Socialism - American Style

Yes, that's the kind of thing a moron would think that I said.

 

That you think your comment was more complex than that indicates dissonance is at play.

Central planning is neither a sufficient or necessary condition for socialism. Then suggesting that you can link a made-up hallmark of socialism to the monetary system was illogical.

It was indeed a corruption of the economic spectrum. You just couldn't muster any credible economics to make it convincing.

 

This is just an interjection.

I think you are on the wrong track. The greatest economic boom in history was the Second Industrial Revolution. Think railroads, steel production, electricity, gas and water supply, telegraph, telephone, autos, aircraft, etc. etc. This came about with unfettered capitalism. The U.S. became the largest economy in the world.

In fact, Morgan bailed out the U.S. government when it couldn't pay its debt. Today, all the U.S. billionaires combined couldn't put 'humpty-dumpty' back together again.

At the peak of the industrial revolution, the government regulations began with the Sherman Anti-Trust legislation. Creating regulation finally reached a point during the Obama administration where tens of thousands of regulations were being created and the economy was also virtually stagnant.

As one politician said much earlier, government needs to get out of the way. There probably should be a compromising level of regulations. A level that doesn't hinder business, as well as protects consumers and employees.

MAGA,
Steve

 

There's a problem with the reasoning in your post. The 2nd Industrial Revolution stuff is analysed in detail by the likes of Chandler. He refers to how 3 prongs of investment were needed for long term success. However, the core aspect is the delivery of economies of scale. That necessarily leads to market concentration issues and therefore a need for greater regulation to protect consumer. It also increases the risk of fatal firm error (it's central planning after all). To blame firm problems on regulation, required because of market failure, is a case of spurious reasoning.

 

I disagree. I think I stated it well with a compromising level of regulations that doesn't hinder business, as well as protects consumers and employees.

You cannot ignore that the Second Industrial Revolution is when the U.S. became the largest economy in the world. I was still editing when you jumped in for your usual knee-jerk reaction.

Steve

 

Whether you agree or disagree isn't particularly relevant. The problem is that you brought up the 2nd Industrial Revolution. That refers to the rationale for success, but also the inherent problem in capitalism: market concentration.

Now you could get all radical on us and refer to the gains of market power: ie how the attempt to achieve profits from market power drives the innovation process. Of course that approach, Schumpeterian creative destruction, predicts socialism as the end outcome. Its the very success of capitalism that ensures socialism.

 

The BIG problem that all MAGA enthusiasts (as well as many others) overlook is that times have changed, capitalism has advanced and "matured", and so the old thinking won't work now. We can't boost the economy with a productivity push when business can already produce more goods than they can sell, and that fact is driving the crisis we all feel. Capitalism MUST grow and expand, and it can't. The needed 3% annual compounded growth it needs is unsustainable and is no longer achievable via production and markets.

 

Interesting response. Let me counter with a couple of points. First, I agree that innovation and growth in the IR2 period was unprecedented for the time but I also disagree that prosperity, standard of living and income equality were greater that during the post war period say up to the early 70's.

Don't forget that there were periods of great economic downturns in the 1870's and 90's and that wealth and political power were concentrated in the hands of a handful of powerful families such as the Morgans as you alluded to. Think of the kind of monopoly that came from families like the Harriman's and Rockefeller's who colluded to make Standard Oil the concentrated economic power that it was.

Also, while America became arguably the largest economy in the world, it was not yet the global hegemon and empire from Germany to the Philippines that it would become after WWII. Don't forget that the petro-dollar was not the global exchange currency until Bretton-Woods in 1944.

I disagree wholeheartedly with your assumption that government needs to get out of the way. There are social and economic projects that only government has the resources and stability to regulate and fund for the good of society.

Unfettered capitalism always leads to the concentration of wealth and political power that we are seeing again today and was evidenced even in the period of IR2 you referenced. Don't forget that the gilded era was and it's collapse into global depression was the ultimate outcome of that period.

Government intervention first in regulating banks and creating employment and economic activity after lending by institutions was frozen and then by creating the conditions conducive to full employment to win the war really led to America becoming the country we are familiar with today for better or worse.

I agree more or less with your last point but I think Trump is leading in exactly the wrong direction with his giving such away so much of the nations wealth to the capitalist class and deregulating environmental and labour standards in a way not seen since the gilded age.

Very dangerous going forward!

MAGA is an election slogan that has no basis in fact or action as we are seeing as the administration bumbles on shooting itself and everyone else in the foot.

 

Really some great discussion on this thread which is what I was hoping for. Thanks everyone

 

That is exactly the problem. The capitalist model is unsustainable. People have always been predicting this from Marx to Malthus with greater or lesser accuracy but the age we live in and the challenges we are facing are unprecedented. Capitalism has always had the ability to innovate it's way out of it's most dire situations with a little help from government intervention and regulation but this time our ability to innovate may not outpace the storms on the horizon.

Changing the economy from one based on fossil fuels to one based on more sophisticated energy production may have been a good start but we are lagging far behind on that and in some cases going backwards.

If some of the environmental and economic crisis's being predicted come to pass, we may not have the mechanisms at our disposal to solve these problems as a species - especially as we seem to be regressing back to the 30's on many fronts.

Enlightened social policies worked along with capitalism during the post-war era but I don't think that kind of safety valve is on the horizon today.

 

Not willing to go that far for the simple reason that it would require a global revolution to implement full socialism and revolutions are notoriously unpredictable in their outcomes. I think one of the big failings of the early philosophers and economists was in calling for global workers revolution which immediately put capitalists everywhere on war-footing in opposition and created such hostility to the revolution in Russia that counterrevolutionary forces from within and abroad were mobilized in such a way that democratic principles were put on the shelf and authoritarians like Lenin and Stalin gained the upper hand.

I believe in ownership of private property that can work alongside enlightened democratic social policies for the benefit of all. A good example is Mondragon corporation of Spain which is a worker owned cooperative that works alongside private companies and even has private enterprise in it's supply chain yet still manages to survive and even thrive in the current global market:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/07/mondragon-spains-giant-cooperative

https://medium.com/fifty-by-fifty/mondragon-through-a-critical-lens-b29de8c6049

 

I think murdering you is probably a little harsh - though a tempting idea. From my experience, when humans have become as infected with blinkered, delusional, right-wing brainwashing such as yourself it can be frustratingly hard to deprogram you but as a humanist I think it is incumbent on society to try and rehabilitate you into the family of thinking, caring, socially acceptable society.

The question is how to do that?????? Gulags seem a bit antiquated. I'm thinking ship you all to an island somewhere and put your basic avarice and aversion to play well with other to use as a televised social experiment broadcast to the world so the rest of us can be educated on the dangers of greed, theft, war, hostility and violence toward others.

But yes, I still think if you can prove you never voted for Sarah Palin or Donald Trump you will still have full free health care and access to education and housing.

 

My reading of your post seems to indicate that your whole concern is the enormous difficulties and pitfalls associated with revolutions. If that is a correct assessment of your post, then I am in full agreement. So what about a gradual, incremental process leading to eventual socialism without a violent revolution?

 

Chandler's economic history analysis into what determined firm success in that period isn't pretty reading for the anti-socialists. He describes how, to exploit economies of scale, investment in a managerial class is key. The focus is therefore on the importance of central planning, rather than the innovations themselves. That doesn't sit pretty with free marketeers. He's describing how the success is only ensured by replacing the 'invisible hand' of the market with the 'visible hand' of the planner.

 

You obviously aren't looking for very serious responses.

Instead, you are looking for people to support your own view of history and current events. My opinion was that last paragraph. And yes, MAGA is a campaign slogan just like President Trump is trying to make America great again as an improvement to what it was a couple years ago. I haven't even gone into the many methods Trump is doing to improve the economy. That's MY VIEW as well as millions of other Americans.

The lying liberal media is the only guide you listen to.

MAGA,
Steve

 

I am all for the spread of worker owned cooperatives such as Mondragon which was the original intent of workers owning means of production and each factory (unit of production in Marx's time - corporations today) electing officials to district bodies and each district electing representation to state government (Soviets in revolutionary Russia - some other body in the future?) If this can be achieved without violence it would be a good alternative to the existing system.

I do believe in private property which the real anarchists like Proudhon and Bakunin decried. So, I suppose I view democratic socialist policies as a safety valve that can exist alongside Capitalism in a balanced co-existence in order to mitigate the worst excesses, anti-democratic tendencies and ultimately contradictions of the system we have now.

 

Actually I was looking for serious responses and have had quite a few good ones even from folks I disagree with. Just regurgitating Trump's idiotic campaign slogans is not what I would consider a serious response. How do you think Trump has improved the economy? By giving the corporate elite billionaire class everything the could ever have wanted in their wildest wet dreams? That pigeon is going to come home to roost and in fact probably already is. Other than that, he is simply riding a ten-year upswing in the economic cycle that started in Obama's second term - and that is due to end any time. Then watch what happens to the working and middle classes thanks to Trump's recklessness and lack of qualifications. How do you feel about your nation's debt or the isolation you are experiencing on the global stage as you lose allies and threaten trade wars against everyone?

There is no liberal media. That is in your imagination. There is only corporate media owned by a handful of corporations and serving corporate interests and I generally don't listen to mainstream sources other that perhaps checking headlines to see what idiocy comes from the WH on a daily basis or to see if he has started WWIII. So you are wrong on all accounts.

Lol, whatever floats your boat but it reminds me of the mindless parrots you see at his rallies shouting inane nonsense spewed by the mango Mussolini.[/quote][/QUOTE]