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.
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  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. |
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LOL  I am very curious. Two people not from the communist countries(I guess) are arguing over communism. Well, let me tell you the true thoughts of the people living in the communist countries. In fact, They don’t care what communism is at all. For most of them, they only have one idea: make money--->migrate to the West. This is the truest idea of the people in the communist countries. They do not oppose the Communist Party. At present, the rule of the Communist Party can make the country more stable, but they also yearn for democracy in the West, so quietly make money and then quietly change their nationality to be the ultimate thing for the richers. +1 The privileged (probably white, middle-class kids) arguing about socialism. They have no fucking idea what socialism or communism is. If you lived under both socialist/communist and capitalist systems you would understand the fundamental flaws and benefits of each system. They should interview people who lived in socialist and communist regimes. Instead, they think they "got it", and their interpretation of socialism will work (no matter the evidence to contrary) if they would only get a chance to implement it "properly". LOL. These guys are a joke. Comedians really. |
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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.
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. 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. 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. |
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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.
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.
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.
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. |
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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.
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.
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.
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. |
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Hello world.
Have been away for lon and following HellFish advice I'm starting a selfmod thread. Feel free to say whatever you want as long as it's not trolling.
So why starting this thread? Because there is this sentence I hear and read a lot that always triggers me a bit. Right wing people mockingly saying that you have to be a complete retard to be a socialist and that the argument "it's not real communism" is stupid. This argument is just saying that USSR or whatever "communist" country failure isn't a proof of communism failure because... Well it wasn't real communism.
And this argument is... Perfectly valid though a bit short-sighted.
I dare anyone to give an example of a real communism state in our world, present or past. There are none.
There is this HUGE MISTAKE made by tons of people who believe that communism = no private property = everything belongs to the state. Which is a very brutal and stupid interpretation of communism manifest. Communism doesn't mean everything belongs to the state but everything is owned by the people. In particular for Marxists (which are the most common kind of communists) it's not that there should be no private property but that anything being used in the economy (the means of production) should belong to the workers using them. (Which means very VERY limited private property because depending on interpretation pretty much anything can be considered being part of the economy)
But let's simplify all this by saying that, in communism, the means of production are supposed to belong to the people.
The people.
Not the state, the people. That's where lies the "it's not real communism".
Because what are exactly countries like Venezuela or USSR or Cuba or North Korea? They're countries where state is all powerfull, meaning the leaders are all powerfull. What do you call such countries? Dictatorships. And it doesn't matter if the dictatorship calls itself communist or islamic or democratic or whatever. A dictatorship is just a dictatorship, a country where the people are oppressed by a very small group having the power. It's not communism at all! It's the opposite of communism.
So no it wasn't real communism. But why is it a short-sighted answer? Well because it seems that every time a country adopts communism it falls immediately into a dictatorship. So even if those countries aren't communist, if every country trying to adopt communism falls into dictatorship 2 days later... Well it means that even if there is a slight difference, communism leads to dictatorship.
And that's right. At least that WAS right. Communism means that the people own and control everything equally, but that wasn't possible, what was used was that people were represented by a government THEN this government controls everything (hence the dictatorship).
But maybe we have an alternative solution now. Maybe we can do things differently... What if we didn't use the government to control things? What if we did it ourselves directly? With our technologies we no longer have a use for representative politics. Direct democracy is completely possible.
So I can't say anything for sure of course, but it seems to me that we have new possibility. Applying the new technologies (including blockchains) to create a country where everything is directly controlled by the people, which would be real communism this time.
I don't get it. Are you proposing "no private or state property" rule? Who exactly will control all the properties with no identifiable owners? Without owners, it will be a complete chaos and anarchy. People will walk into a place where you sleep (since we cannot call it your house) and take your personal belongings since they don't belong to you, your TV, the bed you sleep on, your car, your grandfather's watch etc. and you will have to agree to it since those things don't really belong to you. Is this what you are proposing? People sharing everything they used to own with other people? Criminal gangs would control everything in no time. Wild West all over again. I think this is the dumbest idea I have ever heard. It is worse than a communist state idea. |
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Education is probably the most important factor when it comes to economic mobility. At least at the beginning of one's career.
And who controls education?
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.
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...
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.
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. |
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Stolen? Are you sure?
You are completely ignoring the cost of capital and the initiatives and the entrepreneurship of the capitalists.
BTW, nobody is stealing anything from workers. Workers work willingly.
Who is taking the risk? Capitalists or workers?
The risk in any venture is correlated with the potential ROI. What do workers risk? Not being bored at work?
Why do you think the Apple employees deserve the 400k/year? Who risked their capital? Apple employees or the capitalists who own the company?
Do you want to benefit from Apple success? Buy the APPL stock.
PS. BTW, workers control the value of their labor. They ask for wages or salaries. Where did you get this idea that workers are not in control of their lives or their labor? In democratic societies, we are all free to pursue whatever we desire as long as it is legal. You can go to university, get your Ph.D., start your own company, hire people who can be trained and help them better their lives. Run your company, invest and retire early. Nobody is stopping you.
Capitalists take much more than the cost of capital. If they only took the cost of capital, that would be fair and no one would be complaining. Its misleading to say workers choose to work for capitalists, they work or starve. That is coercion. This is why homelessness and poverty are necessary for sustaining capitalism. If you ended them, there wouldn't be a viable threat to coerce people into accepting these predatory work agreements. This is why there is so much slander of anything remotely socialist. Any policy that might help people take control of their lives (funds for welfare, education, healthcare or starting your own business) is an existential threat to capitalism as we know it. I'm glad you brought up risk because capitalists don't really risk much at all. They risk not making as much money as they could have made elsewhere. Thats it. Meanwhile, workers risk everything. They risk their life. If a machine blows up, capitalists aren't going to lose a finger, an arm, or their lives. Capitalists aren't going to develop cancer because of the conditions in their factories. Capitalists aren't going to fall to their death at work. It is workers who risk the most. If apple workers paid the company for the capital and kept the phones, they would be arrested.Workers have no control. They live under dictatorship of the capitalist above them. A worker cannot decide to work in a different way because the current way is a bit too dangerous. A worker cannot decide to stay home when they feel like it. Their only decision is which capitalist they will work for. The bold quote is very out of touch for most of the working class. This is something true for people born into the capitalist class. Working class people cannot afford to stop working. They cannot afford expensive graduate tuition and they certainly do not have the capital to start their own company or they wouldn't be working class, they'd be capitalist class. It may be true to say that anyone could become capitalist class but capitalism requires most people to be working class. Are we in the 1920s? Are you sure? Who in the western countries works because they starve? Most work because they have mortgages, car loans, and cc debt and no income-generating investments. Food is cheap and abundant. There are so many opportunities in the capitalist societies that is just not funny anymore. BTW, any worker can become capitalist. There is no law that says if you are born poor you must die poor. This is not 1300s England. People stay poor because of their inability to understand the system, or simply they stay poor by choice. Who says that the working class has to move up to the 1%? The education system is designed to produce workers, managers, and future leaders. Only a small percentage of people born in the working-class families can improve their socio-economic status. Why? Because of the IQ distribution. You have heard of scholarships, haven't you? Score perfect on SATs and you are guaranteed free education in the US. The system works well with nature. IQ distributions are natural. So is the system. Is it cruel? Sure, so is nature. |
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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.
...
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. |
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You're not addressing any of the points I've made. Capitalists seek out the smartest people to hire. I can tell you from my personal experience that capitalism rewards smart people handsomely and punishes mediocre workers.
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...Socialism does the opposite, smart people end up in jails or mental hospitals.
I'm getting a bit tired here, do you even read me? Please see what I posted already twice and you refused to answer: 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! You struggle with the definition of socialism.
You confuse social programs with socialism. France and Norway are capitalist countries.
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. If you want to discuss socialism let's go but stop avoiding real arguments.
Capitalism is strong and confident, socialism is weak and insecure.
See above
Unless you come up with a system that does not use capital (money), I am afraid capitalism is the best system we've got.
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.
BTW, best products are designed in the capitalist, not the socialist systems. That should tell you something.
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. 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. |
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The world could not just happen by chance. A supreme being must have necessitated the existence of the universe and that supreme being can be nothing but God
"nothing but God"? Describe God for me. |
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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.
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. |
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Japan's population demographic is unsustainable and it will not be able to figure this out unless it gets more people. Lucky for them, there are plenty of refugees waiting to help solve their problem. Japan's biggest challenge will be the choice between a economic stability or racist preservation of ethnic "purity". https://www.businessinsider.com/why-japan-accepts-so-few-refugees-2018-4 Japanese will not accept refugees. The refugees, especially from the Middle East, have nothing to offer to Japan. Their average IQ is 30-40 points below the average IQ of the Japanse population. |
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There you go talking about your precious political compass as if it means some thing. A political compass is nothing more than a visual aid to demonstrate a certain view of political interrelationships. It is no more based in fact than a map of Mordor would be.
Furthermore the image you use is a pathetic attempt at giving Socialists a facade of authority by remaking a more respected and more recognized version of that chart, and using that association to give it the appearance of credibility.
Its a visual aid that is specifically relevant to showing you that our ideology is further from totalitarianism than the status quo current day. If I say I am moving to Florida and the entirety of your argument "against" that idea is why I shouldn't move to California, showing you a map might be the best place to start. I don't care what qualifiers or extra names you tack on to your constantly shifting definition of Socialism. Nothing you are saying is anything different than all the people who pushed these ideas in the past resulting in horrible failures resulting in millions of deaths. You claim over and over your version of Socialism is some how magically and in some unspecified way different than all the other times it has been tried.
My definition of socialism has always been workers owning the means of production. None of the failures you have mentioned involved that. In fact, workers owned less in those societies than they do in the capitalist societies we have today. Naming two things the same doesn't make them the same. Your intent is irrelevant. You might believe feeding your child bleach will cure their flu, that doesn't mean just because you didn't intend to kill them feeding them bleach won't kill them. No one wanted totalitarianism before, you think anyone ever asked for it? No naive people like you HANDED THEM CONTROL. It is ok though, it will be different this time right?
The problem is your argument is that moving further away from it will cause it. Democracy is decentralization of power. You haven't explained how decentralizing power would lead to centralization of power. "1. Its not stealing because it is built into the agreement that the US government has the right to print more money. Also "money holders" are not wise and not good for economic growth. Incentivizing spending further stimulates the economy."
You are in way over your head. Increasing a monetary base decreases the buying power of the currency. This is a fact of math. You can't deconstruct your way around math. Oh the current money holders aren't wise are they, and you are? If you are so wise why don't you have all the money and hand it out as you please? Its a fact of math for currencies with finite value like a gold standard. The US dollar does not have a static total value and that value is derived from the strength of the US economy. Money holders who would feel like inflation robbed them aren't wise because who would walk into a situation where people are being robbed and stay there. Purchasing power has been on the decline and the economy is stronger.  "2,3. An explanation of inflation was never meant to be an argument for socialism but a prerequisite for anyone who wants to discuss Marcora or any of the economic stimulus policies that are used to boost capitalist companies. It was meant to give you an understanding of the relationship between money supply, inflation, and economic growth. Resources are finite but they are not all being used. This is what we mean by the economy running at full "capacity" or "steam" as I once put it. Creating new money to chase resources that are already in use would not be wise but that is not what we are talking about."
Yet you are arguing for inflation in order to pay for your entitlement programs. Claiming your ideology creates economic stimulus is not the same as proving it. Yes, that is exactly what you are talking about, you want to create new money to chase the same already existing resources. These "idle resources" you talk about DO NOT EXIST. Are you claiming that the economy is running at full capacity? 4% of the country is just sitting on their hands because there is no work. That is idle resources. You should take a trip to the rust built. GM just announced they are laying off 15% of its employees and closing 3 plants. All that capital that was stolen from American workers will be sent overseas. Everytime something like this happens, there are idle resources. Grocery stores are an easy example. Capitalism will never allow full employment because at that point, the tables are turned and people are no longer coerced to taking a bad job. "4. Could be a chicken egg thing. Higher wages for the working class means more disposable money for this large group of people to spend. Higher demand leads to an increase in production to meet the demand. This is a lot more activity than what the "money holders" who got "robbed" would have done with that money. "
The fact that you would even give credence to the idea that consumption creates productivity is quite illustrative of your inability to use logic and understand the most basic of economics principals, as well as your willingness to bend reality to meet your bias.
It could not be a chicken and egg thing. Burning through more resources is not the same thing as being efficient or productive. More "activity" is not automatically better. By that logic, lets just set everything on fire! Think of all the activity that will result from rebuilding!
Another nice straw man. The "old school way" is what they do in Europe. Its a good compromise. Government mandated minimum wages don't work because companies just hire less people or decrease working conditions some other way to compensate.
I would love to know how you think its ethical that entire generations of people should be able to live off of society's workers, consume at a high rate, and contribute nothing.
I think the more important question you should be asking is what quality of life would these same people have WITHOUT being able to enjoy the fruits of Capitalism? The fact that poor people exist is not an argument against Capitalism. I was talking about rich heirs! Most people enjoy the fruits of some of the labor. The fruits of capitalism ( stolen labor value) only go to the 1%. People would have much more quality of life without the fruits of capitalism ( stolen labor value). They would be able to keep most of the value they produced. Apple profits 400,000 per employee per year but the average employee salary (before profit) is only 28,000-178,000. What quality of life would these same people have if they controled the labor value they actually worked to produce? Stolen? Are you sure? You are completely ignoring the cost of capital and the initiatives and the entrepreneurship of the capitalists. BTW, nobody is stealing anything from workers. Workers work willingly. Who is taking the risk? Capitalists or workers? The risk in any venture is correlated with the potential ROI. What do workers risk? Not being bored at work? Why do you think the Apple employees deserve the 400k/year? Who risked their capital? Apple employees or the capitalists who own the company? Do you want to benefit from Apple success? Buy the APPL stock. PS. BTW, workers control the value of their labor. They ask for wages or salaries. Where did you get this idea that workers are not in control of their lives or their labor? In democratic societies, we are all free to pursue whatever we desire as long as it is legal. You can go to university, get your Ph.D., start your own company, hire people who can be trained and help them better their lives. Run your company, invest and retire early. Nobody is stopping you. |
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Mobility is determined by your skill set. If one company dies, you go and work for a competitor, or change the industries.
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. 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.
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"... 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.
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: 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! You struggle with the definition of socialism.
You confuse social programs with socialism. France and Norway are capitalist countries.
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. 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. |
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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.
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.!.!... 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. |
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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.
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. 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. |
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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.
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.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. |
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Those are great questions and I applaud you for asking the most appropriate questions related to socialism I have ever seen on this site. ...
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.
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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. 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. 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? 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. 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 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. Who is going to invest in your made-up system if you eliminate the private ownership? 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 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. 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?
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.
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? 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?
Why would we limit what people can buy? People can buy whatever they want.
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.
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. 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? 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.
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.
Nothing about the system I have described would stop you from doing any of this.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. 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. 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. 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.  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. 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. |
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Those are great questions and I applaud you for asking the most appropriate questions related to socialism I have ever seen on this site. ...
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.
...
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. 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. 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? 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. 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 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. Who is going to invest in your made-up system if you eliminate the private ownership? 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 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. 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?
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.
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? 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?
Why would we limit what people can buy? People can buy whatever they want.
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.
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. 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? 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.
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.
Nothing about the system I have described would stop you from doing any of this.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. 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. 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. 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. |
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