this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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It may be possible that socialism and capitalism are just economic tools that can applied to different sectors of the economy depending on which works best in a given context.
But sure, let's all form up into groups that either think only socialism works or only capitalism works and try to misapply these to sectors of the economy where they've already been proven not to work. That makes sense!
It's like one group deciding that hammers are better than screwdrivers and trying to beat a screw into something with a hammer. Then the other group decides screwdrivers are better than hammers and are trying to use a screwdriver to hammer in nails. They'll both kinda work for everything, but for anyone that's not caught up in the argument it all seems kind of silly. Why not just use the screwdriver for the screws and use the hammer for the nails?
Or right, because of ideology.
I don't think you understand why people even want socialism or what it means to be a socialist. Socialism states that we are oppressed by the ruling class which are the capitalists. According to most socialist doctrine the government is controlled in part or entirely by the capitalists.
You also don't know anything about socialist economics. There are many socialist economic theories, a whole toolkit. Socialism isn't a single tool or a single group of people and ideas. Heck even capitalism has different variations, although less diverse than socialist ideology.
What you are talking about is hybrid economy which is also an ideology. You are also starting with the assumption that democracy is real and the government is acting in good faith. Neither of those are necessarily true especially if you live in the US.
That all sounds exhausting. Maybe we should just raise taxes on the rich to pay for social programs?
Does that really need to be slotted into an ideology before doing it?
Why do I have to understand politics? Why can't I just have what I want? That's what you are saying in effect.
If the rich control the state through corruption how is the state going to implement any of these ideas when it's against capitalist interests? In less corrupt nations what you want might be feasible, but somewhere like the USA you have no chance.
Honestly you can just admit you are not a socialist and don't understand socialism and move on. Statements like these are dumb and make you look dumb to anyone reasonably informed. Raising taxes isn't socialism, owning the means of production is socialism.
Sure I understand politics. At election time, I read the party platforms and check polling. That way I can can strategically vote based on the candidate that has the highest probability of enacting policies that I want. Though sometimes I vote to prevent a candidate that's regressive. Repeat for every election.
Sometimes I'll write to my representative. Sometimes I'll go to party meetings, do some phone banking.
Progress is slow, but when you actually care about the issues you can achieve progress by voting in as many elections as it takes to get there.
Next month the bus route I take will only charge one fare instead of two. It's a whole stupid thing, don't even ask.
Given that it tends to be the working class that takes the bus, this helps the working class in a small way. If everyone put effort into making small local changes we could achieve even more.
So yeah fixing bus fares doesn't sound like much, but I think it's far more help to the working class where I live than internet socialists have ever done. Too busy dreaming about some future socialist revolution that will solve all problems to make things better now. In fact I think that future revolution thing is mostly just an excuse to not make an effort to improve things now.
Do you even vote?
I actually used to do this. Didn't mean I understood much about politics and economics. Still could learn way more, but at least I don't think this alone is sufficient anymore. Under a FPTP voting system their are only two parties who can win anyway.
Some societies are literally going backwards - that's not progress. Take the USA or UK as prime examples. Also slow and steady leads to climate disaster and people being deprived of their rights - namely women in the US and trans people everywhere else.
Then you have met shit socialists. They are the people going to rallies and protests to show solidarity. Also the people building the unions, organising the strikes. Some vote in every election. There have been revolutions before, in almost every country on earth at some point. It's entirely possible to have another one. This whole thing is badly informed and horribly wrong, there are socialists out there doing more to help people than you are.
Honestly you just want to make yourself sound impressive for doing basic civic duty while shitting on people who's beliefs you don't even understand in a forum that's supposed to be for them.
You said you vote, then say it's exhausting to look into socialist policies. Can you not extend the same effort you put into voting for local, state, and federal representatives and policies to your employer?
Opportunity costs. Time I spend on endless dialectics or whatever is time I'm spending making an effort to actually improve things.
Less time spent on figuring out where an issue fits into a made up framework means more time spent actually thinking about the issue and doing something about it.
I'm asking if you can put the same effort of voting for government shit into your employers. Not to research socialist schools of thought. The main socialist ideals that I'm aware of that I think have the most support are those for democratizing the workforce.
I'll take that one step farther - socialism and capitalism are not even concrete tools - they are abstract values that actual tools and policies can be measured against - "this policy is more capitalist because it satisfies capitalist values X and Y, but it's also a bit socialistic because it contributes to socialist value Z". This is true for many things - like progressivism vs conservatism or deontology vs utilitarianism, to name a few - instead of treating them as the directions on the axes people decided to make them their all ideology.
Imagine if this was done with temperature. Alice likes hot weather and Bob likes it cold, so they decide to join the "Hotist" and "Coldist" camps respectively and fight each other publicly over which side of Mercury the Earth should be terraformed to. All this while the actually difference in their preferences is just a few degrees.
I don't advocate for centrism because I don't think we should always strive for the exact middle of every topic. We should strive for some point in the spectrum, because the very extremes are seldom correct (usually because of diminishing returns which make it, at the very least, not worth the complete dehumanization and destruction of the other side), but that point can be much closer to one of the extremes than centrists would be comfortable to even consider. Finding that point, of course, is not easy - certainly not as easy as picking one side (or picking the exact center) as your dogma.
Nope socialism has an actual definition. Capitalism has a definition. These are criteria for a given system (real or hypothetical) to be counted as capitalist or socialist. These are concrete criteria not values.
For socialism this requires that the means of production are owned by the workers.
For capitalism the means of production are owned privately and operated for profit.
There are multiple systems that could fit into either category, but they are mutually exclusive. A system cannot be both truly socialist and truly capitalist. They also are both compatible with the concept of markets - this isn't technically exclusive to capitalism like some people seem to think. You could have a hybrid economy where some means of production are owned by the workers and in other enterprises they are owned by private capitalists or investors; this is the reality of lots of systems.
I agree 100%. You could have a regulated market in economic sectors where that makes sense. But is it socialist, or is it capitalism? If it works, does it matter?
The relationship between economics and ideology is basically the same as the relationship between engineering and marketing. I guess you have to have marketing to sell the engineering to people, but sure as hell don't want marketing people making engineering decisions. That's how you end up with doors popping out of airplanes.
I don't really believe in the left/right/centrist paradigm. It's only useful as shorthand to describe political parties. I can say in my country party X is left, party Y is center-left, party Z is right and you'll get a general idea of the politics of my country. But it's just a made up thing. Different generations face different issues, different countries face different issues and those issues just get grouped together somewhat arbitrarily and the grouping that feels like it's left wing get called that and those that feel like it's right wing get called that. But taking that left/right thing too seriously just results in people opposing something simply because the other side wants it. Or voting against their own self interst simply because they identify as left or right or socialist or anarcho-libertarian-marxist-anti-colonialist or whatever. It's all really silly isn't it?
We have serious problems these days and it feels like people spend more time debating which team they're on rather than actually discussing the actual issues.
You literally have never taken the time to understand what any of these labels mean. If you did you would understand why these people disagree has nothing to do with the labels. I say this as an engineer, who likes the idea of treating economies like an engineering or science problem. The rich capitalists only work to service themselves and engineer society in ways that help themselves only. If you want a society that is engineered to help everyone you need to start with people that want to accomplish that. Hence why socialism encompasses many economic systems, because they are all designed to help humanity, not just the rich.
While I wouldn't agree that the ideologies of socialism and capitalism are compatible in determining economic relations within a country, I would say that socialism and even communism are compatible with markets, which is what I would say is the "tool" in that statement. Markets can be designed based on what is useful for that sector.
Except socialism and capitalism are fundamentally different and incompatible.
By using both for their tasks, do you mean state regulated capitalism?
I mean I make a doctor's appointment with an socialist government run system to get medical treatment. This is good because I don't end up going bankrupt if the doctor diagnoses me with a disease that requires expensive treatments.
Then I go to the grocery store which provides me with food. This is good because I don't want stand in some bread line.
It's actually how every system really works, just that people get boxed into some weird false dichotomy ideological reasoning that sometimes results in people in some people getting medicine from a capitalist system (which doesn't work well) or having a grocery store that's run by a socialist system (which also doesn't work well).
Just pick the right tool for the job and stop worrying about ideological purity is all I'm saying.
You describe a capitalist society with advanced universal healthcare and other such services. That's essentially Scandinavian model, and it's valid to want to go this route.
Socialists would disagree that this is the best for a variety of reasons.
First off, in defense of socialist regimes, while some select socialist societies did face deficits, sometimes famines even, this came as a result of aggressive and experimental policies (something we now know shouldn't be done) and poor reporting (something we now have the technology to avoid), all while for most of their history socialist societies did not have issues supplying people with variety of food and necessities. Also, economic issues of socialist countries come as direct consequences of restricted trade with capitalist societies which at all times held the majority of GDP - simply because most countries, especially rich ones, never turned socialist. When the socialist countries reverted to capitalism, they got access to that pool of foreign investment again, boosting their economy. Should it have been in socialist block, tides could turn way differently.
Second, capitalism is not and cannot be sustainable. As it dictates profit everything be damned, we end up with broken ecosystems, clearly broken timelines for ecological transition and continued destruction of our only habitat for sweet sweet bucks. Regulation only gets you so far, as it does not affect capitalism's fundamentals which immediately manifest themselves once the loophole is inevitably found (or made).
Third, as the main driver of capitalism is accumulation of wealth (which is why people make enterprises in the first place), this inevitably leads in money going into less and less hands as billionaires report ever higher profits while the rest of us is told that some sort of "crisis" is taking away our money, rising costs and deteriorating our quality of life.
Fourth and final, as I told about foreign investment, with modern multibillion international corporations we got into a situation when not companies are fighting to be hosted in a country, but rather countries compete to host corporations, often comprising a significant part of country's GDP. This reduces the amount of taxes, for example, that a given country can squeeze out of a company in order to actually fuel all that universal healthcare and other services you'd like to see.
So, to wrap up, socialists recognize there is middle ground, more control over capitalism, and should absolutely push for it. Socialists just don't think it's enough to prevent economic catastrophes of the future and struggles of today.
innovation requires experimentation. The benefit of a capitalism is that this can happen without catastrophic failure. Sure a company can go under because of an idiot CEO betting it all on something stupid, but that's just one company.
You're always going to have bad leaders. Elon Musk can completely screw up Twitter, but we'll be fine. Imagine a guy like that in charge of a socialist country.
It's difficult to predict how innovations will impact a society. In the Soviet Union they decided only the party leadership needed telephones. But in a capitalist society where people can use their money how they want and markets adapt to it, most of the population got telephones. People were able to choose for themselves how to best allocate resources. Having that decided at the top means you have a group that could get things wrong and society doesn't develop to it's fullest potential.
Avoiding experimentation because it doesn't work in a socialist society is just demanding stagnation because this "ideal" society isn't robust enough to handle change very well.
Large organizations always have problems with the leadership being disconnected and making poor decisions. Right now we've allowed corporations to get too large and this is a problem. The solution is trust-busting not replacing the handful of too-large organization with a single large organization.
Replacing a bunch of dumbass CEOs and their dumbass boards of directors with a single dumbass Premier and their dumbass Politburo doesn't solve anything. People are going to be dumbasses and a society can't handle that without people starving then it's not a good society no matter how ideal it may be on paper.
It's doubtful we'd be having this conversation right now if we had a socialist society. Would developing all the technology and running communication cables needed for the internet to work been considered a need by the politburo of a socialist society? They'd probably just have internet just for themselves so the rest of us could focus on working harder. Running cables everywhere might not be considered to be a worthwhile use of resources.
We have not "allowed" corporations to get big - they always will, that's the inevitable outcome of capitalism. Being bigger is always more economically effective, and capitalism is all about economic efficiency as it's direct means to produce more money. The corporations of today were literally predicted in the 19th century, and look where we are.
Capitalism cannot exist without the premise of consolidation and expansion - it is the driving force that motivates people to do something in a capitalist economy in the first place.
As wealth and, essentially, power consolidates into fewer hands, we face the same challenges - only now we have to deal with completely unelected authority that owes us nothing. Their downfall can have rippling effect on the entire economy, causing insane crises which, in turn, can quickly spiral out of control as markets are prone to vicious circles. Quite a few capitalist economies faced severe crises for seemingly stupid reasons.
Socialism, on the other hand, doesn't have to revolve around profits and monopolization. While economic efficiency that comes with centralized control is certainly hugely beneficial, we can build economy in any other way in order to make it more robust should we want to.
Soviet Union had telephones, and they were commonly used by everyday citizens - at home in cities, and through telephone boxes in villages and remote areas. I don't know where you take that from.
As per Internet, Soviet Union was developing a similar technology (OGAS, essentially dial-up Internet) since 1962. At first, it was designed to connect factories to better allocate resources (something that is now done by corporations and their logistics departments) - something that stemmed from the limitations of the time - but nothing stops the technology from being used on a residential scale, as fairly modern telephone lines were already there and new cables weren't a big issue.
Yup, and it's inevitable that weeds will grow in one's garden and it's inevitable that the viscosity of oil will break down in an engine and it will seize up.
Many things require maintenance. Capitalism is not different. Gotta do some trust busting now and then. Add some regulations on some industries in places where it makes sense.
Capitalism is a machine, and like any machine you have to do maintenance so it works well. Just gotta change the oil sometimes, no big deal.
Except none of those things try to take over the state through bribes and corruption. Capitalist enterprises do exactly that. How do you solve that problem?
Regulations are great, and we should have them; however, there's a reason they don't end up reversing the trend.
That's because if the capitalist enterprise doesn't grow, it stops existing. The very reason companies exist is the premise of them getting bigger, producing ever higher profits. Otherwise, the investments don't come, liabilities accumulate, and company dies.
You literally can't have one without the other, growth and profit are key drivers of capitalism. The very premise of growth is what makes these companies worthwhile for investors and owners. Without it, there is no sense in starting an enterprise in the first place.
(Also, for the sake of clarity - it's not me who downvotes you. Feel free to keep the discussion going, I have no issue with it)
@SpaceCowboy @cyu i don't think that's possible. In an economic system private property is either present or it is not present, if it is there it is capitalism if it is not there it is socialism, I don't think there is any middle ground
Then what you consider to be socialism isn't possible.
There are more people that want live on a beachfront than there is beachfront available. There are too many cases of scarcity that are impossible to resolve without some concept of property. Utopia literally translates to "no place" because while it's easy to talk about fictional paradises where there is no need for money or property, it's just something that can't be implemented in the real world.
@SpaceCowboy You can absolutely implement it instead, for one simple reason: they already have. Do you really want to tell me that on 372,000 kilometers of coastline that exists in the world there can't be as many people as they would like? Which by the way is certainly not eight billion because many people, like me, hate the sea. It is not the resources that are not enough, it is not the planet that is too small. The real problem is that the resources are poorly distributed.
I see you're not aware of the coastline paradox.
At any rate, even in a capitalist system where people don't always get to live where they want we've had to destroy a lot of ecosystems to make room for houses. So no, it's not feasible for everyone to live where they want to live, and attempting to do that isn't even a good thing to try even if it were possible.
Besides people don't want to live in Greenland. They want to live in Malibu Beach, or on the French Riviera. For people that don't like the beach, maybe they'll want to live on a vineyard, or maybe in the Swiss Alps for the skiing. There will always be desirable locations to live and not everyone is going to be able to live in a dream house there. Most people will have to live in an apartment building that has a view of other apartment buildings. It's just a physical reality of the world that 8 billion people aren't all going to have a beautiful view. It's also a reality that some people will. Some apartment building will be facing the ocean or a park or the mountains or whatever. But most aren't. Living in 3 dimensional spaces means things can never be 100% fair.
I agree. The fact that things can never be perfectly fair doesn't mean we can't do better in resource distribution. But to accomplish this, we need to somehow measure the value of resources... but that leads us to the concept of property, doesn't it?
Isn't socialism by definition a system that's supposed to be able to coexist with capitalism?
No. Where on earth did you get that idea?