Socialism is when the government does stuff
All governments do stuff. Usually it's passing and enforcing laws. What set of principals stands (or lurks) behind these laws - that's where the meat of the matter is.
How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
81–90 of 122 posts
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#82Regardless of your actual views on the systems, as a non-american it's absolutely insane that so many people are incapable of thinking of one positive of a socialist economic system. I wouldn't describe myself as either a socialist or a capatalist, but with just a cursory ponder I can think of several benefits to both. The complete inability for critical thinking is quite saddening, and quite worrying considering ame…
I'm convinced most Americans have no idea what socialism means, or even what capitalism means.
That also includes self-described supporters of socialism, who almost always mean something closer to social democracy. They tend to point to places like Scandinavia, who are absolutely capitalist. They just have better social safety nets.
They're misusing the term, but at least they're reasonably consistent about it. The opponents of "socialism" tend to point to places like the Soviet Union as proof that "socialism" cannot work. And when supporters point to the success of Scandinavian-type policies, opponents insist it cannot work because it's socialism.
We could have had some kind of honest discussion about which social safety net policies are worth having. Instead we're stuck in arguments about dictionaries.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if does a whole lot of stuff, then it's communism.
Communism is when it does whole lot of shitty stuff.
Not quite. Communism is when the gov controls the means of production. The end result is indeed shitty stuff due to lack of competition. But you can achieve similar enshittification by failing to break monopolies etc.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#84Socialism is only for the super-duper rich, the 0.001%. Too big to fail, trickle down economics and all that. Capitalism for the poor, you gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps. If you ain't successful, you aren't working hard enough.
I don't like getting wrapped up in lexicography, but any meaningful definition of socialism has to include government ownership of the means of production. What the super-rich want is government protection for them, but they don't want to government taking over their property. So it confuses the issue to call it "socialism".
It's certainly the case that the rich want protections that they deny everybody else, in ways that run counter to the dictates of capitalism. But it's not "socialism". It's just really bad capitalism.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I like the suggestion, but it’s firmly on the capitalism end of the spectrum. Profit sharing is one of the incentives I look at when looking for a job. Not too far off from employee stock programs or matching 401k with company stock. If you had suggested the “public” get a share of the profits then you start touching socialism but then I’d also hate the suggestion.
The public already gets its share via taxes, I'd argue, the problem that I see right now is really that the wins for the employees are (usually) limited to their salary, whereas owners get everything that's left over. And the more you already have, the more you are able to gain..
I can see the point but degree matters. If taxes are socialism then the world is essentially 100% socialist, and the word is essentially meaningless.
ChatGPT says 75-80% of business wealth in US is in publicly traded companies, so I’m skeptical the term owner is super useful either.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
China doubled down, what on earth are you talking about? Every major corporation in China has a party member in a position of power to direct what the company does. And many of them have state ownership. https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-role... https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/arc-of-the-chinese-...
State ownership of many companies is not the same as socialism. China has state capitalism and private capitalist enterprises, and free enterprise with robust free markets overall. These are the main reforms that allowed it to thrive after the catastrophe of socialism under Mao. Even basic stuff like farmers being allowed to sell surplus freely for profit and at market prices only became allowed in 1978. China now ha…
State ownership of companies is LITERALLY the definition of socialism.
> a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
State ownership of many companies is not the same as socialism. China has state capitalism and private capitalist enterprises, and free enterprise with robust free markets overall. These are the main reforms that allowed it to thrive after the catastrophe of socialism under Mao. Even basic stuff like farmers being allowed to sell surplus freely for profit and at market prices only became allowed in 1978. China now ha…
State ownership of companies is LITERALLY the definition of socialism. > a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.
State ownership of all companies, yes, that's one implementation of socialism though not "literally the definition". But obviously this isn't how China is now and even state-owned companies in China generally operate in a market and can be in competition with private companies and other state-owned companies. In fact the Chinese eoconomy is probably more competitive that in the West now, it is fierce competition for profit with generally free enterprise.
There are state-owned companies in all Western countries, by the way.
I don't think that you are familiar with the history and economy of China.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#88“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” — John Steinbeck, still as relevant as ever
In a lot of ways, the same happened in the Soviet Union. The poor farmers were never socialists. Socialism was imposed on them by upper-middle-class intellectuals.
The poor farmers wanted to stop being serfs, but only so that they could own their own land. That wouldn't make them quite millionaires, but they imagined that they'd be comfortably-well-off. (Today, a millionaire is not much more than comfortably-well-off, but in Steinbeck's time it put you in Jay Gatsby territory.)
So the proper socialist revolution never happened. The workers never got control of the means of production. It just passed from an obscenely-wealthy autocrat to a bunch of oligarchs, who promptly made themselves wealthy.
It does seem to be pretty good evidence that the socialist revolution is never coming. Even if it's in everybody's best interest on paper, it's too hard to get them all on the same page. It's a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma: there are just too many reasons for people to conclude that their short-term interest outweighs the global long-term interest.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is not really capitalist, it’s an oligarchy - a small number of people like Larry Ellison essentially control everything. It’s always been like that, even going back to the 19th century and the robber barons of the gilded age
That is the natural end state of capitalism though? Capital begets more capital, eventually concentrating power as far as possible. Sure you get upstarts here and there, particularly with technological innovation, but the trend is always consistent.
Arguably the natural end state of every system to be honest. Power, money and influence were concentrated in the Soviet Union, they're concentrated in modern day China...
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would bet for most people, employee stock programs or company stock will provide far lower and more volatile return than an SP500 index fund. The US public has long been able to benefit from profit sharing, all they have to do is by a low cost broad market index fund. The root of the problem is that the labor that most people in the US sell is not in sufficiently high demand to afford them the compensation to be ab…
Regarding the first point: owners typically pay themselves a salary in addition to owning the company and thus benefit from both. Employees do not have this advantage. The two problems are not mutually exclusive, and certainly unskilled labour is a significant problem for a good fraction of the population; but if this were the only problem, then we wouldn't see the amount of wealth concentration and decoupling of pro…
There is no guarantee in both the owners salary or equity growing (just like an employee has no guarantee of having their job tomorrow).
The wealth concentration is a combination of government policy rewarding asset owners and automation and communication and transportation technologies increasing competition for labor sellers.
The automation also allows enormous economies of scale such that fewer businesses can do it all, which is also why you see wealth concentration.