About Socialism

free market capitalism cannot include government. socialism must include government.

 

So it's time for full scale capitalism? Replace government with corporations, privatize everything, even fire and police department - and army too.

 

The problem with the right remains that it misdefines socialism, sometimes deliberately, and confuses it was fascism.

 

I’ve said it before but it fits this thread well. The only demographic with more definitions for socialism than right wingers are socialists.

 

Yes, that is true. Neither set really gets what it is.

It's like the 58 denominations that call themselves Baptists.

 

Keep your farts in the EU, and we'll handle things in the US without you just fine. Thanks in advance!

 

The EU is liberal democratic and social democratic. One major reason for Brexit is its ultimate support for neoliberalism, intensifying inequalities and failing to adapt to the failures of capitalism.

 

Not really the case. Feasible socialism really comes down to two schools of thought: market socialism (where socialist calculation is avoided and government's role is largely restricted to the protection of property rights) and participatory socialism (which, seen by Greens as a means to rationally adapt to resource and ecological scarcity, requires devolution to create simplified economic systems based on local cooperatives). The debate then rests on the extent that we can rely on the market and the extent that we will be forced into more radical change.

 

Finland goes too far.

Of the total production of Finland, 58.2% of it is seized by the state. This is far too much.

I live in a modern, representative democracy with a robust social safety net: Australia. We take 27.2% of GDP for taxation - far less, less than half.

But we still have universal healthcare, free public education, $2,000 a semester cap on university attendance which is paid off through future taxes, unemployment entitlements, superannuation, etc.

We also have a large degree of economic freedom. As in all first world nations the rich are robbed of half their wealth, but they aren't decimated to the extent they are in Scandanavia. Our top tax rate is 45%, high, but not obscene relative to others.

I think Finland goes too far, respectfully. There is a middle ground, and I think us Aussies have hit the nail on the head. Freedom and security. No dependence on the state. Moderate taxes. You arent killed the instant you get a good income. The profit motive is more robust. It is easier to start a business. Tradies are on a good wage and with hard work can get above 100k. Third best university system worldwide behind US and UK.

You can have it all.

 

Neoliberal Australia giving lessons to others? Rather poor timing given the failure of Anglo Saxon Capitalism and its reliance on consumerism...

 

Spoken like a true neomarxist.....


First demonize the wealthy and then blame capitalism.

The truth is that capitalism is a huge success where it is allowed to happen. Never in history have people lived better than now and it is all due to the defeat of communism and rise of capitalism.

 

Like I’ve said before, not my cup of tea. The fact remains self proclaimed socialist here claim everything from full on communism to nominally taxed capitalism as socialism. And infinite points in between. It’s pretty much what suits one’s purpose at the time...

Thanks for your definitions though. You are at least consistent.

 

Strange comment, given I'm not a Marxist. Also you're not referring to my post at all: which was a critique of the EU's adoption of neoliberalism.

 

I did ignore the rabid debates, but they tend to be just kiddywinks playing with Marxism. Ultimately it will come down to climate change and resource exploitation. I'm terribly orthodox compared to the social greens, who ultimately argue that the market and mass extinction go hand in hand.

 

You are definitely anti-capitalism....that pretty much narrows it down.

 

Of course. I'm a socialist. However, I'm also an entrepreneur and believe in the power of the market. I'm not a Marxist, so please stop spreading misinformation.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital

https://opentextbc.ca/principlesofeconomics/chapter/20-2-labor-productivity-and-economic-growth/

The labor theory of value is that profit consists entirely of labor value stolen from a worker, ignoring the value contributed by the owner of the capital.

This does not depend on the idea that labor needs to be produced. In fact it misses that point entirely. The failure of the theory is the lack of an incentive to produce the labor necessary to produce the goods and services promised by the government as a right to the citizens of that society.

 

Labor IS the product that an employee sells to the employer. The profit in that transaction is the difference between the value of the effort to produce that labor, and the salary paid by the employer. If the employee values the effort more than the salary he doesn't work, no labor is produced.

 

How is it that you can define something that the practitioners can't?

 

The text book definition of socialism is the government controlling the means of production. Last I check public libraries don't produce much of anything including the books on the shelves. This notion that any and all things done by the government is socialism is absurd.

 

I am pointing out that they are defining the whole by their own little parameters.

 

If a tax-support entity (a library for instance) is owned or controlled by the government and operates it and distributes the product, then, yeah, it is socialism in action.

 

There is no product. Being owned or controlled by the government, does not make it socialist unless every one who works for the power company, the steel industry the automotive industry and all other strategic industries gets a check from the government. Ancient Alexandria had a public library, Ancient Rome had police and fire departments. Assyria had rules and regulations.

 

You do not understand socialism, garyd.

But using that definition of yours, single-payer health care is not socialism.

Not everyone works for the government, which merely handles the money end of the health, pharma, and medical industries and businesses/

 

Capitalism is about inequality not the "socialism of being a Good husbandman on Earth".