Socialism vs Capitalism containment thread

[Ozzie guy]

A thread for debating capitalism vs socialism so users can feel free to do so in a thread where everyone is happy to debate.

This thread is also intended to be used to discuss the cold war between socialism and capitalism rather than just USA vs China (there is a USA vs China thread).

[wjfox]

As I've said before – I believe in a hybrid/mixed economy that combines the best aspects of both.

Capitalism has been a victim of its own success. This model is so good at extracting wealth, it now threatens to literally consume our entire biosphere.

Socialism is a system with its "heart in the right place", in which basic health, educational, housing, and other needs are met. However, too much socialism can lead to government overspending and bankruptcy, less incentive to work, less freedom, and technological stagnation.

So in my opinion, we need a heavily regulated form of capitalism. Keep the positive aspects (market efficiency, competition, more freedom and choice, incentive to work hard), combined with a robust social safety net (free education and healthcare, minimum wage, employee rights, etc.), enshrined in a sustainable circular economy that keeps us within Earth's natural limits.

And in the much longer term (100-200 years from now), we should reach a state of post-scarcity, due to automation and general advances in technology – at which point, capitalism will have served its purpose and becomes obsolete.

[caltrek]

So in my opinion, we need a heavily regulated form of capitalism.

At a very basic level, I am in agreement with this sentiment. However, here in the United States at least, it is very much a problem of the fox being put in charge of guarding the hen house. Regulatory agencies are too often the outright captive of the industries they are supposed to regulate, or are otherwise rendered too weak and ineffective to be of that much good.

Workers owning and controlling the means of production is a great idea. Translating that into the idea that a centralized government should have complete ownership and control of all of the means of production has proven not to be such a great approach. Put another way, before we can have a truly democratic control of the means of production, we need to have a more complete and democratic control of government. With politicians way too dependent upon corporate campaign contributions to finance their electoral campaigns, this democratic control is severely short-circuited.

Thom Hartmann recently wrote a great opinion piece for Common Dreams in which he describes some of the more recent roots of this problem:

The US Supreme Court brought us all of this with the vile Citizens United decision and its progenitors, Boston v Bellotti, Buckley v Valeo and Santa Clara County.

Thus, we now face a real crisis.

The Court gave control of Congress over to billionaires and their companies, and only Congress can overrule the Court (Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution). But how does Congress do that when none of the corporations or billionaires who now own Congress want it to happen?

There is only one force that can make this happen now: citizen outrage.

People are genuinely disgusted by this corruption, and they're voting with it in mind.

For more of Hartmann's analysis see his article as linked here: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021 ... burn-build

A further problem not discussed by Hartmann is the Electoral College and the Republican push to vitiate what remains of democratic accountability in red states where Republicans are in control. In the past this has been done in part through gerrymandering practices. Added to that is an effort to control the electoral process, including asserting of the power by legislators and secretaries of state to set aside voting results through bogus claims of "voting fraud" and substituting such results with outcomes favored by such legislators.

Citizen outrage is not enough. An understanding of what is coming down is also needed as well as a concerted effort to throw such legislators out of office. An effort made more difficult by the gerrymandered nature of districts I have already mentioned. Republicans may very well determine who the next president will be despite the actual popular vote, even in select states where the electoral college vote will instead be cast for the Republican.

Control of the U.S. Senate, which operates on the two senators per state allocation, is also vulnerable to this undemocratic manipulation.

Unfortunately, where the voter outrage and understanding is most needed is in states and geographic areas that are most "conservative." Areas where, to date, voters seem to be the least inclined to understand and act upon a desire to prevent the danger. Critically, partial exceptions to this may be in states like Arizona and Georgia. The upcoming mid-terms and the 2024 election will be very critical in seeing just how far these dangerous trends will go.

[Ozzie guy]

Two more countries are close to having protracted peoples wars (Marxist revolution doctrine) start one in Brazil one in Ecuador.

I wonder how much Jair Bolsonaro contributed to Brazil being close to having a peoples war?

There are 4 ongoing Marxist revolutions so Brazil and Ecuador would be 5th and 6th place in strength of Marxism.

Some people uphold existing countries as Marxist however I (and many others) view all existing countries as revisionist (going against Marxism)

An example of activity in Brazil when a important Marxist from another country died

[JackWhite1]

Capitalism is a base. This thing is based on competition which is part of our nature. There is no pure capitalist country but we can see, that only capitalist countries can do things such as space discoveries. Even if you give me as an example Soviets and Chinese, I'd parry it saying that the Soviets had state capitalism, as well as China, raise from the ashes after implementing capitalism in their country.

[funkervogt]

Containment...and rollback.

[Ozzie guy]

Half the people on the internet in the first world that that think they are communists are fascists. It's really sad a couple of years ago it used to be liberals that thought they are communists now we have somehow reached a new rock bottom in that regard.

That said there is a global movement now of actual communists constituting or reconstituting communist party's under the correct political line.

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

Capitalism vs. Liberty
by Robert Kuttner
December 1, 2021

https://prospect.org/politics/capitalism-vs-liberty/

Introduction:

(The American Prospect) Capitalism overwhelms other social institutions on which ordinary life and economic security depend. Eventually, the common people revolt and are willing to sacrifice democracy for a measure of security and respect. Thus does capitalism destroy democracy in a bank shot. Capitalism also destroys democracy directly, by substituting money and power for citizenship, precluding reformist remedies, and signaling the common people that they are fools to think that voting could make a difference.
...
Ordinary people are disaffected from the dislocations and excesses of capitalism but unsure whom to blame or whom to trust. Ever since Carter, much of the Democratic Party has been so compromised and bedded down with Wall Street that displaced middle- and working-class people are skeptical that Democrats and liberal remedies can make much of a difference in their lives. The cumulative result is Trumpism, a weird combination of racist nationalism and redoubled corporate rule. Libertarians like to teach that liberal democracy and free markets are handmaidens. But autocrats from Trump to Hitler to Xi demonstrate that dictatorship and market modes of production and employment can coexist all too well. The signal disgrace of our era is the ease with which the corporate center-right has gone along with Trump and the Republican efforts to destroy what remains of democracy. If it’s possible to oust unions, cut taxes, and gut regulation, losing democracy is a price worth paying…
…
The New Deal created islands of public ownership, such as public power, public housing, and public financial institutions like the original Fannie Mae and a much enlarged Reconstruction Finance Corporation…

Most savings and loans were nonprofits; most insurance companies were mutually owned. The first wave of prepaid group health plans were co-ops. These embodied values other than capitalist ones; they promoted direct democratic governance in ways that bureaucracies don’t; and they stood as bulwarks against the relentless incursion of capitalist institutions. In recent decades, however, financial capital viewed these institutions as pools of money they wished to appropriate. The stewards of these institutions saw a chance to cash in and enrich themselves. Congress obliged by making such conversions legal. Most mutual financial institutions have become conventional for-profits. Most nonprofit health plans were converted to for-profit HMOs. This sector needs to be reclaimed.

[Ozzie guy]

Cuba supporting the Bourgeoisie over the Proletariat.

[wjfox]

[R8Z]

I wonder what you personally attribute this for.

As a libertarian, my blame goes towards the obviously insane money printing scheme that almost every single country has gone into with the pandemic excuse; what's your take?

[caltrek]

Why Socialism?
by Albert Einstein
May 1949

https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/

Introduction:

Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). …
—THE EDITORS (OF MONTHLY REVIEW)

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end.

[erowind]

.

[caltrek]

I don't have the energy to explain why the cost of production rises right now.

I can think of at least three reasons.

• 1. The success, when and where it occurs, of workers in raising the rate of compensation for their work

• 2. Where workers fail to raise their rate of compensation in concert with the growth of capital, prices drop as fewer and fewer workers can afford the old prices. This is the reason for the "declining rate of profit" in orthodox Marxist terms, at least as I understand and remember it. In that case, accumulated capital produces fewer and fewer goods due to declining demand.

• 3. The decline in return of investment in research and development, especially in the aging sectors of the economy.

At any rate, what I came here to post:

Cuba and the United States
Che Guevara interviewed by Leo Huberman
September 1961

https://janataweekly.org/cuba-and-the-united-states/

Introduction:

(Janata Weekly) (Note: This exchange appeared in the September 1961 issue of Monthly Review. The questions were submitted, in writing, to Comandante Guevara by Leo Huberman during the week of the Bay of Pigs invasion; the answers were received at the end of June.)

Leo Huberman: Have relations with the United States gone “over the brink” or is it still possible to work out a modus vivendi?

Che Guevara: This question has two answers: one, which we might term “philosophical,” and the other, “political.” The philosophical answer is that the aggressive state of North American monopoly capitalism and the accelerated transition toward fascism make any kind of agreement impossible; and relations will necessarily remain tense or even worse until the final destruction of imperialism. The other, political, answer asserts that these relations are not our fault and that, as we have many times demonstrated, the most recent time being after the defeat of the Girón Beach landing [the Bay of Pigs invasion], we are ready for any kind of agreement on terms of equality with the government of the United States.

LH: The United States holds Cuba responsible for the rupture in relations while Cuba blames the United States. What part of the blame, in your opinion, can be correctly attributed to your country? In short, what mistakes have you made in your dealings with the United States?

CG: Very few, we believe; perhaps some in matters of form. But we hold the firm conviction that we have acted for our part in accord with the right, and that we have responded to the interests of the people in each of our acts. The trouble is that our interests, that is, those of the people, and the interests of the North American monopolies are at variance.

[wjfox]

[R8Z]

Socialism will only work when there is a device which predicts the necessary supply production and outperforms the free market. This can only be done by a well programed all-seeing AI that with its almost limitless sensors everywhere calculates and estimates the future demand and orders the production of the respective supply. Of course there will be a discussion on free will and liberty of the citizens within the socialist nation but that's a side note.

Once we arrive there Socialist authoritarian nations will quickly crush free market ones if they choose to optimize for domination and economic growth.

[erowind]

.

[Tadasuke]

So many people don't see things for what they are. Do you think that Biden administration will make things better?

[Member]

So many people don't see things for what they are. Do you think that Biden administration will make things better?

No.