princeofcarthage wrote:Yes @Dolan capitalism has directly resulted in 2 world wars, colonalism, slavery, millions of deaths due to famines. African countries are still exploited for their reaources. Remember warsaw pact was created in response to Nato and not vice versa. Maybe USSR and China started wars but flames were always ignited by USA to protect and expand its interests.
Well, good luck proving every statement you made here. You're claiming a lot of things, but not bringing any evidence to support these statements or at least providing some more arguments.
For example, it could be argued that WW2 was caused by socialism, since Nazism was just a particular version of socialism.
princeofcarthage wrote:Yes @Dolan capitalism has directly resulted in 2 world wars, colonalism, slavery, millions of deaths due to famines. African countries are still exploited for their reaources. Remember warsaw pact was created in response to Nato and not vice versa. Maybe USSR and China started wars but flames were always ignited by USA to protect and expand its interests.
Well, good luck proving every statement you made here. You're claiming a lot of things, but not bringing any evidence to support these statements or at least providing some more arguments.
For example, it could be argued that WW2 was caused by socialism, since Nazism was just a particular version of socialism.
n0el wrote:So because they killed other people and not their own people it was justified. Got it.
No, I never said that. First of all, this discussion started with the topic of whether a world order dominated by the USA is preferable to one dominated by China and/or Russia. It wasn't really a debate on whether certain economic systems are more likely than others to start wars. Since the decision to start wars is typically a political one, although you could argue that economic motives may also underlie such decisions.
I don't think you could credibly argue that capitalism was what determined the US to start a war in Iraq. Because Switzerland is a capitalist country too. Same for Sweden, Italy, Romania, Poland, Spain. And yet none of these states have started any wars recently. This should give you food for thought: why don't other capitalist states in the world start wars like the US of A? Is it really capitalism that makes the USA intrude in other countries' domestic issues?
Because this argument sounds like this: the fact that our species has two sexes is responsible for any violence in the world. So maybe the solution would be to make sure that we abolish sexual dimorphism, since it's causing violence. Not to mention that not all people of either sexes are necessarily violent, but if a certain percentage of them are acting violently, that must be because they belong to a certain sex (let's say, mostly men). Surely it's the sex that is causing this, not some particular personality traits that those individuals have.
n0el wrote:I donāt know what system you are talking about, but it isnāt capitalism. So just ignore what Iām saying because your utopia doesnāt exist.
I am literally using the definition of capitalism. You are talking about some mix of corporate cronyism (in the case of modern abuses) and mercantilism (in the case of historical abuses), neither of which is necessarily associated with capitalism. And how can you dispute that the unprecedented rise in peace, prosperity, and life expectancy over the last two centuries has been due to capitalism? How can you ignore the real-life, modern-day case studies of China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea etc. etc.
Well, I am describing capitalism in practice, not one book definition. By the way, in my country we learn that capitalism is a system aimed at maximization of profit, maybe thatās different in the UK.
By the way, Iām not disputing that capitalism was better than feudalism, clearly it was an improvement. Iām saying that capitalism isnāt the final stage of development, it can be improved upon.
n0el wrote:By the way, Iām not disputing that capitalism was better than feudalism, clearly it was an improvement. Iām saying that capitalism isnāt the final stage of development, it can be improved upon.
There is no final stage of development. If there was one, politics would be rendered useless and deprecated. We'd just apply the rules of that infallible system blindly and politicians would have to go home and look for another job.
But since humans are pretty much uncontainable in any given system, that's why we have politicians and politics. To keep negotiating new power arrangements, new contractual relations which are meant to provide a temporary stand-off in a neverending social conflict.
n0el wrote:By the way, Iām not disputing that capitalism was better than feudalism, clearly it was an improvement. Iām saying that capitalism isnāt the final stage of development, it can be improved upon.
There is no final stage of development. If there was one, politics would be rendered useless and deprecated. We'd just apply the rules of that infallible system blindly and politicians would have to go home and look for another job.
But since humans are pretty much uncontainable in any given system, that's why we have politicians and politics. To keep negotiating new power arrangements, new contractual relations which are meant to provide a temporary stand-off in a neverending social conflict.
n0el wrote:By the way, Iām not disputing that capitalism was better than feudalism, clearly it was an improvement. Iām saying that capitalism isnāt the final stage of development, it can be improved upon.
There is no final stage of development. If there was one, politics would be rendered useless and deprecated. We'd just apply the rules of that infallible system blindly and politicians would have to go home and look for another job.
But since humans are pretty much uncontainable in any given system, that's why we have politicians and politics. To keep negotiating new power arrangements, new contractual relations which are meant to provide a temporary stand-off in a neverending social conflict.
But yet that is how capitalism is treated, an infallible system.
n0el wrote:By the way, Iām not disputing that capitalism was better than feudalism, clearly it was an improvement. Iām saying that capitalism isnāt the final stage of development, it can be improved upon.
There is no final stage of development. If there was one, politics would be rendered useless and deprecated. We'd just apply the rules of that infallible system blindly and politicians would have to go home and look for another job.
But since humans are pretty much uncontainable in any given system, that's why we have politicians and politics. To keep negotiating new power arrangements, new contractual relations which are meant to provide a temporary stand-off in a neverending social conflict.
But yet that is how capitalism is treated, an infallible system.
n0el wrote:Well, I am describing capitalism in practice, not one book definition. By the way, in my country we learn that capitalism is a system aimed at maximization of profit, maybe thatās different in the UK.
By the way, Iām not disputing that capitalism was better than feudalism, clearly it was an improvement. Iām saying that capitalism isnāt the final stage of development, it can be improved upon.
> Discusses capitalism in theory > "Well, I am describing capitalism in practice" > Criticises communism in practice > "That's not true communism!!!!!!"
n0el wrote:Well, I am describing capitalism in practice, not one book definition. By the way, in my country we learn that capitalism is a system aimed at maximization of profit, maybe thatās different in the UK.
By the way, Iām not disputing that capitalism was better than feudalism, clearly it was an improvement. Iām saying that capitalism isnāt the final stage of development, it can be improved upon.
> Discusses capitalism in theory > "Well, I am describing capitalism in practice" > Criticises communism in practice > "That's not true communism!!!!!!"
Where did I say theory? I was giving you examples of things that have happened. Where did say communism was good? Iāve been arguing for democratic socialism, very different.
Which is pretty much a theoretical kind of proposition. But anyway, all political and economic systems eventually tend towards their extremes. What starts as socialism eventually ends up as totalitarian communism. And what begins as laissez faire capitalism eventually degenerates into quasi-monopolistic casino capitalism. So I'm skeptical about these "middle of the road" propositions. They never manage to remain in that spot.
There is a fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism, though, that does make a difference in this debate. A market-based system like capitalism normally does have a way to deal with failure, while any top-down system, like socialist ones, inherently fails to admit failure or inefficiency, since economic planning trumps market performance.
On the other hand, government intervention in the economy to save the "too big to fail" financial Beelzebubs eventually perverted capitalism, turning it into a crony version of itself (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are examples of crony capitalism).
No it's not, it relies on "decentralised planning" which is just a weaselly way of dealing with the problem of economic control. And this is all theory, it hasn't even been really tried yet in any major country.
What do you do when one of those local committees fails at their planning job? How do they get punished by the market? They don't because they are "planners", their jobs don't depend on market performance, but on political appointment. If their jobs were tied to market performance, then why would you even need planning? They would act like CEOs.
Not to mention that democratic socialism basically removes any real incentive to be a good economic performer. If ownership of an enterprise is shared by all workers, how do you reward those who are more productive? You don't because, if you do that, it eventually leads to what you had during capitalism proper, ie inequality.
Why does it preclude other market mechanisms? You aren't removing the market, simply changing the ownership dynamic. There still will be some inequality of wage, but much much less than what exists in the current system.
Why does it preclude other market mechanisms? There still will be some inequality of wage, but much much less than what exists in the current system.
Well, might as well apply the profit-sharing scheme I proposed, which involves minimal changes to the current system and provides a real and verifiable trickledown effect for workers. Spreading ownership does not magically make a business viable or profitable. You have to share economic gains after they're actually registered, as profits, not before, by spreading ownership around the table. First make the business viable so it actually has some gains to share, then apply a profit-sharing scheme, rather than putting the cart (ownership) before the horses (viability). My 2c.
Profit sharing exists today, but it doesnāt change the inequality relationship. In fact if you look at it in the US itās a way to suppress wage increases by offering an alternative payment scheme.
Of course spreading ownership doesnāt magically make a business profitable, but the current system doesnāt either. Why would it matter? The success of the business is going to be based on the output of the workers, there is nothing to do with ownership that affects that.
Can you name one big company in which such an ownership scheme worked and the company was economically viable for more than a decade?
How do you think this could practically work with 206 millions of working age Americans? How could they all be represented as equal shareowners in each company in which they're also employed?
Dolan wrote:Can you name one big company in which such an ownership scheme worked and the company was economically viable for more than a decade?
How do you think this could practically work with 206 millions of working age Americans? How could they all be represented as equal shareowners in each company in which they're also employed?
Yeah, I can if you are interested I think I have made vids of it before. Interested this time? or should I save the effort
Can you imagine a whole society built upon this idea? And that the CEO is voted to be in charge by the worker? And where the CEOs wage cannot be more than 8x the lowest paid worker? And where there is much less unemployment that in the region it is placed in? And it grew from one idea to one company, to lots of company, and even their own bank? And it's a multi-billion dollar enterprise, competing with any other enterprises? I guess you cannot
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
Dolan wrote:Can you name one big company in which such an ownership scheme worked and the company was economically viable for more than a decade?
How do you think this could practically work with 206 millions of working age Americans? How could they all be represented as equal shareowners in each company in which they're also employed?
Yeah, I can if you are interested I think I have made vids of it before. Interested this time? or should I save the effort
Maybe you can post it for other people too, Im actually interested in seeing that + one can learn something from it.
Dolan wrote:Can you name one big company in which such an ownership scheme worked and the company was economically viable for more than a decade?
Yeah I can think of at least a dozen off the top of my head
cmon, there are 100 000s if coops around the world. It is older than capitalism, wake up. Problem is that they are seldom run by the workers, and its rare that the CEOs are voted on. But that can change, ez
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.