Perhaps I am biased, but everyone likes to think they're smart and sophisticated when they said they view the world in shade of greyness.
I keep learning that the world isn't as grey as I used to think. Intellectual property is very bad. Antitrust laws are stupid. Minimum wage doesn't help the poor. Farmer subsidy in America is hurting comparative advantage and thus prosperity in other countries.
Even wars are bad.
"The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations." - David Friedman
Perhaps, socialism versus capitalism isn't so complicated people like to believe. Maybe it is a matter of "socialism, bad and capitalism, good!".
In capitalism, communes are allowed. Charity is allowed. There's no pretension that people can be transformed from greedy people to saint or that one government official can fix everything. Capitalism acknowledges failure when bubbles are busted, when the free market doesn't give anyone a job of some type, and when firms doesn't do their job efficiently.
However, socialism thinks everything could be fixed with a redistribution scheme of some sort. They think if they can elect the "right" official, everything will be alright. They think they know how to distribute resource correctly, and efficiently. They can be "just".
So, I go for capitalism every time. I am biased, alright, but I think the truth is that socialism versus capitalism are not as complicated as people like to think.
Couldn't both be good?
What's to say that there is only one strictly good or even strictly best form of economic policy? Why can't both solutions produce good results if applied properly? And why can't a mix of the two be even better? Why is any dilution of pure capitalism viewed as bad, even though there are clearly situations where pure capitalism produces sub-optimal results (e.g., in the sale of medications. The Modern Consumer has shown a frightful inability to understand medical issues... look at the pervasiveness of the myth that vitamin C keeps you from getting a cold).
It's sort of like religion, in that it's clear that there isn't an obviously superior social structure that falls out of one specific religion. It's not like Christians are inherently the most noble with their own or others as opposed to, say, the Jewish.
But there are a surprisingly large number of people people, here on HackerNews even, who decry Sweden as a socialist country that is destined for failure. My observation is: when people talk about "Capitalism" they tend to talk about the more extreme aspect of it. When they talk about "Socialism", I've observed they tend to be talking about "our current form of government and onwards."
The thing that libertarians often forget is that libertarianism has never worked in the real world.
(For a certain value of "worked", anyway. I'm mostly just playing off the same argument as applied to communism, though.)
I am somewhat familiar with the argument that central planners cannot possibly perform economic calculation, but not the other way around.
Socialism, I assume intervention, equality among men no matter what, social welfare, and central planning. I also included fascism there, because fascism to me have only super fiscal difference on the surface and by large and the same in substance.
It's all a matter of continuum from that point.
This is not just a matter of belief about utilitarian outcome(Note this is based on somewhat imperfect knowledge about economics), but also based in part on my ethical philosophy as a libertarian.
Now, I don't think the medical market in America really represent pure capitalism or at least anything close to it. There are lot of regulations, some social welfare, and legal monopolies.
I don't believe that people in the free market will alway have some magical access to perfect information(I don't believe in the idea of perfect competition).
However, it doesn't mean that consumers will have no access to reliable information source. It may be that civic medical organizations may pop up to fill in the blank. They would probably be aligned toward consumers interest as the board is made of medical consumers.
In other words, think "Consumer Report", for medicine.
It is also very possible that medical companies would form their own regulatory board and approval process to enhance their own reputation. They would compete with other medical licensing system.
I don't know at all the "correct" institutional system that would have exists in the free market that would have performed information gathering functions, abritation, and other that protect and serve consumers as a counterbalance to the possible misdeeds of private firms and individuals.
But I am willing to bet that it would be better than the politicized medical industry that we have right now. In fact, I rather have some responsibility in choosing doctors rather than having some dude at the top of a government agency deciding who my doctor should be.
ie. the US (from experience with people online) seems to be fairly "capitalism will save us all, teh socialism is evil" yet you're also one of the most protectionist countries in the world and have lots of social programs.
Socialism means a change in the organization of production NOT the circulation of value. Its not the liberal idea of, well if we just had the right people deciding who to take from and who to give to it would be fine. It's the working class actually running society, which, like the ruling class does now, they would do for the benefit of the their class. And this is why it would ultimately feed everyone and house everyone and destroy racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. Those are products of the organization of production.
Marxism is about democracy. Democracy in the workplace. Votes no longer being about how much money you have. And I don't mean that just in the sense of political influence but voting in the capitalist "supply and demand" sense. It is hard to have a 'demand' vote if you have no money.
I'd lastly like to say that unlike a commune, in the sense of the Pilgrim commune, socialism does not mean if you are able to work and choose not to that you are fed.
I'm a member of the revolutionary Marxist organization the International Socialist Organization. For more info on us check out our paper http://socialistworker.org/ and our site http://www.internationalsocialist.org/what_we_stand_for.html
It's perfectly possible and reasonable to engage in socialism without engaging in Marxism. It's also possible to mix Socialism and Captialism in rational ways... the US currently does this with the medicine market and it provides a much more stable system for consumers to buy medicines that are proven to work (although this new health care bill contains provisions for the government paying for christian science mysticism, which is a terrible thing in my opinion).
Is it a different issue altogether?
I do not know what issue Marxists would be trying to avoid, as my personal experience suggests most Marxists will try and conflate every issue with their specific economic and social ideology.
We're talking about policies that could be considered "socialist." No one is talking about a wholesale abolition of the free market system. At least, in this stage of the game.
Are you joking? The class (insofar as that term means anything in Western society anymore) you're referring to probably has the highest concentration of racism, homophobia, and sexism.
Check out works by W.E.B. Du Bois, Theodore Allen's 'The Invention of the White Race', Sherry Wolf's 'Sexuality and Socialism', Sharon Smith's 'Women and Socialism', and many more...
Anarcho-capitalists(at least some) do have a definition of social classes though. The parasite class are called "political class", or the "tax-consumption" class. It is exactly as they sound, it just means that use political means to obtain the goods of society. The one that are being oppressed are called "tax-producers", those who provided the net tax positive and actually the driver of prosperity in society.
It would seem that our political interests appears to intersect at some point.
Mainly, this is in the anti-racisim, pro-gay rights, anti-imperalism, anti-war, pro-immigration, pro-women right category.
I placed them all as property right, or right from agression. I do support people's right to be racists, unsavory beliefs, and ideology different and in opposition to mine.
Ok, ok. I read the whole thing. Geesh! I miscounted the fucks by 1! So sue me.
Look -- I could care less about the Pilgrims or about some idiotic criticism of religious folks in general. I know socialism doesn't work without either one of these articles.
I clicked on the rebuttal piece first because, quite frankly, I thought it would be more interesting that the original piece which had a title that prevented me from even starting it. After reading the rebuttal, not only was I disappointed with the author's lack of writing ability, but gave up on anything in either piece or the accompanying discussion having any value at all.
But you got me -- I missed the count. Good thing we have people willing to fact-check! Now that I've been shown to be a liar, we're free to make aspersions about my ulterior motives...
You should share this proof with everyone. I certainly would love to see concrete proof for and against any general economic policies. The intricacies of such a proof would be fascinating in and of themselves, I'm sure.
And also, who was really critiquing religion here? The author is upset at people who are using incorrect information to reinforce an unsupported bias in their lives. He's clearly not Christian, but I don't think that he's arguing that this is a specific Christian belief or that Christians have a unique defect that makes it susceptible. It's just a matter of fact and coincidence that most people retelling this story are Christian Americans... their news has pushed this story harder and more loudly than any other.
My impression from the data you've given me so far: You think capitalism is better and you're not interested in arguments to the contrary. I cannot tell if you are being serious about socialism being obviously wrong or not.
But you guys can carry on. Socialism versus Capitalism has been done many, many, many times before, and it will be done many, many times again.
How many examples of failed capitalist policies does it take to find a pattern? On the assumption that we're defining socialism as "everything Stalin, Kim Jong Il, and Ceausescu did", I'll take a similar tack in the opposite direction and contend that capitalism is responsible for the American incursion into Vietnam, Watergate, and Abu Ghraib (since they were all carried out by a capitalist country).
A couple of possible counterarguments to this would be (1) that individuals, not capitalism itself, are responsible for these events, and (2) that America isn't really capitalist and theory shows that they wouldn't happen in a truly capitalist country.
Note that both of these counterarguments are the same as the ones used by the proponents of socialism, Marxism, etc., with the difference that "America" is replaced with "the USSR/Cuba/North Korea".
There are good arguments to be made against socialism and similar policies. Your post does not contain any of them.