mean anything and is not the subject. If you want to talk about socialism fine but start by answering my question few days ago:

That is a problem.  The government should have never stepped in to bail those "too big to fail".  That was very socialist of them.

In the capitalist system, failures are punished and the system cleans itself.  The cost of those failures should have not been passed on to taxpayers.

In a true capitalist system, free market controls the economy.  If you inherited a large fortune, and you are stupid and lazy, you'll lose it all, eventually.

Today's capitalism violates primitive capitalism. Initial capitalism can only be achieved with cryptocurrencies. Capitalism is now the fuse of class unity, and there is almost no chance for young people other than cryptocurrencies.

What you fail to understands:

-Capitalism means capital is rewarded. Not skills or abilities, capital. At equal abilities, the bigger capital is more rewarded than the smaller. The bigger the capital gap, the bigger can be the abilities gap.

-It means that rich people become more and more rich. So few people accumulate more and more wealth and that's EXACTLY what has happens for the last 70 years.

-It means few people gain more and more POWER because there is a direct link between capital and power as it is capitalism.

The intervention of governments is PART of the capitalist system. It's linked to power being in the hands of a few.

A simple example: when a company like Google who pays millions in local taxes and employs thousands of people want something from the state they're established in, do you think they have the same weight and power than a new business? Even if this new business is objectively better?


Capitalism rewards not the abilities, the skills, the innovativeness, the social use, the ethical respect. Capitalism rewards capital and that's all. There is a reason for the name.

Capitalists hire the smartest people they can find.  I can tell you from my personal experience that capitalism rewards smart people handsomely and punishes mediocre workers.  Socialism does the opposite, smart people end up in jails or mental hospitals.

Capitalism is strong and confident, socialism is weak and insecure.

Unless you come up with a system that does not use capital (money), I am afraid capitalism is the best system we've got.

BTW, best products are designed in the capitalist, not the socialist systems.  That should tell you something.

You're not addressing any of the points I've made.

That doesn't mean anything. Capitalists  (as in, the people who owns the capital) rewards smart people as a master rewards the good slave. They still have 100% of the power but that's ok because you're a slave living a good life? If that's ok for you then continue living like this...
I'm getting a bit tired here, do you even read me? Please see what I posted already twice and you refused to answer:

If you want to discuss socialism let's go but stop avoiding real arguments.
See above
The best that we've got doesn't mean it's a good system. Capitalism won the system wars after the cold war because URSS collapsed faster but capitalism is collapsing currently just at a slower pace.

So either you try to think a bit outside the box or you continue living in a collapsing society saying "It'S ThE bESt we'VE gOt". That's not an argument that's just an excuse to stop thinking by yourself.
Yeah that tells me that capitalism is great at producing things. Does it mean it allocates ressources well? That it answers to human needs? That it supports an ethical society? That it's a long term solution? That it addresses major problems coming ahead?

I don't think so.

"Thinking outside the box" and being assured of your position at the pinnacle of human evolution is not a substitute for logic.

Capitalism is a more natural environment for humans. Because universal equality, as under communism, cannot be in nature, it is utopia.
The strongest survives in human society, the one who works more, the one who becomes smarter. It's quite normal.
There are poor and rich people in capitalism, but everything depends on the person. It is possible to escape from poverty and live very well. But for this you need to make an effort.

Again, I think you don't understand either system.

In capitalism, smart people become capitalists sooner rather than later and the average or stupid people are workers all their lives.

If you have a better idea for a fairer system, let's hear it.  Just don't come out and blab about socialism.

Socialism is best at ruining economies, making ALL people poor in the process.

If course unchecked action of some companies will ruin the environment.  That is the job of the government to protect the country resources and its environment.  

You have never seen how companies in the socialist countries dumped chemical waste to rivers?  I have seen it with my own eyes.  So shut the fuck up about the socialism, already.

The resources will be used and the environment will be polluted no matter the economic system.  This issue has a root cause in the population growth.   Population growth should be zero, not 1-3% as seen in some countries.

So you agree to say that capitalism rewards abilities?

Then why is there a 99% economic immobility in capitalist countries? Just explain that.

Economic immonibility is stronger in capitalist systems than in any other ones, and it's the proof that capitalism does NOT reward ability only capital.

Just address THIS point please

You're just in a stupid "capitalism is better than socialism" thinking which is absolutely not the point of this thread... Let's say you're right and capitalism is better than socialism ok? It's not the point anyway so it doesn't matter.

I mean YOU are the one talking about socialism. I've never even brought socialism in the debate it's you who did that...

I must say that the best products have not really come from capitalism but piggy backed on government innovations.  Its a strange idea that people would stop wanting and making good products just because the whole process isn't being done on behalf of a group of shareholders who are not part of the process at all. 

https://preview.redd.it/3bk8wn2jkuhy.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4c795f22c9c4208afd8855ec1e04414aa6cba010

Most people today are completely brainwashed in capitalism and corporatism.

They believe that efficiency and innovation can only come from private companies and that shareholders and traders are essential to this world because their almighty skills and abilities allow them to sort the good and the bad and invest only in the good.

That's incredible how people can be so blind at all the examples of how fucked up capitalism is and how efficient public companies can be.

Health system in USA is 15% of GDP while health system in France is 10% of GDP. The difference? France has a public healthcare while USA is private. And don't try to talk about quality, France has always been ahead in terms of health services that's probably what France is best at with nuclear.

In the head of people public means inneficient and biased while private means efficient and fair. How can you even think this while looking at the big companies and shareholders behaviour? The main difference between public and private is that public don't have to make a profit so they're ALWAYS cheaper and better as a service... I'm yet to be given ONE example of a previously public company who benefited of becoming private ON THE LONG RUN.

Cause sure when public companies are sold to private shareholders everything goes well at first. The newly opened market is extremely competitive! Low prices, innovations... But once the market gets a winner you can forget all this, services becomes shit and prices skyrocket.

Look at tansportation costs of UK ( https://londonist.com/2011/11/london-transport-fares-2000-2012 ) evolution! After going private the cost skyrocketed up to 240% its initial value in just 10 years xD

So efficient yeah

The problem is: we don't have a better alternative, at best we can get capitalism with democratic socialism.

Since humans require work to survive, work owe to be paid and with money people want to own property.
Without property you remove the value money hold and therefore the value of the reward.

What's destroying us is greediness and corruption not capitalism itself.

Education is probably the most important factor when it comes to economic mobility.  At least at the beginning of one's career.

You need the ability to accumulate capital to be successful in the capitalist system.  If you have the capital but don't know what to do with it, the system will quickly absorb your capital and you will be left with nothing.  Because you deserve nothing.

Capitalism does not reward capital directly, but capital can generate more capital.

If you don't have any capital, you need the ability/skills/looks to generate capital.  That is your capital.

Overpopulation has proven those skills can be replaced by lower offers, up to the point you are not able to survive with your skills alone because your country is too expensive compared to others, overpopulation is actually one of the major problems of capitalism.

And who controls education?
You REAAAAAAAAAAAALLY need to fuck up seriously to lose a big capital. Especially has you just have to split a tiny part of your capital interest to compensate the poors having the abilities you're lacking in order to succeed...

So we're finally going forward...
You then admit you that capitalism rewards the combination of capital + abilities.

Well empiric analysis will allow you to see that the most important factor in this equation is CAPITAL. You can have all the skill in the world without capital you're really close to nothing. And you can be the most stupid people in the world if you have a tremendeous capital it doesn't count.

That's the answer capitalism gives. You're rich? You can be completely low skilled it's not important, you'll just be rewarded a bit less than if you were skilled. You're poor? Well if you're smart enough you might become a rich slave one day. You'll still have 0 power but as you're usefull you'll have a full belly and a nice car.

It is called a capitalist system for a reason.

If you have no money, your capital is your looks, abilities, and skills.  You can use them to generate tangible capital (money, real estate, stocks, and bonds etc).  

Capital (money, personal looks/abilities/skills, real estate, stocks, and bonds) generates more capital.

It is really simple.

As for power, I don't care about it.  Once you are financially independent (i.e. you don't have to actively generate capital, your capital generates more capital while you sleep) you can live anywhere, so who gives a flying puck who is in power.  Only psychopaths seek power, IMHO.

All these socialist pricks who want to change the system, why do they do this?  Because they want to help workers?  No, they seek power.

If you want to help workers set up a business and employ people to help them better their lives (and enrich yourself in the process).  That is how you help workers.  They are called workers for a reason.

Capitalism is similar to using your private property to gain more private property.

Bad capitalism is when some people use their private property to steal the private property from other people. Often this is done through embezzlement.

Socialism is when capitalistic private property owners voluntarily use some of their private property to help the less fortunate.

Bad socialism is when socialists suggest that they are going to use private property donated to them to help the less fortunate. Then they use it for their own capitalist activities instead.

The thing that is destroying us is the crime of embezzlement, and the lies.

8)

And where are Americans moving?To the countries that are on the top of the list when it comes to economic freedoms.

Have you noticed how all of the things that you say generate capital require that people be born with one of them?   You can't decide to be born with good looks, abilities, skills, or capital to buy education or generate more capital.  People who aren't born into these things need a miracle just to break free.  Any system where most of the people in the world need a miracle to gain their freedom is a tyrannical system.   80% of wealth is inherited.  Its a rigged system.


Financial dependence requires power.  You don't care about power because you don't have to.  That is called privilege.  People born into capital do not experience the failure of capitalism.

The bold step is exactly what I, the socialist party, green party, and DSA all want to do.

You little prick.  My mother was a cleaning lady, my father was a car mechanic. Privileged my ass.

I came to North America when I was 22, with $600 in my pocket, no English, no university degree.  Worked in construction, aluminum extrusion factories, farms, and bakeries. Went to community college, then was admitted to an Ivy league school based on my academic record.  Went to complete my Electrical and Computer Engineering undergrad and graduate degrees with an A average.

You little, privileged, lazy fuck.

I made my first million at 40.  Few more before I retired at 52.

Go fuck yourself you little twit.  You obviously know nothing about life.  I was homeless before I came to NA.  You fucking twit.

I am not going to waste my breath on fucks like you. I was giving you a good advice on how to succeed in a capitalist society.

But you have read too many socialist propaganda books to really understand the fundamental beauty of the capitalist system.

I am not trying to offend you.  Privilege is not something meant to be offensive but it is clear that people in power did not prevent you from getting where you are today.  That is privilege.  Don't be ashamed of it.  Privilege has nothing to do with what you have done with your life.  

Capitalism breeds conditions in society that make people over aggressive, greedy, and non empathetic to those who struggle.  Then capitalists claim this state of society their conditions created is "human nature".  Its definitely human nature under capitalism.   People who have lived through the artificial scarcity of capitalism are conditioned to have a "me me me" mentality even after they overcome those conditions and move into the capitalist class.

I don't understand why you want to insult me? Is is simply because you thought I was insulting you?  I know I am privileged but how am I lazy? Pushing for a political revolution against the grain of the status quo and against the entire global power dynamic; trying to convince people to believe in something they have been programmed to believe is evil; and all in the name of the greater good.... seems like the LEAST lazy thing one could do. 

It takes a great degree of privilege to live a life that allows you to open your mind to socialism.   Once humans have enough money to buy all of the things they desire, they have the real chance to realize true happiness is not derived from money.    Money is great to the degree that it allows for you to buy the things you desire, but once you have everything you desire, what good is it to have more money?  Why have more money just for the sake of having more money? That is perversion.    Capitalist advertising and culture feeds this perversion.  

You insulted me with your privilege comment.  I worked my ass off.  Was discriminated, and you tell me I was privileged?

You may as well just punch me in the face.

Why have more money?  If you live in a capitalist society, you need capital (tangible or intangible as I was trying to explain in these threads about socialism).

The key is to know when to say enough is enough.  Hang your hat and retire.

How you are lazy?  By association.  Socialists are lazy by definition.  They want stuff for free.  They want economic equality.  They demand equality of outcome.

I am telling you, the capitalist system is the best system to become financially independent. But you need to work 18-20 hours per day, 7 days a week.  Work and study harder than anyone you see around you.   Be the best you can be. 

But like with everything in life you need a little bit of luck.  And for fuck's sake stop talking about socialism.  No boss will promote you if you start talking about some socialist bullshit in front of him/her.  Business is about profit.

Fix your financial situation, stop working for others.  Start a company and let others contract your company.  Read books by guys like Robert Kiyosaki, learn his quadrants.  Figure out where you fall in his quadrants.  You will forget about the bullshit socialist ideology.

Having privilege has nothing to do with working your ass off.  It just means that no factors prevented you from succeeding.  The "little bit of luck" is also privilege.

I don't know a single socialist who wants economic equality or equality of outcome.  Nowhere has that been stated on this board so that is a straw man.  Socialists are mostly privileged individuals fighting for the rights of the downtrodden. It is mostly a privileged group because it takes privilege to have the time to go online and discuss politics.  It takes privilege to find yourself burdened with the guilt of your lavish lifestyle coming at the expense of tho poor worker.   It takes privilege to have the education to diagnose the root causes of the problems plaguing humanity.  It takes leisure time to sit back and imagine a better world.  Do you think people working two jobs to stay afloat have time to delve in economic theory?    Poor people often don't have the option to boycott capitalist institutions like walmart or amazon either nor do they have the option to resist the overwhelming saturation of ads for beer, unhealthy food, cars, and all the things you say they shouldn't be buying.  The poor are coerced into being complicit in their own undoing.


Sounds great! Most socialists will agree with you.  Now that we have found common ground, lets work together to guarantee everyone the opportunity to fix their financial situation, start a company, and have time to read for leisure. 

We don't have.  Everyone has the same opportunity to improve their financial situation.  They might not have the same ability, but the information is out there for anyone who cares to read it and use it in their lives.

The "privilege" you talk about is an excuse people use to justify their laziness. Keep knocking on those doors, some of them will open for you eventually.  

Nobody in NA is privileged.  Bunch of immigrants from all around the globe.  If someone discriminates you in any way, don't do business with them, keep going, don't delve into it.  Who cares.  Keep going, focus on your success.

Do you have any idea of how revoltingly privileged you are, and how arrogant and myopic you sound to everyone else? OFC you don't.

Really I am not sure how you manage to get your head that far up your ass. What you have is not knowledge, it is conditioning. It is the kind of "knowledge" a parrot has. You absorb and regurgitate. You have little to no ability for critical thought or logic. You think that if anyone disagrees with you they simply haven't been conditioned enough yet to understand your advanced ideology.

No, it could not be that you advocate for ideologies that directly result in loss of life and freedom from your position of extreme privilege, understanding what you advocate for only on the most superficial levels. It must be that everyone else is just ignorant and needs to hear you ramble about returning the means of production to the workers a few more times before they "get it".

Socialists and Communists are masters of the superficial. They are good at talking and fantasizing, but when it comes to empirical data, evidence, history, science, basically anything not totally subjective they have problems.

Nowadays, human beings face many difficulties and are very serious. It cannot be said simply that it is caused by capitalism. At least capitalism makes you no longer feel famine. For the future, only technology and great ideas can save humanity, otherwise I can't imagine humans in the next 200 years.

I stop it here. This is getting useless.

af_newbie with all due respect you're so far up your own example that there is no point in any kind of dicussion  :P

You're exactly the "self-made man" example who just can't understand why people aren't succeeding. If you succeeded and others aren't then it must be because you DESERVE it in some way right? After all that's a meritocracy and if other aren't successful it's because they're not smart enough/skilled enough/working enough right?

Well no. Not at all. It's because you're smart, you worked hard, and you got LUCKY.

Successfull people tend to forget how tremendeously important luck was in their success.

I'm for a very poor family and I'm a young engineer in one of the most important company in my country. My first wage was twice more than the wages of each of my parents and twice more than the combined wages of my grand parents who were just manufactory workers. I never lived in the street only because there are laws in my country that make it very difficult to expell people so even though my parents couldn't pay the rent for a few months we got some time to recover.

Was my success mine? Sure. I worked my ass off and my parents too! They sacrificed themselves for me that's for sure. I believe I'm both smart and capable and the company paying me is sure happy to do so.

But more than any of that, I was lucky. And I really wish you were able to see how lucky you were in your success. How you were not rewarded on your merit but on your luck. And how horrible and unfair it is that millions of people, who were born with the same or even better abilities than yours, were not so lucky.

Capitalism manage to make people believe their success is self made, hence the failures must be.

This is just false. Social studies have long proved that humans are more determined by their environment than by themselves. Believing you're mainly responsible for your success is a lie you tell yourself. You're not.

Stop there man, it's useless. The guy is just completely blind by his own life. He believes that anyone can do what he has done without understanding how lucky he was  8)

Those kind of people are the first to get angry saying "YoU arE loOkinG for eXCUses" when you talk about environmental factors or how most of your destiny isn't in your own hand. For them: successful = smart and capable. unsuccessful = you haven't been smart enough.

They don't give a damn about the thousands of studies that have proven how you're far more determined by your environment (which you have no control on) than by your own abilities.

So for them we're just stupid assholes trying to limit their freedom by trying to impose an unfair equality of outcomes because there is already an equality of opportunity.

I was lucky because I escaped the communist regime.  You moron.

I am done talking to you idiots.

Go fuck yourself, I hope you die poor surrounded by hard-working people who will flash their wealth in your fucking face.

You guys are comedians.  Go talk to people who lived under both systems and you will understand better what you are proposing.

Tss... And I'm the one without argument?

Continue to lie to yourself if that makes you feel better. I'll die surrounded by a few hard-working people who will flash their wealth, a lot of average people lucky enough to be born in rich families and thus being rich, and a tremendeous amount of people poor as fuck even though they work until they die just because capitalism works this way.

Currently my place is on the hard working lucky people... But I'm not delusional contrary to you so I know my share in my success is small compared to my luck and my environment.

But it's sure easier thinking you're so great while everyone failing is a moron. You feel like you're the good guy right?

I see so, your success is your own, and you earned it, but his success is luck? Meritocracy serves EVERYONE by making sure the people who are the best at their jobs are the ones doing those jobs. You suffer from the delusion that society created nature, not that nature created society. You are in effect saying that thousands of years of human history were wrong, we just now invented a better way that you can't really explain in detail, but trust me its great! Bold claims require bold substantiation, especially when you are talking about meddling with the bedrock of our economy.

Not all success is self made, and neither are all failures. However more often than not the people who strive the hardest and the most skill are more likely to succeed. "Social studies" have not "proven humans are more determined by their environment than by themselves." You are talking about a well known and ancient debate over the question of nature vs nurture. A debate that has been going on for thousands of years and still continues until this day in spite of your unilateral declaration of its conclusion.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/abcs-child-psychiatry/201710/nature-versus-nurture-where-we-are-in-2017

This is just par for the course for you though. You use a strict policy of responding with logical fallacies while accusing your opponent of the same deeds you yourself are committing straight out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals". You accuse others of not using logic then proceed to rely on assumptions, ad hominem attacks, and refractory responses.

Just posting this because it seems you have hard time understanding why I say you're a troll that doesn't even read others:

Now that you have used your red herring distraction card, what about the rest of the criticism? Or are you just going to run from that too?

So when I put what you say and the proof you're lying it's red herring? xD

https://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/red-herring/ (https://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/red-herring/)

I don't think taking your quote then what I said and proving you're lying is a logical fallacy...

For the rest of the "argument"... It's as constructive as what I'm used to read when you write...

Wanna talk about your burden of proof here? Because the recent work of social studies especially on bullshit jobs is clearly not going this way... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/25/bullshit-jobs-a-theory-by-david-graeber-review (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/25/bullshit-jobs-a-theory-by-david-graeber-review)
... Like what the hell are you talking about? You're saying that capitalism is how humans worked in the last millions of years? If so please just... Just stop writing xD
Or prove that claim because this claim is... Ridiculous. Capitalism is a modern invention. It has... What? two or three centuries of existence? Let's say 3000 of years if you reaaaaaaaaaally take a LARGE definition.

And modern capitalism which means capitalism + globalism has one century at best.
Empty statement. What you say is litterally "people who work more and are more skilled are more likely to succeed". More likely than who?
Ah first time you write something a bit interesting. Let's say I don't question your source at all and everything you write above is completely right. I quote your source "when it came to behavioral variables was that both genetic and environmental influences were important, often at close to a 50/50 split in terms of magnitude."

Genetic abilities are distributed in a rather uniform way around humanity, which means the only relevant factor to determine equality of opportunities will be the environmental influence thanks for proving my point.

In other words: if genetics and environments have about the same importance in the construction of a human being, genetics being distributed randomly means the only factor explaning inequalities is the environment.
Hmm... Nothing to comment here I've proven you're lying and debunked you false logical fallacies accusation like the good old red herring.

Is that enough? I'm not sure I'll do it again, it's taking time for a troll...

Proof I am lying? What? You said exactly what I quoted. The fact that you said self contradictory things within your own statement is only evidence of your own duplicity. It was a logical fallacy, or a red herring, because it was simply used as a way to escape having to reply to the rest of the more solid objective criticisms. Your self serving interpretation of my words is not proof of anything except you are desperate to feel like you had a win.

Uh, Capitalism is not a new invention, it is ancient. Lets start with a simple question, how old is money? Pretty fucking old. Furthermore even animals have demonstrated the ability to barter on a basic level, demonstrating there is a natural precedent for Capitalism.

People who work more and are more skilled are more likely to succeed compared to those who lack skills and work less hard. Not an empty statement at all, it is merely a very simple concept.

Regarding "my burden of proof" there, you would of course pitch the example of the absolutely least skilled workers in jobs intelligent people know are dead ends and claim it is an example of the failure of a system of the most highly skilled and hardest workers. Is it really a failure of the system or a failure of the worker to invest time and energy into raising their marketplace value?

Meritocracy is an extension of supply and demand. The most skilled workers get paid the most because they are the most in demand as a result of the profits they can enable to be captured. Furthermore the price signalling mechanism built into this basic economics concept allows the true value of this labor to be telegraphed openly and modified real time as the market conditions change.

Of course this is again just another distraction while you demand I prove every little statement I make over and over again while you bob and weave between the arguments you have no reply to, avoiding your own burden of proof.

My source for the nature vs nurture debate is just an example. This debate is literally first day material in any basic psychology course. This is by any definition not a settled debate, and your claims otherwise are fallacious.

Genetic abilities are NOT "distributed in a rather uniform way throughout humanity". This is another premise I know you will avoid proving. There is however plenty of evidence showing there are intelligence curves that peak at differing levels that are directly correlated by race, even after accounting for quality of life and other economic and societal factors.

This is irrelevant however because you are making this wild claim, and I KNOW for a fact you can't prove it. Since your refutation of my argument completely relies on your premise that genetics and environment have equal influence, the support for your premise fails. Also, you just made the argument environment is more important than genetics, not equal to it. Contradict yourself much? I guess it is just too painful to admit you were wrong on this point you need to slowly shift the goal posts to maintain the illusion of credibility.

Sorry my bad I was a bit triggered by your new thread and tried to discuss again with you. It was a mistake as you're just either a lier either a complete moron. I've taken the time to put your arguments one by one with an explanation and you don't even have the courtesy of answering me. I don't see the point of going further and put you back on ignore that was my mistake for giving you another chance, won't do it again.

Please don't hesitate to think you've "won this debate" and let anyone see how irrelevant your answers were.

You're litteraly not answering me, you just vomit your nonsense over and over again. You make no effort whatsoever to stay focus or cohrent. You're not here to debate. I stop losing my time with you.

Unless you try to actually go forward by stopping writing as if you were alone but rather take the time to build your reasonning in formal and separated arguments contructed in a logical way (which means an hypothesis, a proof of that hypothesis, and a logical reasoning leading to a conclusion) I'll let you alone.

I take the time to answer every statement you made point by point and I am not answering you? I think you mean you do not like that I am refuting your arguments. That was quite a bit of text for some one who was "not answering you".

I am not here to debate? What? First of all why do you get to tell me what I am here for? Second, isn't debate pretty much the entire purpose of this section so good ideas can be elevated in the marketplace of ideas?

Separated arguments? Basically what you are saying to me is, I didn't break down each individual response into an easily digestible nugget of text for you, therefore it is not logical? Are you sure that you aren't just triggered by seeing anything more than a paragraph full of text? You keep accusing me of not following logic and reason with no basis then exhibit none of these qualities yourself.

You have fun ignoring me, hopefully you will be kept safe from ideas that offend you. I am going to keep replying to your senseless arguments though, and keep deconstructing them using logic, critical thought, and empirical data. I look forward to not having to dance through your field of logically fallacious mental gymnastics as you find new and creative ways to appear as if you refuted my criticisms.

So what are you saying? You like working for free yourself , to buy food for other people?
Or do you expect that other people work for you so you can buy food with their money?

Be honest, almost each person is a capitalist.. and it is totally diffeferent than "corporatism" where people are put in poverty by design and intention.
Of course there are people who don't want or need money to be happy , but then they don't have a reason to be mad at those who have or want another kind of (extra) wealth.

You do realize that there many forces at play when it comes to the case of Venezuela? And why don't you use the example of Cuba?
Let me tell you why: You just won't admit that Capitalism has failed this planet!

Or NK?

NK is led by a dictator, so that argument does not hold.
Aside of that, I am sure that NK has less environmental impact than most capitalistic countries.

How many dictators came to power through Socialism/Communism?

That is the wrong question.  The question you should be asking is "How many countries switched from democracy to dictatorship through socialism?"

I'll help...

Tsarist autocracy--> Lenin
Cuban military junta--> Castro
Imperial Japanese occupation-->Kim il sung
Soviet occupation--> Ceaușescu

So not only is the authoritarianism separate from the socialism, it usually predates it. 

Its the same fucking question, just rephrased to be more friendly to your delusions about Socialism.

They are different because context matters.  The political setting at the time of an event matters.  You like to look at single events in isolation from any context.  You like to ignore starting points and oversimplify complex issues that have a lot of variables at play.  This is one of the reasons why your opinions are the way they are.

There have been socialist dictators (well yeah but socialism inherited nations that were already previously autocratic)
Socialists are thieves who want to print money (well yeah but we have already printed money for a long time)
People died in a famine (well yeah but the principals that led to mismanagement of food are principals we reject)

People should respect US sovereignty (well yeah but we have never respected anyone else's)
Capitalists work hard to get where they are (well yeah but they had significant opportunity)
No one is forced to work (well yeah but they have to work to earn a living)
Smart people start their own companies (well yeah but they need capital for that to be an option