Hacker News Reader

Comment by shrewduser | Hacker News Reader

and yet so many people think capitalism = evil and socialism = good. it's quite bizarre.

Its not bizarre when you consider that what is called "socialism" today encompasses a range of attitudes towards economic policy. Its not bizarre when you consider that the drive towards efficiency and concentration of wealth destroys the demand side of the equation. The Nordic countries are doing great (better than the US in many regards) and this is what most on the left refer to when they speak of socialism. I don't know how anyone can look at Venezuela or Eastern Europe in the 70s/80s and say "yeah, we should be like that."

Eh, socialism and communism may seem to offer better end results but the difficulty of implementation without being exploited / converting to another ideology is evidently hard, perhaps impossible.

Capitalism is really good for so many many countries... They are living the capitalist dream! Let me give you some examples of those countries, in case you forgot: - Honduras - El Salvador - Guatemala (Almost all south america is completely dangerous) - Moldova - Romania - Georgia (Almost all ex soviet republics are lingering as third world) - Albania - Greece - Kazakstan, Uzbekistan (The middle east countries are some of the poorest) - ALL Africa

Also I can give you a list of some countries dying with socialism and socialist society: - Norway - China (They are richer than the US) - Italy You see were am going... I think that you should try to be not so dramatic in your arguments. There are good and evil in both sides.

> (Almost all ex soviet republics are lingering as third world)

You are exposing your ignorance. Ex soviet republics are by definition second world.

> Also I can give you a list of some countries dying with socialism and socialist society: - Norway - China

China is communist, not socialist. Norway is a redistributive democracy. There has not been a case where government or collective ownership of the means of production has led to good results.

China tried, and has been rolling that back ever since.

I suggest you learn your terms better before volunteering your opinion.

Have you ever visited Moldova? Amazing second world. Well, China is communist, you say. and they are the 3rd country by GDP. Bad results? What do you understand by socialism? Do you believe that you are not entitled private property?

Worker ownership is defining quality of socialism.

Marx saw capitalism as better than feudalism, but it is progression to next step aka Communism.

But most "communist revolutions" have devolved to state owned capitalism instead of worker ownership.

Socialism is simply a philosophy that puts people before money, it has nothing to do with dictatorships or authoritarianism which this is.

> Socialism is simply a philosophy that puts people before money

That is a platitude that doesn't mean anything. Abolishing a pricing mechanism doesn't put people ahead - it destroys resources. Capitalism has done more for the people in the last 300 years than any other system in the last 30,000.

For which people? If you look at India, 200-300 years ago, it was a major manufacturing hub and much wealthier and better-off than it is today.

India surely was comparatively wealthier, or less poor. When compared to other countries.

But in absolute terms it was very, very poor compared to today.

What was concretely better in the India of 1750 than today?

Communications? Medicine? Nutrition? Science? Housing? Civil rights? Arts? Life span?

I didn't say it was better than today. Things have improved a lot since independence. It was better before colonization than after.

"it was a major manufacturing hub and much wealthier and better-off than it is today"

The way socialism puts people before money is via government control of resource allocation. That is by necessity authoritarian (even in the USA).

Capitalism is also authoritarian, as companies are authoritarian entities.

And at least we all have SOME control over governments, not the case with companies.

Were it true that you had control over your governments you would have control over the companies would you not, as it is the government that regulates and controls companies.

Yes ultimately we the people hold all the power and should decide how we want things to be.

... Problem is that we can only do cider things based on the information we have and to the extend we understand the issues. Controlling media and limiting education are two powerful ways in which both governments and companies control people.

I don't think this is true, corporations do bad things, and there are bad corporations, but no corporation has anywhere near the power of a state. Corporations can't force you to give them an arbitrary amount of your income the way the revenue service can. Corporations can't kill or imprison people. Corporations can't control and set rules on currency. Corporations can't regulate industrial practices or limit others from participating in the market.

In fact, corporations are actually creations of government. Corporations would not exist were it not for laws defining certain times of companies with limited liability for owners.

This used to be true. Nowadays, some corporations have more power than states and have more money in the bank than the whole GDP of multiple countries. Corporations can steal income and can indeed kill people, they are just not powerful enough to do it in the western world yet. Corporations do regulate industrial practices a lot through massive lobbyism, the examples are countless.

Banks and investment funds control our currency, governments are at best a serious player. many governments are smaller than and often forced to do the bidding of corporations. Companies like wallmart and macdonalds control more what people eat than the us government or those people themselves. If you think companies don't have a lot of power you are deluding get yourselves - the only way to have choice for consumers is when they (through government) control and check the market. If government doesn't monopolies and other anti competitive behaviour nullify any of the free market benefits very quickly.

Don't corporations produce and survive only because they produce stuff that people choose or not to purchase? Monopoly sources exist of course but as Peter Thiel has pointed out, the capitalist world is dynamic with what he calls creative monopoly at work. You maybe stuck for choice this year but likely not in the next.

Actually, it is done by the willingness of the governed who think that through community resource sharing we can take care of each other. That is why the important stuff (medicine, education, protections) is free o almost free.

If it were through willingness of the governed, then individual members of the governed who did not agree would be able to opt out ... ??

That is the fundament of Anarchism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com