Socialism Vs. Capitalism

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

(Spin-off from this thread)

You claim that “[socialists and socialists] believe [ socialism is better than capitalism] because they do not understand capitalism, nor socialism”, and I challenge that. There are at least one socialist economist, and at least one Nobel Prize-winning economist who rejects free-market capitalism (though he rejects market socialism as too radical a reaction to the failure of neoclassical economics). Now, I think it’s fine to disagree with these individuals, but you will have a very hard time arguing that they take their positions because they “do not understand capitalism, nor socialism.”

Or perhaps you’re saying that there are plenty of good reasons to be a socialist, it’s just the members of this board don’t have it or aren’t coming to their positions from it? 1) That’s ad hominem, in the sense that it doesn’t matter why people are making the argument their making as long as the argument is sound, and 2) it’s yet to be seen if that’s actually the case.

The best place to target a rebuttle to your post is in how you evaluate whether a system ‘works’. Basically, it amounts to nothing more than rhetoric. Capitalism ‘works’, you claim, because it “guarantees a system where everyone is free, has ample opportunities to choose what they want to do with their life, has basic rights to not be harassed or abused by others or the government, and has constantly-improving standards of living, quality of life, material wealth, happiness and technology”. However, each aspect of this claim is unverified, and most are qualitative claims, or ones subject to significant subjective interpretation. “Ample opportunities” doesn’t specify much of anything, since ‘ample’ is not specific, it’s up to each of us to decide what’s ‘enough’, ‘plenty’, ‘sufficient’, and that what is ‘more than enough’, or, ‘ample’.

Similarly, happiness and freedom are poorly defined and poorly quantified and hardly objective standards. Freedom, in particular, is troubling. One might say that taxes make us less free, thus government is bad and governemnt programs funded by taxes are wrong. However, for someone from a poor family, who without taxes would not be able to afford school, taxes dramatically increase freedom, because they fund government education which will enable them to achieve much more than they could otherwise expect. Or, a wealthy CEO who can affort a small army for protection might find the police to reduce her freedom, since they can enter her home uninvited to recover documents or to free her sexual prisoners. Conversely, the black family who used to be barred from main street are made more free by the presence of the police.

Your other claims are dubious. For one thing, you offer no evidence to indicate that a free-market system would produce more technology, material wealth, or a better quality of life. The theoretical claim is certainly not without its learned detractors (c.f. Joseph Stiglitz, mentioned earlier). The evidentiary claims offer even less, since we haven’t had a free market since we shifted from a nomadic to a settled agricultural lifestyle. The States have always been a mixed economy, from before they were even a unified country. Science is subsidized by government, and the research that comes from acadamia (also well subsidized) is vital to the development of new technologies, the improvement of manufacturing and its attendent improvement in material wealth, and the improved quality of life that all these things provide. When looking at quality of life overall, in fact, it’s the most socialist countries who offer the best. The best city in the US ranks 27th worldwide (scroll down for table), and compared to other countries in the world we’re 13th, behind such paragons of free-market principles as Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Why would that be true, if socialization makes things worse?

I don’t think the facts back you up, nor do I think the theory backs you up. Your basic principle is that freedom is a good thing, and I couldn’t agree more. Where we differ is that, as I see it, under a deregulated market (which notably isn’t a free-market, more on that later), most people are less free. Government intervention that levels out wealth disparities provides more opportunities to most people, even though it takes wealth away from some people. Certainly, it’s undesireable that wealth should be taken from people unreasonably, but in this case the wealthy people actually benefit in the end: society is healthier, less volitile, more people are smarter and make better choices, there is more competition for jobs because more people are qualified, more products are purchased, etc. etc. The net increase in freedom and rights solidifies the justification for it. The quality of life, and more importantly the usefulness to humanity of most of the population improves more for those who benefit from government programs, than it stifled for those who pay more taxes.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I am not dismissing the value of the market (neither is Obama, he recognizes its value). I am in fact designing my socialist policies with the aim of improving the market. In principle, a totally free market would be great, it’s just impossible, and because it’s impossible, we need to compensate for its shortcoming via government interventions. The market cannot be free because there are externalities, there are wealth imbalances all ready, there are asymetries of information, there are aspects of the real world that simply make a free-market impossible in practice. Democratic government regulation and intervention is the best way to correct for the failures of the market, and to improve the way that competition produces value.

That’s why socialism trounces neoclassical free-market capitalism, and that’s why I’m a socialist (of one stripe or another).

EDIT: I replaced some links that were dropped when I copied this from the other thread.

2

carl, if youre going to split-hairs about “what is freedom?” or “opportunities, whats that mean?”, im not going to stick around very long…

freedom means just that: F R E E D O M. freedom to live your life as YOU want, not under rule or compulsion by others. freedom to choose your employment, work as hard as you want, and keep what you earn. freedom to think, act, love, believe anything and everything youd like. now, THESE CONDITIONS of freedom DID NOT EXIST in pre-capitalist, pre-american europe. feudalism, theocratic dictatorships and monarchies are not condusive to giving or allowing their people any freedom at all. if youre going to try and be dense about what “freedom” is and entail, i just dont have time to give you an entire dissertation on the subject. any perusing of social and political history should be sufficient to show you the non-free, terrorized and brutalized state that man existed in before the industrial revolution and the founding of America.

“ample opportunities” means that people not only have the FREEDOM to act and choose their life and destiny, but that there exist numerous possibilities within which to actualize this freedom of choice. how many options were open to the young man in 1500 Frace? he could be a soldier, go into a trade such as blacksmithing, work on a farm, or try and become an artist. each of these choices was also extremely difficult unless one’s family was already employed in said position; if he came from a family of blacksmiths, the hurtles to his choosing to enter farming or artistry were immense and very hard to overcome. THAT is what i mean about opportunity. capitalism, as a system predicated on letting people be FREE to do what they want, buy and sell and make whatever they wish, lends itself to the explosion and multiplication of jobs, commodities, technologies, trades. wherever there is a need, there is an incentive to meet that need, because you can MAKE MONEY doing so, by selling someone the product/service you created. in rapid order this leads to a literal EXPLOSION of markets and fields within society, and these plentiful and ever-increasing opportunities and options for choosing employment create the possibilities for (and are a result of) actualizing our freedom, finding out what it is that we love or are passionate about, and doing it with as few barriers as possible.

this individualization and freeing-up of personal energy and choice lends the overall economy to become EMPOWERED because it LIBERATES the creative/ambitious energies of man, gives them an outlet and a channel of expression. open a world history book, read about the 1800s and early to mid 1900s-- the amount of truly groundbreaking discoveries and inventions is breathtaking: electricity, automobiles, telephones, flight, antibiotics, countless innovations in agriculture, architecture, sciences, mathematics… most of these innovations and inventions took place in america, but some also in europe, under the rising influence of a free and liberated marketplace, one which america pioneered and was the birth of a truly capitalist economy.

im going to stop there for now, and give you a chance to reply. lets try and not include too much content in each post, otherwise this gets tedious and cumbersome, and critical points are missed. we can use your OP as a jumping point, and from there respond to and then state our own points/arguments a few at a time, as we go.

3

No there’s only one, power. It is inherently flawed as it inevitably generates an elite class with a legal double standard. Since it controls both business and government, its only limit is the people–and they can be (and are being) bought with government entitlements and class envy, and controlled through our government education system (from kindergarten to PHD) and the media.

Now, what indeed is socialism. I gave a fairly simplistic definition in the other thread. In reality, any government is socialism. The infrastructure for the basic mandates for government, law enforcement, the courts, and defense, are socialist institutions. So when we talk about socialism, the complexity is derived from the point at which government becomes too big and too socialist. I think America crossed that line with Social Security and other programs in the 1930’s. It was the beginning of the advance of excessive to extreme socialism (which I term “socialism”) and which has brought us to the point where we are today. China is some ways has become more capitalist than we are, especially since they started protecting property rights at the turn of the century. They don’t even have capital gains taxes! China is becoming the new capitalist haven. In the not to distant future, its citizens will be freer than we are.

BTW, by this definition, any big controlling government is socialist. Not just the USSR, but NAZI Germany as well. Dictatorships are the reduction of socialism to its simplest terms with the elite being a monarch or dictator who surrounds himself with his useful idiots whom he terms his royalty or inner circle.

To answer you original question, they know exactly what they’re doing. They know, that at these level, that lowering taxes spurs the economy, but it reduces their control. But as I say, in this country, socialism is about power, even if it means bringing down the country. They’d rather rule in hell.

I certainly agree. It is the government’s job to enforce the rule of law, which applies to individuals, corporations as well as the government itself. It is not it’s job to control or take over corporations. First it isn’t as competent at it, and much worse, it gives itself that much more power while reducing its own checks and balances on that power. Under such a system, corruption is inevitable.

4

There are several problems with the word
“Socialism”. First is the basic problem of the
definition.
According to wikipeda:
Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal opportunities for all individuals, with a fair or egalitarian method of compensation.[1][2]

Now this is a broad definition that kindof the point with the key
sentence being the last part. About a society characterized by equal
opportunities and a fair method of compensation.

Now why do some, only by virtue of birth get millions, indeed billions
of dollars, while others, hundreds of millions get by with
barely enough to put food on the table? Capitalism is to reward
success and yet, almost half of the fortune 400 list of richest
people in the world at birth, had enough to make this list.
Capitalism has become more a defense of inherited wealth instead
of a defense of ability or success.

W: Modern socialism originated in the late 19th-century intellectual and working class political movement that criticized the effects of industrialization and private ownership on society. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution, and would represent a transitional stage between the capitalist and communist modes of production.[3][4]

Here is where we hit difficulties. For when people criticize socialism
what are they criticizing? They think they are attacking Marxism, when
in fact they are attacking something else because you have to
understand there are several different types of socialism.
You got Marxism and then you got Leninism, then you got
stalinism, Maoism, Troskyism, among others. You also have
anarcho-communism, and democratic-socialism. Much of the confusion
is because socialism as defined by marx is an economic system,
not an political system. Those attacking socialism fail to understand
the difference between the economic and political. You can have
socialism/communism and still have a democracy. Indeed, this
is what is practice in Sweden. By the way, you can mix and max
between the different economic systems and the different
political systems. Thus you can have an political dictatorship
and have a economic system of capitalism, this has been the case
in the US over the last 8 years.( See senator whitehouse of Rhode island.)

the argument against socialism has a couple of components.
First the idea of freedom, socialism kills freedom somehow
and the second is that socialism is “against” human nature.

If socialism is a economic idea, then you still have the political freedom
to elect whomever you want. Even if you approach it from an
economic standpoint, you still have freedoms. You can still chose
from the 800 brands of cereal that sit on the grocery shelf.
the question is about equal opportunities and fair compensation.
At my shitty grocery workplace, I make 9.75 an hour and that is after
a couple of raises. I stand on my feet all my shift, often 8 hours.
I move heavy items such as cartons of water or firewood and I work
very hard. The CEO of this shitty grocery chain made 16 million dollars
last year. You can’t tell me he worked 2 or 3 hundred times harder than
I did last year. So the pay is not about how hard we worked.
so why does he get 16 million dollars and I got enough to
rise just slightly over poverty level? How is that fair or just?
one might say, no one said the universe is fair, but I do believe
in having a fair universe, a just universe for everyone.

The second argument against socialism is it is against human nature.
John Maynard Keynes said this about capitalism,

Capitalism is the astonishing belief that the most wickedest of men will
do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

Socialism is far closer to human nature than capitalism.
How did we as individuals and as a race, get so far?
Is it because men acted in their own best interest and screw
everyone else or did people work together in common interest?
I got to where I am because a great deal of people with no
thought to their own best interest helped me, educated me.
Human beings and human society is about the act of mutual
cooperation. Socialism is about that cooperation that has existed
since people have walked the earth. Which ideology really fits human
nature? I think your own life is prove of the answer to that question.
I think the human race is the answer to that question.

Kropotkin

5

socialism is an economic term. police, courts, national defense-- these are not under the umbrella of socialist action because they are not economic incentives or projects. government has a proper role to secure the rights and freedoms of its people, PROVIDED THIS DOES NOT VIOLATE SOMEONE ELSES RIGHTS OR FREEDOMS. hence police. hence judicial system. hence national defense.

these functions of government are necessary and just, and just because a government exists per se, does not mean that government is “socialistic” of has socialist tendencies… ](*,)

6

The Paineful Truth:
Now, what indeed is socialism. I gave a fairly simplistic definition in the other thread. { In reality, any government is socialism}. { The infrastructure for the basic mandates for government, law enforcement, the courts, and defense, are socialist institutions}. { So when we talk about socialism, the complexity is derived from the point at which government becomes too big and too socialist}. I think America crossed that line with Social Security and other programs in the 1930’s. It was the beginning of the advance of excessive to extreme socialism (which I term “socialism”) and which has brought us to the point where we are today. China is some ways has become more capitalist than we are, especially since they started protecting property rights at the turn of the century. They don’t even have capital gains taxes! China is becoming the new capitalist haven. In the not to distant future, its citizens will be freer than we are.

K: here you say one thing and in a different post, you say something else. The parenthese are too show the different idea’s

PT: {socialism is an economic term}. police, courts, national defense-- {these are not under the umbrella of socialist action because they are not economic incentives or projects}.{ government has a proper role to secure the rights and freedoms of its people}, PROVIDED THIS DOES NOT VIOLATE SOMEONE ELSES RIGHTS OR FREEDOMS. hence police. hence judicial system. hence national defense.

BTW, by this definition, {any big controlling government is socialist}. Not just the USSR, but NAZI Germany as well. Dictatorships are the reduction of socialism to its simplest terms with the elite being a monarch or dictator who surrounds himself with his useful idiots whom he terms his royalty or inner circle.

K: here you say something else.

I cannot tell from your three different definitions which one you actually believe in.

Kropotkin

7

PT, you’ve bascially defined socialism in such a way that it will always be bad. You defined ‘socialism’ as “excessive to extreme socialism”, meaning excessive government intervention and control. But that’s begging the question: “excessive” means “too much”, which is bad by definition. You reject government intervention when it’s bad, basically. I’m with you on that, but I rather not call it socialism. I’d rather say that socialism is a comparative, like compared to the US, Europe is socialist, but compared to Tortuga, the US is socialist.

TTG, the police, army, etc. can’t be separated from the rest of government interference by anything but an ad hoc argument. When the government collects taxes and pays police to protect property, they are intervening to stabalize the market; they are enforcing regulations. The idea of property is useful, but it is not an inherent part of a thing: it’s a description of how that thing relates to a person in society, so it’s a social convention. Intellectual property is a great example of how nebulous a concept it is: intellectual property is the idea that a person should benefit from all the creations that are made using their idea; they own their idea, a radical departure from what ownership used to mean, signifying a change in the social connotations of ownership. This in turn signifies that enforcement of ownership is an intervention in the market on the part of government.

And it’s a good one! So are electrical grids, so are canals and bridges, so are roads and conventions that make traffic run smoothly on them. All these things improve the way the market works. Roads are a superb example: by building and maintaining roads, the government enables people to travel long distances. That enables people to find work in a broader area, and businesses to recruit employees from a broader area. Both employees and business benefit from the competition that this fosters.

I think an important thing to note is that both of you admit some degree of government involvement, and sanction some level of taxation. We’re really just disagreeing about a matter of degrees. That’s significant because, at the very least, it makes the argument that goes “it’s the government doing it, therefore it’s bad”, a non-sequitor: you already acknowledge that some things the government does, some regulations it enforces, are good.

PK, I’d like to answer the question of why the CEO makes thousands of times as much as we do, because I think there is a reason, and the kind of socialism I’m advocating wouldn’t erase that reason (though it would lessen it). The CEO may not work harder, but the work she does is worth more. If I work my ass off digging holes and filling them in, it’s not worth jack to anyone, so I won’t get paid. In addition, the CEO may be the only person that can do her job, or one of a very few, in which case she has a skill that is very valuable and very rare. That raises the price that people are willing to pay for her services. That’s not inherently bad. People who do more for society should get more, and the market is a great way of agregating information about what people want to see.

My idea of socialism is basically that government provide the goods and services necessary to enable any child from any economic strata at birth to develop the skills necessary to become a CEO (this is the second half of the definition you quoted from wikipedia, the half you also endorsed). This is socialism because, in an information based economy, uch services are the means production, and making them public services is therefore socializing the means of production.

TTG, I’d like to point out that I’m not knocking the market, the market is good. I’m no knocking freedom, freedom is good. I’m knocking ‘free’-market capitalism as the best way to achieve an efficient market and a free society.

8

im sorry to state that in fact we are disagreeing on more than merely the “quantity” of government control or regulation into the economy. there is a QUALITATIVE difference between government services which are designed to PROTECT and SECURE individual rights and freedoms, and government ‘services’ which are designed to RESTRICT and INFRINGE UPON individual rights and freedoms. police/courts/national defense are examples of the former; antitrust laws/“excessive” taxation (taxation beyond that which is necessary to secure the basic structures mentioned above)/increasing prevalence of “nanny-state” laws are examples of the latter.

roads, electrical grids, enforcement of property rights ARE good for markets; however, this is not their JUSTIFICATION. they are not ESSENTIAL for “markets” in the sense that they must be IMPOSED by force via government action and legistation. markets (which you agree are “good”) require only the ABSENCE of coercive controls-- within a system of judicial fairness which reflects the basic right to that which you earn/own, markets will create and develop all they “need” on their own, in the most efficient and mutually-beneficial way possible for all men. the economic “principle of self-selection and generation” ensures this efficiency over command-control actions.

so in this sense, of the aforementioned “conditions” required for markets (or at the least elements which assist and ensure a high degree of market success) the only trult ESSENTIAL ONE is a judicial/police system which reognizes the individual right to freedom/property ownership. these are not mere “social conventions”, but even if you believe they are, and are not some sort of “natural” right (this is really just semantics; calling property rights “natural” or non-socially-derived is not an attempt to give them objective or metaphysical justification, only to assert their ESSENTIAL and NECESSARY role in the spectacle of desirable/beneficial human society itself) it must still be recognized that they are extrinsically valuable and necessary, if not a priori, then a posteriori to any and every beneficial social organization (i.e. a social organization which adheres to my previously-mentioned standards of judgment on social goodness; i still have not yet read any criticism of or counter standards presented).

to say that markets are secondary to “roads/bridges/electrical grids/etc” i.e. to say that markets are secondary to government-monopolized command-economy action, is to invert the causality of this relationship. markets are what have CREATED all the “roads/bridges/etc” in addition to the entire ‘system’ which we recognize now as indespensible to market operations-- yet in truth, the system itself is NOT necessary, nor are any specific elements within the system other than the basic functions of governance itself, which are protection of individual property and national property (police and national army) and courts derived from equal laws which enshrine individual rights to liberty/pursuit of ones goals/prevention of theft (and also here of excess taxation as mentioned previously)/various other essential Constitutional guarantees, such as right to “bear arms” or “freedom of the press”.

because socialist as well as all statist constructions of economy persuppose that government force/action is primary and that markets are secondary-- and also equally because these constructions ignore the vital aspect of freedom and INDIVIDUAL guarantees against tyranny/slavery/oppression (individual rights) as these relate to and are necessary for economic action and security of ones person and properties-- socialist economies confuse the underlying cause and effect relation which produces all desired effects of society, such as prosperity/security/opportunities for happiness/liberation from tyranny/actualization of individual freedom.

9

furthermore, markets themselves are not even primary, but are derivative of lesser rules and structures such as individual guarantee to person and property, limitation of coercive actions (i.e. government actions) imposed upon individual decisions and actions, and a stable means of trade (barter will suffice in pre-capital organizations, and will always inevitably lead to creation of money). these prior conditions are what allow markets to generate, and markets are self-correcting and self-sustaining; all government intrusion into markets other than to continue to provide guarantees on the aforementioned economic and individual rights undermines the funcioning and efficiency of the marketplace (by undermining individual motivations/incentives/actions/perceptions/expectations).

socialism inverts the relationship, saying government is primary, markets secondary, when in reality markets are their own primary. just because SOME existence of governance is required for markets to exist in any form (just as it is required for ANY form of society to exist-- even anarchy is ‘social’) does not mean that socialism or government coercive force/central planning is required (as i have shown, these two are not equatable).

10

If I were to choose the most significant flaw in the philosophical basis of American capitalism, it’s that it stems from the sort of individualism one would propose as liberating the individual from government coercion. So it necessarily places individual rights and liberty, in some absolute way, higher than the welfare of the collective. I think this works as a political philsophical basis, because that sort of individualism applied to personal liberty provides the fundamental protections and rights that allow individuals to exercise their basic personal freedom. But there’s an undeniable political equality in this form of individualism, because it applies to ideals like justice, liberty, the restraint of power, etc. In this sense, equality makes sense because it’s not a zero-sum game. There are no limited resources; e.g., if I gain in terms of justice, that doesn’t mean someone else loses.

On the other hand, equality of individuals in terms of economics doesn’t fit the free-market captialism model. Resources and production are limited, so to the extent one possess more of them, another (or others) possess less. If the state grants ‘freedom’ to its citizens in economic terms, equality is never possible. And vice versa, to the degree the state enforces economic equality, there will be limits on economic freedom. It’s really to the degree that the state enforces its power that this balance is maintained, because natural scarcity means that people will exploit each other (or use the state to do it if they can).

From what I’ve read thus far, I think that Obama is acutely aware of this balance and that his attempts to influence the economy during a time when it has become so unbalanced are logically and as economically sound as it’s possible to be right now…which doesn’t mean I’m convinced they’ll work, because it’s so much about psychology and because there are just too many variables to control.

IMO part of the Republican dilemma is that they’ve bought into ‘no government is good government’ as a sort of moral mantra that applies equally to all governance, despite the fact that it’s not sound economically, and certainly not in a consumption-based economy like this one, which constantly produces marketing messages that equate consumption with happiness and personal status.

But morality can’t be considered separable from economic philosophy, although that’s something that free-market capitalists try to do so that they can continue to exploit whatever and whomever they need to for the sake of profiting. I think what’s happened is that the US has finally come to realize that in a global economy, we’re gonna be on the losing side of that game. That’s the ultimate moral question: who are the winners and losers and what happens to their economies? Counties with lax environmental or labor laws will attract factories where neither government nor special interests will interfere with production. Obviously, the owners and management of those factories are well aware that they will be exploiting, that is, doing things that are not in the best longer-term interest of, people and the environment, but the factories don’t view themselves as under any moral obligation. Their end is maximum profit, the means chosen will be the most efficient – and legal – way to get there. With some consequences that could be considered immoral, because they are fundamentally unfair. The resources (including labor force) comes from the society, which creates an obligation not to exploit them, meaning do them longer-term harm for the corporation’s/shareholders’ shorter-term gain. That’s why I think that a society, through the laws it enacts, has to view economic activity that takes place within it as obligated to be morally responsible, equal to its fiscal responsibility to its owners or shareholders.

11

I don’t think police are even necessary for the most basic of markets. Even in a completely deregulated society, social interactions can be accurately described in market terms. If I have a great spear, and with it I can catch twice as many boar as my neighbor, he will have to weigh the value of the spear against the value of me as a neighbor. He could take my sprear, but if he did he would have to be ready to fight me for it, in which case he loses the protection of our cooperation with me, and he risks losing the fight and his life. In a real sense, the laws of the wild are a market for evolutionary success.

Adding police to the mix makes the market better from the point of view of all society. The police function in the ‘law-of-the-wild’ scenario like a big family, only one that belongs to the victim. Because anyone who is being victimized in a certain set of ways has the additional force of the police on their side, it ups the cost significantly, which would be a good encouragement to my neighbor to leave my spear alone. That makes the market better, because now instead of two people fighting over the best spear, each is encouraged to build their own spear, or otherwise innovate to catch more boar. So police, while unnecessary for the market, improve the outcomes of the market by discouraging decisions that are inefficient. Unlike spears, innovation is readily replicable; obtaining one spear is less valuable to society than designing a new and better spear, or figuring out how to make each boar go twice as far.

I think we’ve identified a fundamental disagreement between us: I don’t think that the government should care primarily about the individual. That’s not to say that the government shouldn’t ensure individual rights and liberties, I think it should. Rather, it should only do so insofar as ensuring those rights and liberties tends to improve society. I need to be particularly careful when I say this, because this is a position that isn’t likely to win friends. In most, almost all cases, it is far better on the part of government to allow people to keep their property and to respect their individual rights. This creates the impression of stability and order, which is good for society because people aren’t constantly worrying about what will be taken away next, they aren’t spending valuable time and effort railing against the government. Almost always, it is in society’s best interest for the government to do little. However, the government’s mandate should be to act when their action will improve society. They should take people’s money to support a police force, because that’s good for society. They should maintain an army, because that’s good for society. These things are in a significant sense restrictions to the free market. However, their benefit far outweighs what is lost.

So, I fully accept that the market preceeded government. The market as it exists today is an innovated outgrowth of evolutionary principles. But, pure natural selection was stifled in favor of a regulated market of social exchange because, as a species, we benefitted from being discouraged from killing each other. The regulations of the market should always do that: encourage market efficiency, and discourage waste.

Ingenium makes a good distinction between the social and economic philosophy of individualism. And I think what it comes down to is that it is not the role of the government to enable people to do what they want, but to ensure the constant progress of society as a whole. I still maintain, and I think the preceeding shows, that there is not qualitative difference between government regulation in the form of police and property protection, and welfare, progressive taxes, and anti-trust laws. It is merely a matter of degree.

EDIT: Ingenium, you say that “to the extent one possess more of them, another (or others) possess less.” Can you explain what you mean by that? Are you just saying that wealth disparity exists in the economy, or do you mean that a person gaining wealth entails another losing wealth.

12

Well, they are the same thing, IMO, if you view it as a zero sum game. But it’s not necessarily another losing (because they may never have it), it’s about possession and lack of possession.

13

Your second quote is Three Times Great’s which I would have to partially disagree with–socialism is a political system which establishes an economic system. The same as libertarianism establishing capitalism. And as I said in the first post you quoted, “Now, what indeed is socialism. I gave a fairly simplistic definition in the other thread.”

Exactly. This is one of two major public misconceptions about economics. A rising tide does lift all boats. The other is that when taxes are cut (down to a point–which we are well over) it stimulates the economy and increases government revenues. We have to assume that most Democrats know this from at least JFK forward, so why are they always wanting to raise taxes?

Some (socialist) economists argue against the Laffer curve, which is absurd, since at 100% taxation, revenues would necessarily cease. The only reasonable point of contention is at what point government revenues start to go down.

14

The Paineful Truth:Exactly. This is one of two major public misconceptions about economics. A rising tide does lift all boats. The other is that when taxes are cut (down to a point–which we are well over) it stimulates the economy and increases government revenues. We have to assume that most Democrats know this from at least JFK forward, so why are they always wanting to raise taxes?

K: Show us the proof that tax cuts stimulates the economy and increases government revenue.
It doesn’t, pure and simple. There is no evidence of any kind that tax cuts work in the way you suggest.

kropotkin

15

LOL, dude! When the ocean is swelling somewhere on the planet, what is it doing elsewhere? My point is that the boats there aren’t faring as well. #-o

That’s a myth, or perhaps just a confusion of correlation and causation (although once one studies it to some degree, it’s hard even to make that mistake). I’ve seen no credible data that would cause me to conclude that tax cuts specifically increase government revenues, although you’re welcome to provide some if you have it. But I’d suggest that if you do, you’d need to correct for the problem of increased budget deficits, which would pretty much negate any minor benefit that tax cuts may have on savings and investment. And anyway, even if there is more balance achieved by cuts in spending, it will at best reach a point where it provides a net positive impact (meaning how you offset the loss in benefits against the reduction in taxes) to those in about the top 20% economic bracket.

16

Cutting taxes only benefits the major corporations.

2-4% of the population apparently pay 90% of the taxes.

the idea is that corporations will do some spending and the lower downs will feel the drip drip of what they fail to hold onto.

And seriously though. by lowering taxes, sure they will spend more, but they likely invest most of their money, so unless they additionally decide to do a whole lot more spending or buying the government will simply get less, which will increase the urgency of the deficit which currently exists.

I’ve never understood the idea of cutting taxes for the rich. If they will only come if we let them come cheap then there is no point of having them in our country besides the fact they provide an endless stream of expensive merchandise. If we raised taxes, the companies that invest in the U.S by building their stores there and providing jobs wouldn’t be seeing a high return on their investments, so they would pick up and leave, potentially leaving us in a dire position.

As it stands they are responsible for paying the most tax and providing the country with infrastructure, but the share their profits competitively, and the average citizen participates in the game only as a shmuck to be milked.

“too big to fail” means, “fuck you, you belong to me”…

17

Ing, the economy isn’t a zero sum game. It’s possible to create value without taking it away from others, as is evident from the way people around the world live today compared with fifteen hundred years ago. There are still the poor, but they aren’t much worse off than the poor of yore. The rich, on the other hand, are much improved, and their numbers are much expanded. There’s a concept in economics of Pareto efficiency, which describes an allocation of resources that makes at least one person better off and doesn’t make anyone worse off, and it’s achievable in economic systems.

PT, the Laffer curve doesn’t indicate what the optimal rate of taxation is. If we are taxing at less than optimal levels, increasing taxation will increase government revenue. Socialism doesn’t necessarily argue against the Laffer curve, just against the specific level of taxation above which government earnings decreases.

I don’t think this is too closely related to socialism per say. While the level of taxation will certainly affect how many government programs can be funded, for example, it is far from the only factor to be considered. The socialism I endorse has far more to do with how the government uses its money, as opposed to how much money the government gets. For instance, a government that taxed like crazy to wage imperialist wars wouldn’t be the right kind of socialism to defeat when arguing against me (and probably most socialists) because that wouldn’t be a socialism that they would endorse.

Another consideration is that the amount the “tide” rises is not the only consideration. Because monopolies are a market failure, having one “boat” rise drastically farther than the rest makes the market worse going forward, so a policy that slows the rate of rise but improves the equality of distribution is preferable in some cases. Because economies are dynamic system, the current state of affairs is only half the story; the projected state of affairs is at least equally important. We shouldn’t focus on massive increases of wealth, even for all of society, but for steady sustainable levels of progress, which socialism creates better than capitalism.

18

Wonderer, when business tax rates are cut, this creates jobs. cutting taxes for businesses or rich people (the VAST majority of which are business owners) isnt just benefiting them directly. it allows these businesses to hire more employees because they have more money to expand, and it also allows them to lower the cost of their products.

when taxes are cut at the “top” this helps everyone; its not some trickle down BS, its common sense. rich people, through their businesses, produce products and services as well as are the givers of jobs. all these things need money. when these rich people have MORE money they can do MORE of these things. its just common sense, as well as well-established economic fact.

“a rising tide lifts all boats” -JFK

19

Socialism is not a purely economic system. Like any political ideology, it has economic goals and visions, of course, but that does not equal the same thing. Further, not all forms of socialism advocate government ownership and some even reject the state outright. Likewise, even capitalism, which takes a more direct initial leap from an economic context, cannot be reduced to the economic relationships that it promotes, because those relationships have implications for society, culture, politics, etc.

What this discussion seems to be based on are historical versions of socialism and capitalism as developed and understood in the United States and which by no means exhaust the sense of either. This is exactly the problem, that discussions on such matters focus on pre-existing scenarios rather than possible futures and are therefore limited to an ideological posturing that is beyond sterile.

We need a proper definition of the concepts that precede the -isms here in order to make any kind of progress and that would require an open mind from all concerned. Vain hope!

20

matty: Socialism is not a purely economic system."

K: Once again, you have to be careful about what you say. Marx was an economist and marxism is an economic
system, not a political system. For marx, economic activity was the key to, well everything. Later, Marxism was
stretched by lenin and stalin into a political system. In any understanding of socialism, you must begin here.
Because for marx, man is the sum of his economic activity, not his political activity or any other activity, just Economic.

Kropotkin