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The Lincoln quote you referenced really blew my mind the first time I read it. No president before or since has encapsulated the issue so clearly.

"It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation." [0]

[0] https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeche...

Wow, that's bang on.

> Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Marxist too

Along these same lines, watch at least the opening statements of first JFK-Nixon debate [1].

Nixon sounds like a Biden or Bush, he could be on the debate stage in 2024. He wouldn't win, but he would sure fit in.

JFK sounds like Xi Jinping. He won, but was assassinated 3 years later.

America is remarkably good at reinventing itself and what it means to be "American". Our history is worth studying in depth, without ideological blinders.

[1] - https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/TNC/TNC-172...

There's so much wrong with this comment but to start: the US didn't cause the Cuban missile crisis by first placing missiles in Turkey. This is known because historians have read documents and talked with people after the fact. The actual Soviet motivation was to use missiles in Cuba as a bargaining chip with respect to Berlin. Militarily, neither missiles in Cuba nor missiles in Turkey made much of any strategic difference.

Kruschev begs to differ [1]:

> It’s little wonder, then, that, as Stern asserts—drawing on a plethora of scholarship including, most convincingly, the historian Philip Nash’s elegant 1997 study, The Other Missiles of October—Kennedy’s deployment of the Jupiter missiles “was a key reason for Khrushchev’s decision to send nuclear missiles to Cuba.” Khrushchev reportedly made that decision in May 1962, declaring to a confidant that the Americans “have surrounded us with bases on all sides” and that missiles in Cuba would help to counter an “intolerable provocation.” Keeping the deployment secret in order to present the U.S. with a fait accompli, Khrushchev may very well have assumed America’s response would be similar to his reaction to the Jupiter missiles—rhetorical denouncement but no threat or action to thwart the deployment with a military attack, nuclear or otherwise. (In retirement, Khrushchev explained his reasoning to the American journalist Strobe Talbott: Americans “would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we’d be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine.”)

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-rea...

The mistake you're making is taking a politican's words at face value. If you were to ask JFK he'd say militarily the US couldn't accept nuclear missiles in Cuba. But our own military was willing to accept it, in fact that was one of the options presented to him: do nothing. The reason he did something was all political, because he was running for reelection, needed to look strong on the topic after the Bay of Pigs, and had publicly committed to not accepting missiles in Cuba earlier (as the Soviets had also publicly asserted they wouldn't put them in Cuba).

The book "Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis" is somewhat regarded as a classic here that is worth reading.

Also, worth pointing out that I too can quote a Khrushchev (Nikita):

Q. How much did the crisis have to do with U.S. Jupiter missiles deployed in Turkey?

A. Zero. The missiles in Turkey were the same as the missiles in Italy and Great Britain. Why do you make the difference between those three missile bases? They are the same. They are the just the first step in a standoff confrontation in 1962 when both sides began to deploy missiles in their own territories. Those missiles in Turkey would be removed from Turkey anyway in two or three years.

From what I've read, most historians would agree with that take.

> Markets occur in every economic system.

Voting occurs in every political system too, but who gets to vote and what the votes are about is important.

The lesson of the last 100 years was not that a Soviet aligned system was superior.

Where did the parent comment make that claim?

It's possible for both USSR to be bad and totalitarian reactions to it (Red Scare) to be bad.

Thank the reds we're not all forced to speak German.

Think of the context. WW2 was absolutely a team effort.

Yeah, 400,000 dead Americans and 27 million dead Soviets [1]. I'm no fan of Stalin but one thing that's absolutely irrefutable is his efforts killing Nazis. The human toll for that was unimaginable.

[1]: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/ch...

Any time I hear "Capitalism is [...]", it is when one forces his own, carefully worded definition, so that the subsequent arguments sound natural, logic, simple, irrefutable. "It's simply the system of exploitation".

Let me try that game. Capitalism is what emerges from trade and money. You can fight it, you can embrace it, but you won't eradicate it. Black markets and barter will emerge, which are forms of capitalism. In the end, all you can do is regulate it (or not). Then I would define socialism as an attempt to regulate it so it doesn't turn into the law of the fittest.

Socialism turns into the survival of the fittest as the civilians start fighting each other for food, and positioning themselves favorably for scraps by burying their neighbors for "crimes against the state." Everything anybody needs to know about socialism was already experienced by and written about by Solzenichen.

I said that socialism is an _attempt_. I certainly agree that it can fail and produce misery.

I'd like to define socialism as a moderate regulation of capitalism. Like, capitalism with the right balance of regulations (so industries aren't free to wreck the environment, risk people lives, etc), cheap/free social services/health care and taxing the wealthy more than the poor.

Then I could say I'm for socialism. Now a lot of "socialist" countries are dictatorships and/or heavily corrupt states. So I... don't know. I guess I'm a centrist then?

Trade and money existed long before capitalism. Capitalism is not trade and never was. Trade will always exist regardless of the economic system.

>law of the fittest

Fittest? Capitalism rewards who already has capital. Monopolies inhibit competition, stifles innovation, and effectively nullifies the "fittest" argument. Still, that's the ultimate dream of every capitalist.

This rhetoric is a result of propaganda funded by the very capitalists that need to justify their atrocities.

What really baffles me is that these arguments are, today, almost exclusively made by those that are not capitalists. They defend their overlords with more faith and fervor than most church goers. When in reality most are one medical emergency away from bankruptcy, but still think they might become a billionaire.

I'm basically saying neo-liberal capitalism, as in minimum-regulation capitalism, is unfair. You're right that it's about having capital already, not about being fit. Anyway, I think the law of the fittest is awful, so I'm not defending neo-liberal capitalism, quite the contrary.

Anywhere you have money and trade, you will have wealthy people, using their wealth to get unfair advantages over poor people, and get even wealthier. I don't care if it fits your definition of capitalism, even though I think it does. My point is that you can fight it, or embrace it, but it's going to emerge, and you won't eradicate it. So, instead of describing this naturally emerging thing as pure evil, let's try to make it fair, have regulations to protect consumers, taxes to redistribute wealth and prevent too much wealth accumulation. That's what I would like "socialism" to mean.

Being a billionaire is absolutely not my goal in life, not even a desire. Billionaires actually are lonely people, stuck in a very restricted social circle. They can't have normal friends. Ask minecraft's creator.

Please don't assume I'm a brainwashed wannabee-billionaire defending my "Capitalist" overlords. I would be better placed to assume you're the typical anti-system guy that thinks "Capitalism" is the root of all evil, and that sees everything in this light.