A two part question for those considering Socialism

Part 1): Can you name just one thing in your home that is not there as a result of capitalism?
Part 2): Can you name just one modern, full time, wage-paying job that you could have today, if rich capitalists never existed?

Translation: “I cant name one thing in my home that is not there as a result of capitalism, and I can’t name one modern, full time, wage-paying job that I could have today, if rich capitalists never existed.

The reason is that you cannot make anything in a purely Socialist system. In all the tried attempts the “black market’ had to form. Without that illegal invisible capitalism Soviet astronauts would not make it to the launch pad. Here’s why:

Scene: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and wife, Valentina, in apartment, April 1961

Yuri: [yawns and wakes up]. Valentina? I’ve got to get ready to go. Today’s the launch.
Valentina: The fridge isn’t working. The milk and food is spoiled. No breakfast today.
Yuri: [plugs in shaver but it won’t start]. Call Ivan to come fix the fridge.
Valentina: We can’t. There’s no black market now, remember?
Yuri: Oh yeah. I forgot. Damn. Maybe if we pay more…
Valentina: Nope. It is absolute. No black market.
Yuri: Man, now my shaver won’t work.
Valentina: I know, we’ve put in an order for a new one. It will take two months they say.
Yuri: Do I have any razors?
Valentina: Nope.
Yuri: I need clean clothes.
Valentina: The washing machine stopped working remember?
Yuri: Call Alexandr from around the corner…
Valentina: Can’t do, remember? No black market.
Yuri: Christ! How long will it take to get fixed?
Valentina: We’re on the waiting list. They say three to four months.
Yuri: That’s if they even turn up at all…
Valentina: Which they probably won’t.
Yuri: Why couldn’t you wash the clothes by hand?
Valentina: The pipes are cracked, remember? We need the state plumbers to come and fix them.
Yuri: But Oleg does all our plum… oh yeah. No black market. Damn!
Valentina: So no water for a shower either, or to wash. Or drink.
Yuri: What can I wear?
Valentina: You’ll have to put on dirty clothes.
Yuri: They stink.
Valentina: It’s all we have.
Yuri: [takes dirty clothes out of basket and dresses].
Valentina: How will you get to work though?
Yuri: I have the Lada, remember?
Valentina: It broke down. Normally Boris would fix it, but again, no black market.
Yuri: Bus?
Valentina: Only one quarter of the bus drivers are at work because all of them have got all kinds of problems too, because there is no black market.
Yuri: But some drivers are driving?
Valentina: The buses that work, yes, but they can’t guarantee when if a bus will come.
Yuri: So I would have to stand in the rain and snow and just wait?
Valentina: I guess so…
Yuri: F*** this. I’m starving, thirsty, unshaven and I stink. If they want me to fly today, they can send a car.
Valentina: But you will be imprisoned for not cooperating!
Yuri: I’ll say I’m sick. They can’t imprison me for being sick…
Valentina: Yuri, are you sure?
Yuri: If I stand in the rain and wait for a bus that never comes, I’ll soon be sick anyway.
Valentina: That’s true.
Yuri: Call them up and tell them I’m sick.
Valentina: I can’t. The phone stopped working three days ago.
Yuri: How come?
Valentina: They rely on their own Ivans, Alexandrs, Olegs and Boris’ to come and fix all their problems, but now they have to wait for State mechanics and telecommunications experts to fix them. They’ll probably never be back on, and even if they are, how long will it last?
Yuri: So, no more phone…
Valentina: We were lucky to have one to start with. It was only because my brother worked for the telephone department.
Yuri: Can’t he help us now?
Valentina: How can I call him?
Yuri: Even if you do, what can he do? There’s no black market…

Valentina: There’s a man at the door.
Yuri: What does he want?
Valentina: He’s waving a government identity card at me.
Yuri: Open the door.
Valentina: [opens door] Hello?
Nikita Burmakin: Hello, it’s freezing out here. May I come in?
Yuri: Sure, come in.
Nikita: Thank you comrade. You are meant to come today to go to space. Are you ready?
Yuri: I have no shaver, I have no clean clothes, I have no food or water, and I’m sick, so no.
Nikita: You’re sick? You don’t sound sick…
Yuri: [cough] Oh, I’m sick alright. [cough].
Valentina: He’s sick. It’s because we have no black market.
Nikita: We cannot have a black market.
Yuri: Why not? We all know Socialism doesn’t work. Capitalism is the only way.
Valentina: Yuri! [scolds him]
Nikita: That is blasphemy comrade! All advanced, western "first world" nations are pragmatic integrations of both theoretical constructs.
Yuri: What’s that supposed to mean?
Valentina: Let me get my dictionary. Let’s see. ‘Pragmatic integrations of both theoretical constructs’ means ‘practical no-nonsense combining of socialism and capitalism.
Yuri: Combine socialism and capitalism?
Valentina: That’s what he’s saying.
Yuri: But that’s what we had when we had the black market.
Valentina: True.
Nikita: No – we cannot have black markets! They are illegal!
Yuri: Then let’s just stick with capitalism and forget Socialism!

Yuri: What did he say?
Valentina: He’s saying having one or the other won’t work. It needs to be a combination.
Yuri: But we had a combination when we had the black market.
Nikita: No, that is against the law. If you indulge in that you will be sent to the gulag.
Yuri: We know that, Brainiac. It’s now been deleted and nobody can do anything.
Valentina: We have no food. We have no water. We’re starting to starve.
Yuri: That’s right.
Valentina: How do you propose we get food, Mr. Burmakin?
Nikita: [shrugs] I don’t know. You’ll have to line up like everyone else.
Yuri: How can we line up when the line isn’t there?
Nikita: Why isn’t it there?
Yuri: The people who run the service aren’t there because their cars aren’t working and they can’t use the black market to fix them.
Valentina: Basically the whole country has ground to a halt.

 

Two more things not possible without capitalism.

 

Capitalism isn't ideological. It's practical.

 

In saying taxes is socialism, you’re saying cobalt is the electric car. It isn’t.

Wealth redistribution is not taxes just as cobalt is not an electric car. Google wealth distribution and learn its definition before debating about it.

Businesses pay their workers’ income tax. If not, where did the money come from?

 

That's not an answer.

Practicality isn't pure, either.

If we chose pure capitalism it would almost literally kill us.

 

That is your answer, not mine. I acknowledge that no advanced democratic nation has achieved its success by ideological dogmatism - neither pure capitalism, nor pure socialism as doctrinaire ideologues of either stripe might preach.

All leading nations are pragmatic entities.

Have there been no jobs under socialist regimes? No homes with nothing in them? Of course not.

An integration of capitalism and socialism is the formula that has been most successful. What purely socialist or purely capitalist system had been more successful?

Ideologues spout their airy-fairy pipe dreams, but what actually works best, works best.

 

I did not say cobalt was an electric car. You need to upgrade reading comprehension.

I said taxes are a form of wealth redistribution. I did not say wealth redistribution "was" Socialism .. Wealth redistribution is part of Socialism and is a socialist policy.

Lastly - there is a difference between taxes paid by a business and taxes paid by a worker. That the business pays the worker a salary does not change this fact and nor does it change the fact that both the tax paid by the business and the tax paid by the worker is a form of wealth redistribution which is one of the main characteristics of socialism.

Your claim that the military is not funded via wealth redistribution - one of the forms/policies of socialism .. is false.

 

Jilly? Is that you?

 

You forgot to explain how or give examples, predictably because you can't.

 

++++++++++9

 

You’re wrong. Without capitalism you have nothing, as shown by your inability to name even one thing in your home that is not there as a result of capitalism, or even one modern, full time, wage-paying job that you could have today, if rich capitalists never existed.

Name one that existed that was not there as a result of capitalism.

 

My comprehension is fine. You need to remember what you wrote.

Wrong. You said taxes are "Wealth Redistribution/Socialism" Here is the quote:

You were saying about comprehension? I’ll expect your apology in writing and hand delivered by the morning.

The difference is the name we give them. The source of the tax is the business, regardless of what names you give the tax. Without the business the worker has no tax to pay, since it is paid by the business.

There is no such thing as “wealth distribution” outside a Socialist State. America is not a Socialist State. Google this and learn what you’re talking about.

 

​

 

Colin Powell made the same mistake-if it was a mistake.

One can only imagine how astonished al-Zarqawi must have been when Colin Powell named him as the crucial link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. He was not even officially a part of al-Qaeda, and ever since he had left Afghanistan, his links had been not to Iraq but to Iran.

“We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself,” the high-level Jordanian intelligence official said. “And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam. Iran is quite a different matter. The Iranians have a policy: they want to control Iraq. And part of this policy has been to support Zarqawi, tactically but not strategically.”

In the summer of 2003, three months after the American invasion, al-Zarqawi moved to the Sunni areas of Iraq.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazin...-violent-life-of-abu-musab-al-zarqawi/304983/

 

That's a nonsense question as it proposes to invent a full blown economy that doesn't exist today.

Let's remember that nobody in America wants socialism.

Today in our system we have roads, utilities, patents, a justice system including policing, a military, patents, copyrights, regulation on harm that crosses property boundaries or impacts public health, hospitals that have ERs, border controls for immigration, and many many other features brought to us all by government.

 

The entire OP is based upon a surprising premise. Capitalism is (and I quote) 'an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state'.

The assumption is that scientific and philosophical development, material and social progress, trade and industry, the arts and literature, and all manner of human endeavour could not, and have not, occurred without the capitalist system.

I have seen no evidence supporting this premise. The illogic appears to be centred about conflating human development and progress with the system of governance. Invention is a part of human nature, and I suspect developments such as the Industrial Revolution would have begun with or without the capitalists of Georgian Britain.

However, it should be recalled that it took the 'socialism' of the Edwardians to regulate the excesses of capitalism, and stop little children working down mines and up chimneys. Post war governments enhanced these measures to result in the systems of social justice we know today.

Human greed knows few limits, and unregulated capitalism can be as deleterious to society as enforced communism.

 

Feudalism.
Pennies from 11th century.

 

Excerpts from http://bit.ly/2uWMwLG

Transformation into AQI [Al Qaeda In Iraq] [emphasis mine]:

Following the 2001 U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan, Zarqawi led his men—now under the banner of al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (TwJ)—out of Afghanistan to set up camp in Iran. Arrests of Europe-based TwJ operatives in early 2002 alerted Western authorities to Zarqawi’s presence in Iran, forcing him to leave and establish new smuggling routes through Syria. His rising profile among Western intelligence agencies forced Zarqawi to spend the next 14 months moving between Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq. Despite being on the move, Zarqawi was able to continue expanding his network and growing his cadre of fighters. Adel continued to meet with Zarqawi during this period and both encouraged as well as facilitated the transfer of Zarqawi’s group into Iraq. Adel further funneled an inflow of Arab Islamists through Syria into Iraq where Zarqawi had joined a number of Arab Islamists already based in the territory controlled by the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam. While in Iraq, Zarqawi travelled frequently to the “Sunni Triangle”—a 100–square-mile area between Baghdad, Ramadi, and Tikrit—deepening his network, recruiting fighters, and establishing bases. Zarqawi’s expansion of his weapons and fighter smuggling networks made him the default conduit for most, if not all, foreign fighters—including members of TwJ and other Islamist terrorist groups—flowing into Iraq in anticipation of the U.S.-led invasion. He became the default “emir’ of Islamist terrorists in Iraq. In coordination with al Qaeda core, which had been urging Muslims across the globe to travel to Iraq to fight against the pending invasion, Zarqawi mobilized his network of safe houses, weapons caches, and intelligence networks, preparing a trap for the coalition forces. Once the invasion began, Zarqawi put into action a carefully prepared, four-pronged strategy to defeat the American led coalition.

Early into the occupation, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) issued CPA Orders No. 1 and No. 2, barring members of the Baath Party from almost all government posts and disbanding the Iraqi army, on May 15 and 16, 2003, respectively. Many of the 250,000 members of the disbanded Iraqi security services formed the core of what would become the Iraqi insurgency. This base was augmented by a stream of foreign fighters who were spurred by calls from Muslim leaders around the world to travel to Iraq to engage in “defensive jihad.” Former regime elements—previously a repressive bulwark against religious extremists—encouraged and facilitated this flow.

Enjoy your Crow sandwich. ​

 

Part 1): Can you name just one thing in your home that is not there as a result of capitalism?
Part 2): Can you name just one modern, full time, wage-paying job that you could have today, if rich capitalists never existed?

The government cannot exist without capitalism, since government requires taxes to exist and all taxes come from business (capitalism). Thank you for playing. Try again.

 

Of course Taxes are wealth redistribution and wealth redistribution is Socialism. If A = B, and B=C then A=C .. or at least that is what they teach in logic 100

Socialism comes in many forms - in pure socialism the state owns most resources and means of production and strictly regulates everything. Socialism as practiced in Capitalist Liberal Democracies involves less State ownership and less regulation and capital controls.

Regardless of the type of Socialism - they all include wealth redistribution as a primary mechanism.

The idea that taxes are not wealth redistribution is pure unadulterated nonsense. Taxes take money from one person or business and give it to another. This is wealth redistribution by definition.

Our military is paid for by wealth redistribution .. which is a form/part of Socialism.

 

I can’t find me using that collection of words, either in the OP or anywhere else in this thread, so it’s actually you, paraphrasing.

“System” is your word. I prefer to say ‘capitalism’, ‘capitalist’, ‘business’, ‘businessman’ or businessperson’. Systems have little to do with it. They are usually full of steam powered bureaucrats and government people. As for science, try being scientific in the past without accurate measuring devices, writing machines, drawing devices, containers, chemicals, tools, paper, blackboards, records, files, books, ink, chalk, charcoal, glass vials, pipes, burners, lenses, clothes, shoes, hats, umbrellas, briefcases, roads, carriages, horses, wheels, buildings, desks, blackboards, doors, windows, chimneys, stoves, fireplaces, tables, chairs, lights, lamps, water, plumbing, locks, time measuring devices, clocks, watches, telescopes, microscopes, protractors, compasses, string, bronze, iron, tin, alloys, mining, forgers, blacksmiths, engineers, architects, designers, candles, matches, flints, groceries, butchers, bakers, dairy farmers and thousands of other items, tools, gadgets, raw materials and services that were all the result of private enterprise, trade and capitalism. This applies in the same exact way to philosophy, social progress, trade and industry, the arts and literature, and all manner of human endeavor. Try paining the Mona Lisa without the canvas, paint and brushes Leonardo used. They all cost money, and were all purchased. Do you think the paper Shakespeare wrote on was free?

It’s not just capitalism you need though. Language is vital, as is communication, record keeping, writing, freedom of expression, the rule of law, and so on. Without these things very little of what you described could develop. We’d still be standing naked by a river, hungry and thin, waiting to pounce on a fish, like Gollum in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

That’s odd, since I’ve provided plenty in this thread.

You skipped the part where you explain what is illogical. What an easy way to debate! Just leave out the argument!

Government is paid for by taxes taken from business. It has little to do with human development, most of which comes about thanks to businessmen and innovators, and they are mostly stimulated by money. Take them away and you have no government, no innovation and little development.

Yes, but it often requires incentive to bloom, just as a flower requires water. It doesn’t just happen because some old bureaucrat wishes it. Dangle a million dollar bill in front of a room full of businessmen and you’ll get plenty of innovation.

The Industrial Revolution was not a ‘development’; it was a transformation. Life would be forever better as a result. People would live longer, be safer and better fed, with more money and prosperity. Despite all the socialist naysayers, it was a great turning point in human history.

Impossible. Without capitalism we’d all be living in the Neolithic Age, never mind Georgian Britain.

They were all capitalists, and enjoyed the fruits of capitalism as you do. Socialists didn’t play any role in helping children; if anything they slowed down such help. Humans by their nature are always looking for ways to improve life, and when dangers present themselves they are fixed, unless socialists get in the way which they usually do. Capitalists proceed onwards anyway, fixing things and making safer machines, and then the socialist unionists try to take all the credit. The only credit they deserve is for making everyone poorer, destroying jobs and industries wherever they go, and slowing all development down. They were about as helpful as the black plague.[/QUOTE]

 

If you need to believe that no one in a non-capitalistic society has ever had anything, that is the odd notion you will entertain.

Reality, of course, does not conform to the fantasies of ideologues.

 

From the article in The Daily Mail:

Amateur treasure hunters have hit the jackpot after digging up a rare hoard of pennies from the reign of Henry I. The 15 members of the West Riding Detector Group struck silver when they unearthed 178 12th century coins scattered across a remote patch of farmland near Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. The collection is thought to be worth around £40,000.
….
'I think we might get about £40,000 for them, which is a brilliant amount…”
….
The proceeds will be split between the group and the landowner whose field the hoard was discovered in.​

They buy metal detectors (product of capitalism), drive there in cars (product of capitalism), search for coins (product of capitalism), find coins and sell for profit (capitalism). The number and yield of coins is cut down by government red tape, green tape and taxes. Were it not for the nanny government many more such coins and artifacts would be uncovered. It’s a great example of both capitalism at work, and government interference at work.

 

That may work in math but not in philosophical or political debate, where it is a well know logical fallacy (Association Fallacy).

Examples:

John is a con artist. John has black hair. Therefore, all people with black hair are con artists.

Lyle is a crooked salesman. Lyle proposes monorail. Therefore, monorail is folly.

Jane is good at mathematics. Jane is dyslexic. Therefore, all dyslexic people are good at mathematics.
​

No it doesn’t. Socialism is Socialism. I gave you the definition. Learn it.

So your placard says. Buy a new placard.

 

I have no such need.

There is no such society and there never has been.

Capitalism isn’t an ideology, regardless of how much you need to believe that. It’s simply trade.

“The action of buying and selling goods and services.”

Here is the definition of ideology:

“a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.”

There is ordinary run-of-the-mill trade, and there is political capitalism involving nations. The first of these (trade) encompasses both, and is the default meaning I use.

When a starving caveman needed meat it didn’t take too much brainpower for him to offer something of value in exchange for that meat. So he offered up his spear or his knife, or a good flintstone, in exchange for the food. That simple trade, uncluttered by governments or witchdoctors, was the earliest form of capitalism. I know it annoys you no end that a simple caveman could come up with the idea of trade so easily, but it’s amazing what starvation will do to a man.

Since that simple trade a hundred thousand years ago, humans evolved money, lending, imports and exports, stock markets and banking, and it all became very complex. Today you have more than ten thousand capitalist products in your home and barely seem to be aware of it. Before you deny that remember that many tools, gadgets, objects and machines will break down to thousands of bits and parts, each one a product of capitalism.