this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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Y'all know that communism and socialism are two different things, right?
This video whines about propaganda being the problem, as if we haven't seen communism destroy the USSR.
As an economic system, communism failed. Having a central authority trying to take resources and distribute them to those with the greatest need was an absolute failure.
Capitalism thrived because of pure efficiency... as it turns out, with all the countless variables that affect people, in the end, a free market that allows people to decide on what they need at any given moment, and how much it's worth to them, capitalism was OBVIOUSLY superior.
So, how do we move forward in a world of late-stage capitalism where the wealth became too concentrated in the hands of the ultra-wealthy and mega-corporations?
That's where socialism can come into play. Bernie Sanders calls his policies "Democratic Socialism", but this is a misnomer. What he actually advocates for is Socialized Capitalism.
Let's face it: Capitalism is the greatest generator of wealth ever created. So instead of tearing it down, Bernie Sanders would have us keep the machine running, but to redistribute the wealth when it got into the hands of the super wealthy.
To me, this is a no-brainer. Keep using capitalism to generate new wealth, allow the hardest workers and innovators to become rich... but keep these in incentives to exactly the minimum level they need to be in order to motivate people.
For example... do you think college drop-out Bill Gates, working in his parents' garage would have worked any less hard if he knew he was going to earn $50,000,000 instead of $80,000,000,000?
Of course not.
So set exponentially higher taxes that make it virtually impossible to earn more than $50 million. Allow our rich people to have great wealth, enough to motivate people to shoot for that lifestyle... but then keep that wealth to a level where it isn't taking the bare necessities from other people.
Redistributing wealth is a great idea, but you first need to have a system that generates wealth. Communism absolutely fails at that.
It seems that in the US definitions of words related to moving past (or even mitigating the harms of) capitalism all get mixed together. Some of this is just how language evolves over time, but it's also a result of this being a topic subject to quite a bit of propaganda. On the right they will call any regulation they disagree with communism, and on the left you mention Bernie's "democratic socialism" vs "socialized capitalism". At this point if one is interested in slowing profit driven harm to people and the environment (where the clock is ticking) it may be best to destigmatize words like marxism, communism, and socialism as you will be called all of them anyway.
I'm not a fan of the more authoritarian aspects of the USSR or China, but I question the claim that it was obviously an inefficient economic system. Pre-communist China and USSR were both rather poor, nearly pre-industrial nations before their revolutions and both grew to become superpowers in a very short amount of time. All while being actively opposed by the west and in Russia's case after losing a huge chunk of their population in WW2.
I'm also not convinced that the promise of "getting rich" motivates much innovation. Or if it does I suspect it's less the wealth and more the escape from the anxiety that comes from wondering how your family will live under capitalism. Plenty of people contribute to open source software or choose careers in science and technology research with longer hours and a fraction of the pay as using the same skill set to design algorithms that get kids to look at more ads. Where markets might be more "efficient" is in incentivizing necessary, but unpopular jobs like cleaning a sewer; markets accomplish this via the threat of eviction, prison, and starvation if you were born in the wrong group.
There must be a better way. I don't care what it's called, I just hope we can sort it out before climate change makes life much worse.