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Where Socialism wins out

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SpiritBlooms
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13 Sep 2012, 1:24 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Socialism is a better system for rationing scarce goods than market based capitalism. Market based capitalism is better for increasing the supply of goods and services.

Whenever rationing must be imposed socialism is a system that gives a sense of fairness. Everyone (in theory) is equally screwed so no one feels singled out.

Socialism is the perfect system for making squalor and want bearable.

It's also been found to be a way to make plenty more bearable. Look at Denmark, one of the happiest places on earth.



Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 1:45 pm

SpiritBlooms wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Socialism is a better system for rationing scarce goods than market based capitalism. Market based capitalism is better for increasing the supply of goods and services.

Whenever rationing must be imposed socialism is a system that gives a sense of fairness. Everyone (in theory) is equally screwed so no one feels singled out.

Socialism is the perfect system for making squalor and want bearable.

It's also been found to be a way to make plenty more bearable. Look at Denmark, one of the happiest places on earth.


Denmark is far from being socialist.

http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

If the government stopped taxing everyone and everything to death there, the country would probably be even higher on the list.



DC
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13 Sep 2012, 1:46 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Socialism is a better system for rationing scarce goods than market based capitalism. Market based capitalism is better for increasing the supply of goods and services.

Whenever rationing must be imposed socialism is a system that gives a sense of fairness. Everyone (in theory) is equally screwed so no one feels singled out.

Socialism is the perfect system for making squalor and want bearable.

ruveyn


I think you have it completely backwards.

Capitalism is excellent at rationing scarce goods as soon as the supply becomes problematic the price shoots up and people think long and hard about if they really need the product or not because of the price signal.

Socialism however can produce a five year plan and direct an entire economy to achieving the aim regardless of cost. If you study the economics of the soviet union (ignoring bureaucracy issues and corruption) the major, major problem was an economy set up to mass produce enormous quantities of a product when demand had changed to a different product group entirely. This meant empty shelves in shops and massive warehouses full of unwanted goods which wasn't rectified until the next five year plan came out.

The same is true of subsidising farmers (socialism!) causing massive butter mountains and wine lakes in the EU or huge surplus harvests of grains in the US.



ruveyn
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13 Sep 2012, 2:17 pm

DC wrote:

Capitalism is excellent at rationing scarce goods as soon as the supply becomes problematic the price shoots up and people think long and hard about if they really need the product or not because of the price signal.


Compare the productivity of socialist an d capitalist economies.; For example the USSR: There was a chronic food shortage in the Soviet Union whose food production was based primarily on collective farms. In the capitalist countries there is a chronic overabundance of food.

And ditto for other goods.

ruveyn



Tequila
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13 Sep 2012, 2:33 pm

DC wrote:
wine lakes


Tell tha wumminz about that and that will disappear.



DC
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13 Sep 2012, 2:53 pm

ruveyn wrote:
DC wrote:

Capitalism is excellent at rationing scarce goods as soon as the supply becomes problematic the price shoots up and people think long and hard about if they really need the product or not because of the price signal.


Compare the productivity of socialist an d capitalist economies.; For example the USSR: There was a chronic food shortage in the Soviet Union whose food production was based primarily on collective farms. In the capitalist countries there is a chronic overabundance of food.

And ditto for other goods.

ruveyn


You are being a bit unfair, the starvation was for a short period and during massive upheaval.

The communists decided to move large numbers of proles from fields to the factories in a short period of time while also ordering farmers to plant crops that the farmers knew were completely unsuited to the land and would never grow. Total clusterfeck ensued.

It also doesn't help when tens of millions of your working age population has just been killed or disabled by WWII.

Since the initial stupid period of communism, starvation didn't return until the collapse of the soviet union and only in North Korea where they refused to play nice with any dirty foreigners. You may also want to consider that prior to communism starvation in Russia and China was a normal state of being for huge numbers of people.



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13 Sep 2012, 3:12 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
"Socialism" is being used in the American or North Korean sense of "communism", right? Rather than the European sense, which is what Americans seem to call "capitalism"- a balance where the richer in society are taxed so that the poor can be supported.


Even in Europe there's not agreement about the meaning of the term. For some people, socialism is a synonym of social democracy. To other people, socialism is a synonym of comunism, though some of them refers to it as 'real socialism'. There's people that makes some kind of scale Comunism > Socialism > Social democracy > Christian democracy. But why using subtles shades when political arguments are much funnier (and need less time thinking) using a broad brush?



Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 3:24 pm

DC wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
DC wrote:

Capitalism is excellent at rationing scarce goods as soon as the supply becomes problematic the price shoots up and people think long and hard about if they really need the product or not because of the price signal.


Compare the productivity of socialist an d capitalist economies.; For example the USSR: There was a chronic food shortage in the Soviet Union whose food production was based primarily on collective farms. In the capitalist countries there is a chronic overabundance of food.

And ditto for other goods.

ruveyn


You are being a bit unfair, the starvation was for a short period and during massive upheaval.

The communists decided to move large numbers of proles from fields to the factories in a short period of time while also ordering farmers to plant crops that the farmers knew were completely unsuited to the land and would never grow. Total clusterfeck ensued.

It also doesn't help when tens of millions of your working age population has just been killed or disabled by WWII.

Since the initial stupid period of communism, starvation didn't return until the collapse of the soviet union and only in North Korea where they refused to play nice with any dirty foreigners. You may also want to consider that prior to communism starvation in Russia and China was a normal state of being for huge numbers of people.


You're forgetting that the largest famine during the czar regime killed 400,000 people. The famine caused by the communist party during Lenin, killed 7.3 million people. This was because Lenin confiscated the grain, sold it to other countries and turned down foerign aid for three years.

The famine during the Great Leap Forward killed almost 20 millions; the world record as of 2012.



Tequila
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13 Sep 2012, 3:27 pm

Greb wrote:
Christian democracy.


What is Christian democracy? Is it social democracy with a Christian ethos? Sounds like it.



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13 Sep 2012, 3:34 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Oodain wrote:
there is a distinct us centric feel to this thread, then again when isnt there?

there are plenty of countries that fare better than the us by your own metrics because of that so oh so vilified socialism.


That is true. That is because we are suckers. We have shouldered the burden of defending these places that fare better than us. When we stop our insane military spending we might just be more prosperous by our own metric.

Part of the problem of the U.S. is that we fight the Forever War and we allow ourselves to be defined by our enemies. Eventually that must stop or we will be ruined.

ruveyn


A lot of our military spending is essentially Keynesian stimulus. Poor people join the army when they have no other way of supporting themselves. You could even call it a welfare program. Why else would the republicans be all freaked out about the "fiscal cliff" of automatic military cuts. It would put a ton of military employed people out on the streets. They know the military culture is right wing so they can blame it all on democrats. Genius!



Last edited by marshall on 13 Sep 2012, 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oodain
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13 Sep 2012, 3:38 pm

Kurgan wrote:
SpiritBlooms wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Socialism is a better system for rationing scarce goods than market based capitalism. Market based capitalism is better for increasing the supply of goods and services.

Whenever rationing must be imposed socialism is a system that gives a sense of fairness. Everyone (in theory) is equally screwed so no one feels singled out.

Socialism is the perfect system for making squalor and want bearable.

It's also been found to be a way to make plenty more bearable. Look at Denmark, one of the happiest places on earth.


Denmark is far from being socialist.

http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

If the government stopped taxing everyone and everything to death there, the country would probably be even higher on the list.


it isnt strictly socialist but it does have a lot of the things people claim is socialist in the us.

such as universal healthcare and education and an extensive social safety net.


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13 Sep 2012, 3:39 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Socialism is a better system for rationing scarce goods than market based capitalism. Market based capitalism is better for increasing the supply of goods and services.

Whenever rationing must be imposed socialism is a system that gives a sense of fairness. Everyone (in theory) is equally screwed so no one feels singled out.

Socialism is the perfect system for making squalor and want bearable.

ruveyn


As both sub ideologies of the price system, both capitalism and socialism are inadequate and antiquated systems.

We need an alternative economic system based on tangible commodities.



BroodQueen
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13 Sep 2012, 3:39 pm

communism was always a red herring.



thomas81
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13 Sep 2012, 3:41 pm

Kurgan wrote:

You're forgetting that the largest famine during the czar regime killed 400,000 people. The famine caused by the communist party during Lenin, killed 7.3 million people. This was because Lenin confiscated the grain, sold it to other countries and turned down foerign aid for three years.

The famine during the Great Leap Forward killed almost 20 millions; the world record as of 2012.


The current economic mode is killing 19 000 children a day through the same means.

19 000 x 365 = 6. 9 million a year and this has been going on since god knows when.

Thats not made up numbers on my part, thats official W.H.O. figures.



Last edited by thomas81 on 13 Sep 2012, 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

DC
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13 Sep 2012, 3:42 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Oodain wrote:
there is a distinct us centric feel to this thread, then again when isnt there?

there are plenty of countries that fare better than the us by your own metrics because of that so oh so vilified socialism.


That is true. That is because we are suckers. We have shouldered the burden of defending these places that fare better than us. When we stop our insane military spending we might just be more prosperous by our own metric.

Part of the problem of the U.S. is that we fight the Forever War and we allow ourselves to be defined by our enemies. Eventually that must stop or we will be ruined.

ruveyn


Didn't we have this conversation a few months ago?

Europe is perfectly capable of defending itself against anyone on the planet, if you want to pull out leave here it will not effect our security one bit.

Of course abandoning all your base over here would make access to the Middle east far more difficult for you and utterly dependent on the Saudi's, but go ahead it's no problem for us.

PS please take the secret CIA rendition and torture bases with you as we are really, really not very happy with you about that.



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13 Sep 2012, 4:02 pm

Capitalism is the best at utilizing the most resources and driving for the greatest efficiency to produce the most "stuff" that people desire for the least amount of human labor. What capitalism is bad at is creating a society where needed resources are equitably distributed. Capitalism also doesn't lead to a merit based distribution of compensation because the people with more to start with have a vast advantage. The people at the top of the chain with the competitive drive don't really realize that it isn't even in the best interest of their own class to create a huge disparity between rich and poor and the Nash equilibrium guarantees that the worst players undercut those who try to play more fair. Without the middle class the capitalists no longer have people sell their crap to and they invite their own demise. It's a lot like the elk that grow massive antlers to fight only to become immobilized prey.