How socialism is a more materialistic ideology than capitalism

[Hoplite]

What the incentive structure then? You get the same amount whether you work or not. The needs and wants you talk about are the incentive structure that socialism lacks.

The incentive is the harder you work, the more the group receives, the more the group gets, the more it can give to you and yours. The group is a means for organizing labor and distribution of income (be it fiscal or material).

That's one point of view. But in reality while office politics is pretty common, people work together in capitalism all the time. That's what a business is. While everyone is trying to get to the top, that doesn't negate the fact that the job they do is specialized and thus requires the help of others to achieve a goal.

Help is only accepted so long as it doesn't interfere with one's path to the top. If given the choice between foregoing a promotion or taking a salary cut to help a co-worker and getting a raise or promotion at the expense of the co-worker, our culture teaches us it's better to get that raise or promotion rather than consider it's consequences for someone else.

When has this been shown? The link between wages and productivity is well established.

That's true and at the same time it isnt. The question is actually more complicated than money = work.


I'll post more stuff to this regard if you want and when I have a little more time.

Except that isn't the case at all. The pre-Capitalist world had very little competition and emphasized cooperation and never produced a tenth as much as competitive systems. The reason the guild system which was designed to prevent competition within a particular market was that they had no incentive to optimize anything. When modern business practices competed against those systems they easily out-produced them even when the government gave support to the guilds.

Capitalism has, in one form or another, been around since LONG before Ricardo's time. Elements of it have been present in society for generations and Mercantilism is somewhat of a low-grade Capitalism.

We also have to consider that it's extremely difficult to be productive when your life expectancy is MAYBE 30 and there is constant war, stifling of development by the Church, and chronic under-education.

Socialism is in many ways just a variation on the outdated guild system.

An interesting way of looking at it, but still incorrect.

What constitutes a population that is "ready" for socialism? Marx predicted that those countries furthest into capitalism would be the first to become communist (he thought Britain and the US were likely spots for that reason) but history has shown those least along in capitalist development turned communist (Russia, China, numerous developing countries). Even when communism is put in developed countries it has failed miserably (the Czechoslovakia, Bohemia/Moravia in particular, and East Germany being excellent examples as they were both well developed before the Soviets took over). So under what conditions can a population be considered "ready for socialism?"

Not being a Marxist, I couldnt speak to his theories.

A population will actually lean towards Socialism once certain conditions are met. Once there is relative stability (both politically and economically), once most of the population is fairly well educated, once there are no or few disruptive forces in society at the moment, and once the majority of people have achieved a level of understanding that practicality is more important than political lines. People will actually slowly vote in Socialist ideas until you have a Socialist society.

This is ably demonstrated by many European nations, having reached a certain apex in development, politics start shifting towards the left. What happens when a crisis disrupts stability? The politics shift away from the left. The same can and will happen in the US and other countries, given the opportunity.

I dont believe violent revolution is necessary or even a good idea. A revolution's purpose should ONLY be to pave the way for a more democratic and open society where Socialism can be allowed to flourish on it's own as, I believe, it inevitably will.

Capitalism did not change human nature, it simply allowed humans to be themselves. Pre-capitalist systems relied on the threat of a lot of force to keep people in line to prevent things like social climbing, entrepeneuship, and most forms of economic competition (instead redirecting competitive desires to warfare).

Again, you cant really draw on historical comparisons except in select areas (nor can I for that matter) because there were so many other forces at work that no longer exist such that it becomes impossible to sort out influence.

 

[Civil1z@tion]

The incentive is the harder you work, the more the group receives, the more the group gets, the more it can give to you and yours. The group is a means for organizing labor and distribution of income (be it fiscal or material).

Or you could do less work and still get the same amount until the system collapses (which is typically far enough away to be a "not my problem" situation). Also, it turns out that humans that have essentials covered and aren't in competition to have more than others don't typically care if they get many more goods. A good example would be early modern and medieval European peasants. When some landowners in Germany tried to implement pay based on how much work they did in order to incentivize more work in a given time period, instead of working harder to make more money, they worked just hard enough to get by then were lazy the rest of the time span. The reason was because the society still blocked any attempts to actually better themselves relative to anyone else in their class and so no matter what they did they would still be landless serfs. Social mobility drives harder work, which then drives economic growth.

Now, maybe this sounds like a good thing, after all greed is evil right? The problem is that isn't a long-term view. If everyone is working only at subsistence level there is no capital available to drive technological growth. Technological growth can only happen when people have the excess resources needed to do the trial and error necessary for real advances. Without technological advancement we are once again at the mercy of nature. If an asteroid comes, the climate does a major shift (current climate change is human-made, but natural climate change happens to...and the best answer to human-driven climate change is technological advancement as that is what will lead to the fewest people dying, but that's another debate), or a drug-resistant pandemic happens we're going to need an already ready technological base and sector to create the solutions we need. If nothing else, the Sun is going to get too hot to support life on Earth in about a billion years and if we haven't been expanding our technology or gathering capital until that happens humanity is royally boned.

Oh I will note that this means that if ideal socialism actually got carried out it probably wouldn't be too materialist so I guess you guys should probably ignore my previous posts that it would be (though I still maintain Marxism as a subset of socialism is materialist in every sense of the word).

Help is only accepted so long as it doesn't interfere with one's path to the top. If given the choice between foregoing a promotion or taking a salary cut to help a co-worker and getting a raise or promotion at the expense of the co-worker, our culture teaches us it's better to get that raise or promotion rather than consider it's consequences for someone else.

I call bs on that. Yes you here about Wallstreet executives that do that but the news is designed to report bad news far more and more prominently than it does good news (on the theory that doing so increases the probability that the bad thing will be changed). At my mom's work at the start of the recession all of the upper management decided not to give themselves bonuses so that they wouldn't have to lay off as many people. Its also worth noting that everyone hated on the Wallstreet executives that got bonuses so if our culture actually teaches its better to help yourself than others it apparently hasn't sunken in to the vast majority of people.

Capitalism has, in one form or another, been around since LONG before Ricardo's time. Elements of it have been present in society for generations and Mercantilism is somewhat of a low-grade Capitalism.

Capitalism means government non-interference in the economy. In that regard, merchantilism wasn't capitalist at all. Businesses were almost always government monopolies and 95% of the labor force worked for the nobles who were the equivalent to the government of everywhere except some of the cities. Calling merchantilism capitalism is just plain wrong.

An interesting way of looking at it, but still incorrect.

Socialism is an adjustment towards more equality off the original guild-system. That's part of the reason that the original socialists (Marx in particular but he wasn't alone) emphasized the urban proletariat rather than farmers. Its worth noting that in the German revolutions of 1848 the class that most supported the ideas of the socialists was the guild workers who were losing out to factory competition. Meanwhile the workers in those factories gave at best very limited support to the Socialists who supposedly represented them. This is because socialism was trying to take the guild structure, get rid of the wealth distinctions and the guild hierarchy, and apply it to the whole of society. Modern socialism has made refinements but this is still the basis of what they are trying to do.

A population will actually lean towards Socialism once certain conditions are met. Once there is relative stability (both politically and economically), once most of the population is fairly well educated, once there are no or few disruptive forces in society at the moment, and once the majority of people have achieved a level of understanding that practicality is more important than political lines. People will actually slowly vote in Socialist ideas until you have a Socialist society.

This is ably demonstrated by many European nations, having reached a certain apex in development, politics start shifting towards the left. What happens when a crisis disrupts stability? The politics shift away from the left. The same can and will happen in the US and other countries, given the opportunity.

Alright, let's actually test that. The 90s is the perfect testing ground. Education was wide-spread, the Cold War was over and there were few disruptions of almost any kind in most Western countries (societal, political, or economic), and in most countries partisanship was pretty well under control. So, with this perfect test period and and area what happened? The left continued on a course of concessions to the right that had been happening since the late 70s. In Britain, New Labour turned the Labour party from a solidly socialist party to a moderate, arguably bordering on liberal in economics (in a European sense) party. Elsewhere in Europe the trend against expanded government programs and nationalization of industries (the latter being a particularly socialist act) continued with Europe adopting gradually more free market reforms. In the US Clinton failed to get health care passed, then ruled as nearly a moderate libertarian for the next 6 years with cuts to spending, deregulation of industries, and gave the US its first surplus since Eisenhower. So in this period with high numbers of college grads, lots of economic stability, lots of social stability, and practicality over ideology in lots of parties (particularly from parties on the left) the entire Western World moved away from socialism.

Now for Europe and its "socialism" most of that was instituted post-WW2, an incredibly unstable time for most of Europe with lots of ideologues and far fewer college educated people than the 90s. During that period they shifted closer to socialism instituting lots of social programs and nationalizing lots of companies. So socialism declines under the conditions you put, and rose in a period with exactly the opposite conditions. There might be a problem with your causation theory here.

Again, you cant really draw on historical comparisons except in select areas (nor can I for that matter) because there were so many other forces at work that no longer exist such that it becomes impossible to sort out influence.

I can draw on a wide variety of comparisons from a number of time periods. The Aztecs had a capitalist merchant class which was kept in a subordinate place only by having the rest of society being warriors in a totalitarian state. Without the threat of violence the capitalists would have taken over. The Incas had a sort of socialist system going that required massive armies to keep expanding and prevent the revolts of subject people. China kept a system that kept merchants in low position only by having a rather authoritarian state that at times could be quite brutal (such as the brutality required to build the great wall). Japan had a nearly Western-style feudal system for centuries that kept the capitalist classes in subordinate positions. Rome was built on force and maintained by it in order to run a non-capitalist slave economy. Persia was similar only it ran a peasant economy rather than a slave one. You might also notice that most ancient law codes had very severe punishments for crimes and almost all such systems had sumptuary laws (laws that restrict the purchasing of luxury items) and/or strict controls on businesses all meant to maintain a societal structure where capitalist classes and capitalist aspirations (aka social mobility) in check. Some were able because of a number of other things to scale back the use/threat of force some while others due to certain conditions had to become police states. But the trend holds pretty well worldwide until the 18th and 19th centuries.

 

[TurtleDude]

socialism ultimately fails because it runs counter to the nature of the most successful and competitive among us. socialism appeals to those who are not competitive and those who are power hungry without being productive. Such types almost always lose to those who are competitive.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

What constitutes a population that is "ready" for socialism? Marx predicted that those countries furthest into capitalism would be the first to become communist (he thought Britain and the US were likely spots for that reason) but history has shown those least along in capitalist development turned communist (Russia, China, numerous developing countries). Even when communism is put in developed countries it has failed miserably (the Czechoslovakia, Bohemia/Moravia in particular, and East Germany being excellent examples as they were both well developed before the Soviets took over). So under what conditions can a population be considered "ready for socialism?"

Marx stated his belief that the most advanced countries would be the first to experience revolution due to the volatile nature during his lifetime. He was writing based on what life was like at the time. It was a completely reasonable prediction to make, especially considering the fact that there were many revolutionary upheavals in the most advanced countries during his lifetime (i.e. 1848 Revolutions, Paris Commune, as quite a few examples off the top of my head).

In other words, he was analyzing the conditions at the time, which is a pretty reasonable thing for someone to expect. Marx is human, he was not all-seeing and all-knowing. Moreover, his "prediction" as you call it was not meant to be something set in stone; again, he was analyzing the conditions at the time.

In fact, he famously mentioned in a letter to Vera Zasulich that he believed that Russia might be able to actually skip capitalism. Marx and Engels even mentioned that historical materialism isn't something set in stone, and is merely a "guide from which to study." In other words, it is a tool to assist us in understanding history, it is not a law. Which is precisely why they studied societies which didn't adhere to the "model" (i.e. the Asiatic Mode of Production).

So your attempt to insinuate that Marx was all like "yo this historical materialism **** is set in stone, I made it up and it's always correct and all of my predictions based on it are going to come true for sure because this model is so accurate" is stupid.

but history has shown those least along in capitalist development turned communist (Russia, China, numerous developing countries) Even when communism is put in developed countries it has failed miserably (the Czechoslovakia, Bohemia/Moravia in particular, and East Germany being excellent examples as they were both well developed before the Soviets took over).

There's quite a few things wrong with this statement. First, Russia had among the highest industrial output in many commodities at the turn of the century. Russia was a capitalist state, its nature was simply that of a combined development due to how it came about. See Trotsky on this, or Lenin's "The Development of Capitalism in Russia," whose work was directed precisely at those Narodniki who believed that Russia could skip capitalism.

Second, none of these states turned "Communist". Russia was the only country to experience an actual proletarian revolution; China was mostly peasant based, assisted by the Soviet Union and was basically already bureaucratized by the time the CPC came into power. But really, none of them could be considered "socialist" either. All criticisms that such an analysis is incredibly categorical aside, these countries were incredibly bureaucratized and stratified. They did not have proletarian democracy. None of these were examples of a "workers' state" except Russia in its infancy, and even that was plagued with deformities due to the conditions in which it was required to develop.

The fact is that most/all of these were simply an export of the Soviet model. So to say that all of these countries "tried communism and it failed" or whatever is stupid. What did fail was the Soviet bureaucratic model, and that is something on which we can agree.

So under what conditions can a population be considered "ready for socialism?"

In many cases the objective conditions are there. Look at Greece, for example, which has had quite a few general strikes recently. The problem is that the leadership isn't there.

 

[William Rea]

Some people would have you believe that money buys you happiness.

I agree with them, to be honest.

Or at least a very comfortable misery.

 

[Hoplite]

Or you could do less work and still get the same amount until the system collapses (which is typically far enough away to be a "not my problem" situation).

The less work the individual does, the less the system has to give to the individual. Once a certain point is reached, the basics will no longer be covered. Food disappearing from the table is a powerful motivator.

And no, that is not a threat, just simple logic; if no one works to produce the food, there will be no food to eat.

Also, it turns out that humans that have essentials covered and aren't in competition to have more than others don't typically care if they get many more goods. A good example would be early modern and medieval European peasants. When some landowners in Germany tried to implement pay based on how much work they did in order to incentivize more work in a given time period, instead of working harder to make more money, they worked just hard enough to get by then were lazy the rest of the time span. The reason was because the society still blocked any attempts to actually better themselves relative to anyone else in their class and so no matter what they did they would still be landless serfs. Social mobility drives harder work, which then drives economic growth.

Again, historical examples are not good proof in this situation because our circumstances are FAR different now.

If everyone is working only at subsistence level there is no capital available to drive technological growth. Technological growth can only happen when people have the excess resources needed to do the trial and error necessary for real advances.

Then we have to ask ourselves if technological advance is something we want to strive for or if we'll be comfortable with a simpler way of living, keeping only parts of our advanced civilization that we can afford to upkeep in the new order.

More practically, with enough excess, we CAN afford to have people whose job it is to innovate; we call them scientists.

Without technological advancement we are once again at the mercy of nature. If an asteroid comes, the climate does a major shift (current climate change is human-made, but natural climate change happens to...and the best answer to human-driven climate change is technological advancement as that is what will lead to the fewest people dying, but that's another debate), or a drug-resistant pandemic happens we're going to need an already ready technological base and sector to create the solutions we need. If nothing else, the Sun is going to get too hot to support life on Earth in about a billion years and if we haven't been expanding our technology or gathering capital until that happens humanity is royally boned.

We need to stop thinking that the universe lives or dies based on our being here. Yes, the sun will some day explode and wipe us all out and no that wont be fun, but all things have their end and that means humanity as well. What would the justification be for trying to fight the entropic forces of the universe?

I call bs on that. Yes you here about Wallstreet executives that do that but the news is designed to report bad news far more and more prominently than it does good news (on the theory that doing so increases the probability that the bad thing will be changed). At my mom's work at the start of the recession all of the upper management decided not to give themselves bonuses so that they wouldn't have to lay off as many people. Its also worth noting that everyone hated on the Wallstreet executives that got bonuses so if our culture actually teaches its better to help yourself than others it apparently hasn't sunken in to the vast majority of people.

If you tell people that the ONLY important thing in a competition is to win and that while there are rules, they wont be strenuously enforced nor will you be harshly punished for breaking them, people will inevitably cheat. That is a fundamental and un-avoidable aspect of human nature in our current world.

Our rather warped meritocracy does not allow for the kind of personal growth on a wide scale to allow us to move past this inclination to cheat. If we de-emphasize being first and we make the primary goal to be community and individual cooperation, we can fundamentally change the way we react to a situation.

Capitalism means government non-interference in the economy. In that regard, merchantilism wasn't capitalist at all. Businesses were almost always government monopolies and 95% of the labor force worked for the nobles who were the equivalent to the government of everywhere except some of the cities. Calling merchantilism capitalism is just plain wrong.

Capitalism means non-interference in it's ideal form. Laissez faire Capitalism is kinda like Anarchy; everybody who thinks they want it would actually scream in terror if they really knew what it wrought. So to get away from a system as horrible as complete or near complete government non-interference in economics, we have our current system which is a more advanced form of Mercantilism, most notably in the protectionist attitude the government takes of the economy.

Socialism is an adjustment towards more equality off the original guild-system. That's part of the reason that the original socialists (Marx in particular but he wasn't alone) emphasized the urban proletariat rather than farmers. Its worth noting that in the German revolutions of 1848 the class that most supported the ideas of the socialists was the guild workers who were losing out to factory competition. Meanwhile the workers in those factories gave at best very limited support to the Socialists who supposedly represented them. This is because socialism was trying to take the guild structure, get rid of the wealth distinctions and the guild hierarchy, and apply it to the whole of society. Modern socialism has made refinements but this is still the basis of what they are trying to do.

Some forms of Socialism do fall into that category, but not all.

Alright, let's actually test that. The 90s is the perfect testing ground.

No, it really wasnt. You have a population that is educated but also under the grip of a massive marketing effort to enforce and teach the values of the Capitalist system. You have an environment polluted by ideas like TINA and trickle down economics to make people think their way of life is viable when in reality it isnt.

 

[Scarecrow Akhbar]

As a Socialist, I believe that ALL people should have their basic needs guaranteed if they are a working member of society.

As an American, I'm very happy to see that you're willing to volunteer your own cash to provide the charity you espouse, since it's clear neither you nor anyone else has any lawful claim on the money I earn to finance this wonderful religion of yours. The money I earn is earned solely to promote the interests of myself and my family at my personal discretion.

Socialism is the most perverse and most materialistic of the modern religions precisely because it suffers under the delusion that my money is their money.

That's a truly weird notion.

You cant eat purpose or character.

Then people who wish to eat should forget about being characters and focus on being useful enough to get hired.

You're free, again, to use your own money to finance anyone you feel is a useful character.

The Constitution says I'm supposed to be free to ignore useless characters.

We should go back to obeying the Contitution.

It's a good thing to have self-confidence and purpose, but in the realistic view, neither of these things will do you much good if you cant get food to eat.

Yes.

Working on a farm picking strawberries is a good thing to do to earn the money to buy the food. Too bad the socialists in the US have allowed the farms to be overrun by illegal criminal aliens and thus prevent so many Americans from serving a useful purpose.

But, since socialists believe so thoroughly in the benefits of true charity, there's never been any need for the government to steal money from the public to finance the silly dreams the socialists have of equality of outcome. Everyone knows that outcomes are driven by innate abilities and can't ever ever be equalized throughout a human society. Ant hills, even, aren't as egalitarian as the socialists pretend to claim to want for humans.

Were would you get these handouts?

I don't need them. But others should be able to go to any socialist and demand them until the socialist is on the same economic level. It's what they're preaching I should do. I certainly expect them to be obedient to their religion, even though I naturally have the good sense to reject it for myself.

That's nice, but not everyone is poor because of their own mistakes and even if they are, why should being poor be a punishment?

Why should their poverty result in my loss of property, cash, and other assets? You feel sorry for them? You take care of them. Since I'm not responsible for anyone's poverty, there's no reason to rob me. If you feel there's not enough charity, then give more. Don't steal more.

Stealing isn't charity.

Except that view is factually incorrect, we do not believe that money = happiness.

Money = not living in the gutter.

I"m all for keeping my money, since I'm the only one that earned it.

Then the nice men with brass knuckles and baseball bats take your car and your house to pay for the medical bills.

You mean that is substantially different than the IRS seizing your bank accounts, the US Marshall's seizing your physical property, and the county sheriffs hauling you off to jail if illegal taxes to finance unconstitutional federal programs are not paid?

Dying or suffering from preventable afflictions does seem pretty miserable and if adequate healthcare were provided,

Hmmm.....that looks like a wonderful incentive for people to take care of their health and procure their own healthcare.

Then again, the socialists could naturally take up the job of charity to provide all the wonderful magical goods and services to bring about Camelot, if they really wanted to. But they don't. Socialists are greedy bastards who don't give up their own money for their religion while demanding the government steal from others to make up the difference.

Socialists clearly focus on the material wealth of others more than is healthy for those others.

people would die and suffer LESS from preventable afflictions. Less suffering usually makes people happier.

No. It merely removes one thing to bitch about and they soon find something else. Would you say Mel Gibson is suffering? Is he happy? How about that Lohan broad? That Paris bitch? They leading happy lives? Happiness is not a material condition, and rather than preaching socialism, the socialists would do much much more for society if they could become buddhists and learn how to help others by living what they are already demanding of others.

Trust me, buddhism has seen very few wars, and killed far far fewer people than the hundreds of millions of people killed by socialism.

No, it doesnt. Socialism says "we have enough to go around, why dont we make sure we all have enough before we start worrying about seconds?"

Because that's not what socialism says.

Socialism says "hey, they got some, let's go get that from them."

Pause.

"hey, those guys have some more, let's go take that, too".

Pause.

"hey, all the rich guys are gone. Do you guys remember the wino on Century Boulevard? Maybe he has something left we haven't stolen yet. Let's go see."

Let me know when all the famous and not famous advocates of the religion of socialism actually become charitable with their own money, okay? The evidence will be that their income is no greater than the median income of the bottom quintile of wage earners.

 

[Scarecrow Akhbar]

The less work the individual does, the less the system has to give to the individual. Once a certain point is reached, the basics will no longer be covered. Food disappearing from the table is a powerful motivator.

And no, that is not a threat, just simple logic; if no one works to produce the food, there will be no food to eat.

Coming up with silly nonsensical unrealistic imaginary extreme scenarios to support your positions?

People will grow food to eat, and if they have a surplus, they will sell it. In fact, they will attempt to grow that surplus so they can sell it. Human's are natural capitalists.

Then we have to ask ourselves if technological advance is something we want to strive for or if we'll be comfortable with a simpler way of living, keeping only parts of our advanced civilization that we can afford to upkeep in the new order.

Hmmm...Hey, SA, are you happy with technological advance, or will you be happier living in a cave in the dark?

Well, gee....given that the planet has a finite wealth, clearly technological advance is the only means possible of expanding our accesss to non-terrestrial wealth. The only alternative to progress is stasis, and the only result of stasis is death.

Gee, that was a hard question.

But there's no reason the socialists can't volunteer to do with less, since that's what they want to force upon us.

More practically, with enough excess, we CAN afford to have people whose job it is to innovate; we call them scientists.

Actually, we call them people. We have things who's job is to not innovate. We call those robots.

Capitalists don't share the view of the socialist that people are cogs in the machine. Sometimes they get caught in the cogs of the machine and we call them "lubricants", but for them most part, people are useful because they're individuals with the abilty to perform some cognitive act machines are not capable of.

We need to stop thinking that the universe lives or dies based on our being here. Yes, the sun will some day explode and wipe us all out and no that wont be fun, but all things have their end and that means humanity as well. What would the justification be for trying to fight the entropic forces of the universe?

Evolved human animal instinct is sufficient justification for that one. However, since I'm not honestly expecting to be around for the heat death of the universe, I'm not overly depressed by that line of thought.

If you tell people that the ONLY important thing in a competition is to win and that while there are rules, they wont be strenuously enforced nor will you be harshly punished for breaking them, people will inevitably cheat. That is a fundamental and un-avoidable aspect of human nature in our current world.

People inevitably cheat, anyway. It's part of the creative nature of people that makes it necessary to have an element of law in all realistic human ideologies, like libertarianism.

Our rather warped meritocracy does not allow for the kind of personal growth on a wide scale to allow us to move past this inclination to cheat. If we de-emphasize being first and we make the primary goal to be community and individual cooperation, we can fundamentally change the way we react to a situation.

Yes, you have something there. Our meritocracy is warped because people who acheive are punished by higher tax rates that siphon money away to be wasted on rewarding indolence, incompetence, fraud, waste, and political corruption. That's one of the reason the people who wrote the Constitution did not allow the federal government to provide welfare, education, or other entitlements. I'll note for the record that the Constitution still does not allow these.

Capitalism means non-interference in it's ideal form. Laissez faire Capitalism is kinda like Anarchy;

Except that's bull****. Capitalism requires the definition of property and the definition of the owners of that property, and that alone requires a government to pass the defining laws, keep the records, and ajudicate the disputes. That's capitalism in it's purest form. That does not mean the law is allowed to mandate the presense of seat belts in motor vehicles or, worse, require people use them. Pure capitalism is perfectly happy with seat belts being an after-market accessory. So is laissez-faire.

everybody who thinks they want it would actually scream in terror if they really knew what it wrought. So to get away from a system as horrible as complete or near complete government non-interference in economics, we have our current system which is a more advanced form of Mercantilism, most notably in the protectionist attitude the government takes of the economy.

Yeah....um...you're jumping over twenty seven of Mayor Noggin's Chocolate City Katrina Escape school buses in your under powered bio-fueled hybrid go-kart to get from laissez-faire to where you're at, and those buses are laid out end-to-end, too.

The current US economy is borderline fascist, with the president unilaterally abrogating US bankruptcy law, seizing the ownership of General Motors from it's bond-holders and handing the prize over to his goonion supporters, firing the lawful CEO of GM in the process. Not to mention the completely unconstitutional act of forcing citizens to either buy into his MessiahCare scam or pay fines to the IRS for noncompliance.

Some forms of Socialism do fall into that category, but not all.

All forms of socialism are evil since they are predicated on the assumption that no man can keep the fruit of his labor, but must be compelled to share it with others.

No, it really wasnt. You have a population that is educated but also under the grip of a massive marketing effort to enforce and teach the values of the Capitalist system. You have an environment polluted by ideas like TINA and trickle down economics to make people think their way of life is viable when in reality it isnt.

That's because capitalists have values. It's also because socialism is outlawed by the US Constitution.

 

[Scarecrow Akhbar]

Great post. I like the way you think. It'll serve you well your whole life long. Don't agree with all of it, but that's not the important thing. I don't really have a problem with socialists in and of themselves. They are altruistic, which is a good thing in the world -- but to a fault -- at the expense of self-reliance.

Time and time again in my personal life I'm reminded how important it is to work for what we want in life. I see it most clearly when I've gifted someone something -- whether it's money or material -- it's never appreciated as dearly as when one works for it on one's own.

You're right. Building character and living a purposeful life definitely is the secret to happiness. Combine those two things with good health, and one has it made. Money and things aren't the answer. Never have been.

Socialists are not altruistic. Not when they're demanding someone else's money be used to finance their agenda.

 

[Scarecrow Akhbar]

How is recognizing that a group of people can accomplish much more than a single person being altruistic to a fault? Humans have evolved to be social creatures, we dont do very well on our own.

It's altruistic when those people voluntarily contribute to a common goal, such as the community of blood donors.

It's not altruistic when it's compulsory, as when the socialist vampires suck the life out of an economy.