Capitalism vs. Socialism

Originally posted by lukemcmullan
Yea, you're right, because the vast majority of African countries are socialist.

Originally posted by Siskin
most of them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_socialism

Capitalism is best as long as there is an equal opportunity. The problem with capitalism is it creates inequality, and therefore the disadvantaged do not get the opportunity to get the necessary skills to improve their life.

Society must offer support to those who are too ill to work, too illiterate to get a job and to dependant on the state to work.

Read Chomsky

=D

Communism is the dream world that follows socialism after the latter has succeeded, and the state withers away because, without economic inequality, we will not fear our neighbors and will not need police. If the resulting communism is international in extent, neither will states need armies, leaving the next dream world, international anarchism.

But let's talk about today's real world. Prevalent are the false beliefs that competition is the exclusive domain of capitalism, that all wealth is fairly earned and is evidence of the deservingness of its owners, and that the wealthy pay more tax than the working class (they pay much, much less than the rich, when personal tax is expressed as a percent of one's personal net worth).

As long as the playing field is not level, a few own most of the wealth, and the maldistribution of wealth continues to grow as if metastasizing, the sort of capitalism we now have, a privileged, entrenched oligarchy owning the media outright and controlling the government by bribery, will continue. Under these conditions there will be no chance for the development of a genuine people's capitalism, which for its emergence would require an enlightened government which would make real business opportunity available to everyone, regardless of circumstances of birth.

People's capitalism would come about by:
1. Public realization that voting is a heavier responsibility on the individual than we now treat it, allowing 18-year-olds to vote. We would not use this qualifying rationale in deciding who will perform surgery or prepare our tax returns. "Everyone can vote" is a shibboleth which trivializes the importance of wisely selecting our political leaders. The plutocrats in The Establishment fear nothing more than that the choosing of our elected politicians should be turned over to a gerontocracy of the dozens of department heads at the top 200 universities. Without a wise legislature, there will never be a people's capitalism. Without admitting that political wisdom requires a healthy measure of educating, there will never be a wise legislature.

2. All plant and equipment is the product of workers, but they own virtually none of it. The powerful, oligarchic capitalists own most of it. Nationalize the legacy to the present from the past, including land itself (excluding existing homesites), and charge the present owners or occupiers a reasonable tax on this heritage from generations of past workers and from Mother Nature.

3. Let us now leap into the fantasy that true statesmen will someday control Congress. The third step would be to nationalize the banks and operate them with the priority of making every citizen able to bid on the available land, buildings, machinery and tools, with the use of these resources going to the highest bidders, who then must pay a tax on these appropriated resources, justifying this allocation.

Suppose you want to open a shoeshine stand, and you see a nice available location at the corner of 50th Street and Seventh Avenue. You arrange for a government loan and bid $400 monthly for the location. Your hope to profiteer by overreaching for valuable property will not succeed. The foot traffic would support a larger business, and others will ally themselves together, outbid the bootblack, and promise to pay a correspondingly larger tax out of the earnings of a large store or restaurant. All the good features of capitalism remain in people's capitalism. All that's missing from traditional, oligarchic capitalism is the exclusivity whereby only the very wealthy can afford to play.

David Schweickart has spent years designing the features of a politico-economic system that empowers everyone with genuine economic opportunity. If you find the above ideas worth pursuing further, buy the latest rewrite of his evolutionary progression of thought, i.e., his latest book, "After Capitalism."

MoodyLawrence@gmail.com
Key West, Florida

Originally posted by jnstumill
Communism is the dream world that follows socialism after the latter has succeeded, and the state withers away because, without economic inequality, we will not fear our neighbors and will not need police. If the resulting communism is international in extent, neither will states need armies, leaving the next dream world, international anarchism.

But l , his latest book, "After Capitalism."

MoodyLawrence@gmail.com
Key West, Florida

Originally posted by lukemcmullan
Yea, you're right, because the vast majority of African countries are socialist.

I couldn't really entertain the proposition, to be honest, it offends my sense of political syntax: capitalism isn't a system in any meaningful sense of the word, just an amalgamation of vices and allocation disorders, whereas socialism is a fully thought-through fund of crazy, wonderful and brilliant ideas. It would be like comparing a particularly bad case of gonorrhea to Shostakovich's Tenth.

Originally posted by rwingett
Do you have any idea how many countries there are in Africa?

Edit: Also, has it occured to you that many of the people on that list are dead? In fact, 12 of the 18 people on the list are dead. African socialism was prominent in the 60s and 70s, but no longer.

Originally posted by lukemcmullan
If capitalism works, how come half the people in the world have to live on less than two dollars a day?

Oh sorry, why?

Mainly because it is human nature to desire power. Money buys power and so we have greed for money. This is the downfall of all economic systems.

A system that depends on the good-will of its leaders to function properly will be run by the least scrupulous of its members.

Originally posted by lukemcmullan
Which do you think is the superior economic system? When I say socialism I don't mean the pseudo-socialism of cold war era USSR.

Do you think that the world's economic system will evolve to socialism (as Marx said)?

I dont agree with either socialism or capitalism. I propose a meritocracy. All the smart people in the world will be rulers. Considering most smart people play chess and RHP is a chess site, it logically follows RHP will rule the world. I think this ideology is superior to both capitalism and socialism.