Capitalism is economic tyranny Socialism is economic democracy.

You mean, look out for their best interests?

That's called human nature. Everybody is ALWAYS going to provide for themselves first, and worry about providing for others second. Nobody is going to give away all their food while starving.

Also, nobody gets out of bed in the morning and thinks "what can I do with my day today to benefit the collective". If that is the ideal expected, nobody would get out of bed, ESPECIALLY when the collective is providing for them.

Socialism fails because it expects everybody to be motivated to create value by supporting the collective, but individually people don't operate that way.

So you are claiming that our entire economy is violating anti-trust laws? Price rigging among competitors? That's going to be a hard perspective to sell.

There are thousands... millions... of examples of price undercutting, new suppliers into the market, and efforts to take customers away from each other using pricing as a tool.

The real reason things cost about equal is because thats ACTUALLY the cost to produce with a profit margin that makes it worth it.

You know who has zero competition, no motivation for efficiency, and mostly a monopoly? Government. And as a result, it should come as no shock that even without profit, they usually can't provide services for cheaper than the market.

These are all platitudes and talking points.

In fact, based on this article from this year, hospitals in the country are averaging losses.

https://revcycleintelligence.com/ne... hospital,percentage point increase from July.

The beloved social medicine programs, known as Medicare and Medicaid struggle to find practitioners willing to accept their low rates of pay making access very difficult for those on the program to get needed care.

Do you think Doctors and hospitals should be forced to accept these programs?

That's also simply false.

I own a Property Management company. We are not capable of simply establishing rental rates at whatever we feel is acceptable. We comparable shop other similar unit in the area, determine what our break even and desired profit is, and then we set the rent.

In what wold does every capitalist just get to willy-nilly set prices. That's so false.

 

no, most of the problems today are caused by government and those who see government as a tool to enrich themselves. We have a ton of people addicted to government and they vote for those who will give them more goodies. WE have generations of one parent homes that spawn all sorts of criminals-and that is mainly due to the Great Society nonsense.

 

you seem to think the greatest evil is that the current system allows say Elon Musk to make so much money. but a government that can give everyone what you think they need, can take everything we have. sure, there are issues when one guy has the sort of wealth that Musk has, but your alternative is far worse.

 

Making it better?

For some reason, you believe that increasing levels of authority somehow fixes these perceived problems.

What is capitalism doing to people? You mean creating a country that is the most desired immigration destination, allowing 900,000 immigrants annually in?

What country/capitalist country do you reside?

 

No, that is just a spew of garbage with no basis in fact. Using words correctly and honestly does not mean one's knowledge is "strictly linguistic" -- whatever you incorrectly imagine that might mean. FYI, I hold a degree in philosophy, with honors, from an internationally respected university. The notion that because I am aware of the importance of using accurate and valid definitions, that somehow makes the facts I identify "strictly linguistic" is false and absurd, and I will thank you to remember it.

Wrong. Communism is abolition of private property. Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production (natural resources and producer goods). Related, sure, but not very close at all.

 

Selfishly. Greedily.

That's called "spin".

And socialism will provide a balance between watching out for self and concern for the wellness of society as a whole.

But today some get out of bed thinking "what can I do today to gather more power and wealth to myself?"

That's better?

Everything about that statement is false. Socialism has never been given a chance to either succeed or fail. Socialism would be structured to end reward for self-serving inordinate greed, and it would reward individuals for their contributions to social/societal improvement. Human nature, being both altruistic and selfish, would be channeled to do both at the right time in the right circumstances. We have overwhelming interest today (between 56% and 66% depending how you look at it) in resolving our healthcare problems with a nationally managed government plan. Now, shall we look at issues that specifically benefit others and how the public feels about them? A poll of registered voters found that 64% approved of some sort of student loan forgiveness while only 29% opposed any forgiveness of loans.

People want problems solved even if they are not impacted by those problems. Take me for example.

Little by little, laws are bent and then broken or "relaxed". You know that. Price-fixing is often concealed by talk of prices being "what the market will bear". I talked to my own electric utility which is a PUD to ask why they reduced rates for commercial accounts while raising rates for residential accounts. They told me in essence that it had nothing to do with their cost of power or their cost of maintenance or any other increases they face. Rather, it was changed when they did an annual review of the rate changes of other utilities in our area of the country and our rates were changed to reflect trends of others. That's price-fixing.

Yup. Temporarily undercutting competition to reduce competition.

Yeahright. Like THIS. I saw videos of three different CEOs of three different multi-national corporations boasting to shareholders about this.

LOL!!!! Yeah like Medicare with 2-3% overhead? Every government employee I know was carefully screened and selected for competence and every one works diligently and industriously to do a good job. Reagan boosted the "government is the problem" bullshit as he sought and took a government job, and you quickly adopted it because it tickled your biased ears. It's bullshit and your opinion only reflects your minimal exposure to the work ethic of government employees.

 

Nope. It never got close to communism. There was always lots of private property in personal effects, etc., just not in the means of production. Socialism, not communism.

Dictionary citation?

Of course not. Every good dictionary defines socialism as collective ownership of the means of production. That collective need not be the state or government.

I'm stating the fact that government control of the means of production also occurs under fascism, which is not socialism.

 

WTF do you expect of a capitalists' government that does its job of governing primarily for the benefit of the most powerful, leading capitalists???? LOL!!! Are you really so naive as to think government is somehow "independent" of economics and free to do what they wish????? Marx said the economy of any society is its foundation from which everything else, especially government, rises in service to it. That's what we're seeing.

Your opinion of others is appalling. There are many single-parent families, --in fact a huge majority, --that are doing the best job they can to raise good, healthy, competent, well-adjusted kids. But they don't seem to fit your bias, so you pretend they don't exist. And BTW, most voters vote AGAINST the party that they believe offers a bad deal on policies.

No, the real problem is the political power extreme wealth imparts.

You keep making such claims but you never provide any factual evidence. You seem afraid to actually face facts.

 

your worship of government and ignorance of human nature is hilarious. keep demanding others have a duty to pay for your existence if you choose. You ignore the fact that your system centralizes extreme wealth into the hands of the government and that causes the real problems

 

Garbage. European colonialists had better technology (especially navigation, which enabled them to take and exploit colonies thousands of miles away) and a bigger advantage in technology, but that's all; the basic institutions were ancient, and long predate capitalism. Ancient colonizers did not have the technology to do what modern ones did, but they did what they could, exacting tributes in precious metals, slaves, even youths to be sacrificed.

You have merely been infected with the brain rot of Marxism, which prevents you from knowing any of the relevant facts.

Same as ancient colonizers.

Capitalism is definitely more evolved than ancient despotic systems. Your claims that it is uniquely evil have no basis in historical fact.

The consistently worst treatment of slaves was not under capitalism but Spanish and Portuguese theocratic mercantilism, where slaves were not the private property of private businessmen but assets of the Crown (government).

No, that is just a bald fabrication. Ancient pre-capitalist slavery was no better, and ownership by the Spanish Crown was worse. Muslim slave traders and owners of the Caliphate era routinely mutilated and tortured slaves. Slaves in pre-capitalist -- even pre-Christian -- European societies were often used as human sacrifices. The ancients just didn't have the industrial technology to do it on such a large scale at such low cost.

It was no different or worse under capitalism, proving you objectively wrong.

No, it's actually a very good look to prove that your claims are just flat false as a matter of objective fact. Anyone who can find a willingness to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality (i.e., not Marxists) knows that the material condition of workers has improved much faster under capitalist democracy than any previous system, and certainly faster than under socialism. Only geoism has performed better, and there are sound economic reasons why that is the expected result.

True, Roman industry did not have modern technology; but it did have significant factories, and the labor in them was definitely performed largely by slaves.

Your claims are just false. Stop making so many false claims. It's not a good look.

 

There's no reason to think space flight is a case of market failure or natural monopoly. Where are the uniformly increasing economies of scale?

 

Why do you feel a need to put words in my mouth? You might try the civil approach of asking questions.

I've only lived in the USA.

But what is capitalism doing? Let me give you a list.

An increasing number of elderly can't afford to retire.
People can't afford needed medications and cut pills in half.
Proliferation of guns never should have been allowed.
Education to a Bachelors' degree that used to cost $6000 to $8,000 at state universities like mine did, now put students in debt for most of their life.
A family of 4 could be supported adequately by on income when I was a kid. Today it's a struggle on two incomes at lower levels.
The climate is going extreme with serious harm resulting because of oil companies mostly.
Inflation continually exceeds income growth, plunging more and more into poverty.
The minimum wage needs to be raised.
Medical care is twice the cost of any other country and contributes significantly to national debt and poverty. It should be a right.
After more than 200 years we still suffer racism.
Homelessness gets worse and worse.
Bit by bit, taxes on the top have been cut, cut, cut. That puts an increasing burden on middle America.
Our Supreme Court has gone extreme. Money is money. It isn't "speech".
When government makes it possible for elected officials to become multi-millionaires in office, the government favors those of their own class.
It's time for tribal nations to be treated fairly through cooperation.
Corporations should have no influence on government, like we see in the case of the A.L.E.C. --But they win this battle.
The Fed, through "quantitative easing", produced an unprecedented 12-year bull market that enriched corporate elite through advantages not available to the American citizen.

And these things resist resolution due to capitalism.

 

It is against forum rules to make the poster the subject of discussion, yet you keep doing it. I have presented the truth and known facts. You only keep posturing and trying to make me the subject of discussion. And that shows your irrelevance and poverty of ideas and facts. Your last sentence above is a personal attack and a lie that I already covered.

You don't know that and it conflicts with sound reasoning. Would you approve of a system that would put extreme wealth in the hands of the government? Do you think most people would?

I have answered nearly every question, stupid or not, with rational answers. It's time for you to start doing the same instead of just throwing out accusations, bullshit claims, talking points, and general nonsense. Otherwise I'm gone.

 

your posts demonstrate a frightening misunderstanding of government and human nature. I want government to be as small as necessary and not continually subsidizing a large number of voters being able to suckle on the public teat

 

That is because you don't understand government. You don't know that government ALWAYS mediates the class struggle in favor of the ruling class, which means "in favor of capitalism" in our case in the US.

Government will subsidize "a large number of voters being able to suckle on the public teat" when government does not represent the people. Capitalist government represents or favors capitalism. Socialist government would favor people or it isn't socialist.

Choose. Do you want to be among the majority class that owns and controls it, or do you want to be a victim?

 

While Marx was wrong about almost everything, he was no idiot. He constructed an ingenious and highly successful system of anti-concepts to prevent people from thinking clearly about economic relationships.

 

Yeah yeah yeah. You keep saying that like a broken record. But you never attempt to refute anything I say and to prove your idea of "human nature" with facts and evidence. It's all opinion opinion opinion and it's bullshit.

 

LOL!!! That's what I call "cheap words" because there's no analysis and no reference to any analysis. Just opinion.

 

you utter opinions that are based on what you want. I note your opinions are unprovable and your love of socialism is a rejection of human nature. I worked hard for me, mine and my family. I tire of being told I need to work hard for the parasites. BTW I reject your dreams of equal wealth. That is a something I hope never happens.

 

In cases of natural monopoly, there is ample evidence that public provision is more efficient.

The US government is utterly subservient to the medico-rentier complex. There are plenty of countries where they spend half as much of GDP on healthcare, but have better outcomes.

Which is presumably why you consistently advocate that producers and consumers should be sacrificed on the altar of landowner greed, privilege and parasitism.

Kode doesn't understand that landowners do not get rich by charging tenants whatever they like, but by charging them for what government, the community and nature provide.

 

Read my posts. There's ample analysis. I just don't think it's appropriate to repeat it all every time. And your posts provide ample evidence of the accuracy of my analysis.

 

The goal, like landing on Mars, is a successful economic system. Socialism and Capitalism are just to means to try and accomplish it. We know from history Capitalism is FAR FAR better like rockets are better to get to Mars than balloons.

 

So here's how it works: I express an opinion, maybe with factual backing, and then you get to oppose what I said and provide factual reasons for your rebuttal. Then I have to prove my original point with facts or concede that you are correct.

So far my statements have been supported by logic and reason, while your points have not been supported at all.

So here are my statements and claims:

I can prove everything I say.
I absolutely do not reject human nature, but you look at one side of it and deny the other.
You currently work very hard to the biggest parasites and you love it.
I reject any idea of "equal wealth".

So where does that leave you?

 

[yawn]

 

No you don't. You have no comparison. And "better" in this or that way isn't the question. The question is what is the cause of the many problems we face which do not seem to be solvable, and what offers realistic hope of solving them?