Socialism vs. Capitalism

[[MPGH]Austin]

Seems kinda odd, American claim to be a free and sovereign nation. Yet it's capitalist to the core and the country itself is managed by wealthy people with no care for the lower-middle class citizens. While the same people scream fuck Socialism and tell you that it's bad. What are your thoughts on Socialism compared to Capitalism.

[Empire]

:/ capitalism works.

But there should be a limit on wealth. As-is there are extremely wealthy people that can have more money than they can possibly spend. This is a problem more so that the more people become on this planet the more rich people there will be. The same goes for poor.


Socialism.......causes many problems. The ONLY way it can work is for the entire population to agree on everything, which if you've seen humanity, will never fucking happen.

[nevs666]

Seems kinda odd, American claim to be a free and sovereign nation. Yet it's capitalist to the core and the country itself is managed by wealthy people with no care for the lower-middle class citizens. While the same people scream fuck Socialism and tell you that it's bad. What are your thoughts on Socialism compared to Capitalism.

I wouldnt excpect rich people to care about me? I don't give a flying fuck about them, I expect the same treatment. So their goal in life is to make money, so what?

[Alen]

I don't see how socialism would contribute to general well-being and respect for fellow mankind. If anything it would attempt to equalize things on a monetary level, reducing both innovation and production. If anything the key problem of today's world lies in our ever more fragmented society, where social atomism and a cost-benefit-ish analytic approach to life is considered the ideal - this can be partially attributed to the current capitalistic market and, to a degree, bureaucratic state existing now. However the main issue is nonetheless the fragmentation and related atomism, in my opinion. At the very least we can see that people are trying to make a change as of late (Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring etc.), but what we truly need is more unifying democratic actions behind which we can rally to counter the fragmentation and rid us of the so-called soft despotism you're clearly marking as a negative aspect of the current system.

[porygonzx]

Socialism causes the country's economy to become stagnant unless it has free market reforms (like China).
Capitalism can circulate the money and raise the GDP Per Capita and make the country's citizens wealthier.

[Alen]

Socialism causes the country's economy to become stagnant unless it has free market reforms (like China).
Capitalism can circulate the money and raise the GDP Per Capita and make the country's citizens wealthier.

Or not, as our beloved year 2009 would clearly show. Although you do have a point, the GDP argument is weak at best.

[ZigZak]

Capitalism pays for how much you do. I agree there are poor and wealthy people in the US, but everyone gets an opportunity to be whatever and wherever they would like to be in life.

[porygonzx]

Or not, as our beloved year 2009 would clearly show. Although you do have a point, the GDP argument is weak at best.

Yeah, I couldn't think of many examples to think of.

[[MPGH]Austin]

Capitalism pays for how much you do. I agree there are poor and wealthy people in the US, but everyone gets an opportunity to be whatever and wherever they would like to be in life.

What the fuck? No. Hell no. You're smoking crack.

[Empire]

Eh, if you don't get to do w/e you want in capitalism, but you can be rewarded for your efforts.

[Lehsyrus]

@Scata Capitalism leads to corruption in people and causes a domino effect of the countries people slowly having the money sucked from their wallets.

Socialism...well it's a nice concept but there are too many ignorant people for it to truly be effective.

Now if we could find a way to 50/50 Socialism and Capitalism into an equilibrium...

[Empire]

.......... i think people kinda forget human history.


:/ its not like before this century for humankind.....we had anywhere near the shared wealth we do now and the standard of living.
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Now don't get me wrong, the superrich aren't needed. Some people have more money than you could possibly spend with good implications.
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But at the same time, human kind as a WHOLE has an easier life than they did before.

[Lehsyrus]

.......... i think people kinda forget human history.


:/ its not like before this century for humankind.....we had anywhere near the shared wealth we do now and the standard of living.
----------------------------------------

Now don't get me wrong, the superrich aren't needed. Some people have more money than you could possibly spend with good implications.
--------------------------------------------

But at the same time, human kind as a WHOLE has an easier life than they did before.

I agree with completely on that, but now that the world doesn't have single straight-path enemy's as they once did when it was country vs country, all people are doing is expanding their wealth. It leads me to believe that people are going to start getting too greedy, and try to expand their power along with their wealth, and when that happens they might try to keep people who are in the common middle class and lower from being able to get wealthier. It's like that in NJ. The rich pay a quarter of the taxes people like me in the middle-class pay, from income all the way to property taxes. Also, in my area we're supposed to get taxed less if we have mineral rights to our land, but we're actually starting to be taxed harder for it, whereas if the people in the more wealthier communities pay off one tenth of their income after federal taxes to any charity of their choosing, they don't have to worry about any property taxes for the next year.

I feel like in this capitalistic society that corruption is going to grow and spread more rapidly than it did before in previous empires, and cause many of the worlds leading powers to collapse. All in due time, of course, but even still..

[Alen]

Capitalism pays for how much you do. I agree there are poor and wealthy people in the US, but everyone gets an opportunity to be whatever and wherever they would like to be in life.

read v

What the fuck? No. Hell no. You're smoking crack.

---

Eh, if you don't get to do w/e you want in capitalism, but you can be rewarded for your efforts.

tl;dr: only in utopia

@Scata Capitalism leads to corruption in people and causes a domino effect of the countries people slowly having the money sucked from their wallets.

Socialism...well it's a nice concept but there are too many ignorant people for it to truly be effective.

Now if we could find a way to 50/50 Socialism and Capitalism into an equilibrium...

Actually no. Socialism can be just as corrupt and abused as capitalism and both could work out just perfectly if there weren't any ignorant people around. Fact is that socialsm is harder to maintain as it requires a more unnatural philosophy to be accepted (tl;dr anything with sacrifices for a greater good tends to fail eventually) and I would much rather view this from a school of thought similar to that of Hobbes - our primordial nature is egoistical and we strive for power; our natural state is a state of war and conflict, a struggle for superiority and an ideal that in itself counters what is commonly perceived as good and bad. However this is also where I believe we can see why our current, capitalistic, system fits in perfectly - replace Hobbes' kings and rulers with a government and channel this nature of ours into a market state. Now, granted, as I mentioned earlier this can lead to ... undesirable consequences ... but let's just say it's the cost for being as we are - soft despotism can be considered the direct solution to the fragmentation and atomisation of our society that stems from our nature.

.......... i think people kinda forget human history.


:/ its not like before this century for humankind.....we had anywhere near the shared wealth we do now and the standard of living.
----------------------------------------

Now don't get me wrong, the superrich aren't needed. Some people have more money than you could possibly spend with good implications.
--------------------------------------------

But at the same time, human kind as a WHOLE has an easier life than they did before.

It's called progression, and it happened under capitalism, socialism, theocracies, totalitarian regimes and during times of anarchy. It's pretty damn hard to enter a state of regression nowadays.

I agree with completely on that, but now that the world doesn't have single straight-path enemy's as they once did when it was country vs country, all people are doing is expanding their wealth. It leads me to believe that people are going to start getting too greedy, and try to expand their power along with their wealth, and when that happens they might try to keep people who are in the common middle class and lower from being able to get wealthier. It's like that in NJ. The rich pay a quarter of the taxes people like me in the middle-class pay, from income all the way to property taxes. Also, in my area we're supposed to get taxed less if we have mineral rights to our land, but we're actually starting to be taxed harder for it, whereas if the people in the more wealthier communities pay off one tenth of their income after federal taxes to any charity of their choosing, they don't have to worry about any property taxes for the next year.

I feel like in this capitalistic society that corruption is going to grow and spread more rapidly than it did before in previous empires, and cause many of the worlds leading powers to collapse. All in due time, of course, but even still..

tl;dr capitalsm is the reason it didn't collapse yet, perhaps the most elegant solution I've yet seen is a capitalistic basic income guarantee (a derivative of a GMI system) implantation that was being debated by my friends during a debating competition. Needless to say the idea's great, and it might just as well work out. A simple version would be: raise taxes on all income to a pretty damn high level; use acquired money to give everyone an untaxed income that would suffice for sustaining a basic life but let everyone be able to contest for jobs etc. on a capitalistic level for more money. What this would effective mean is that middle classes would approximately get taxed as much as they would get from the guaranteed income, the poor / unemployed would get more from the income than they would get taxed and the rich would get taxed more than they would get. tl;dr^2: capitalism with socialistic undertones.

[unicorn69]

Socialism is a political ideology while capitalism is an economic concept. You cannot really compare them.