Capitalism teaches people to be selfish. That doesn’t mean people are inherently selfish and can’t learn how to collectivize.

US public services are underfunded and still perform adequately. In fact, underfunding is a Friedman-esque tactic to reduce public trust in government services so they can be privatized (schools are a good example).

Nordic countries aren’t socialist and socialism is essentially the same thing communism.

Grumpy is a great writer, but great writing can still be full of errors and misconceptions.

9/8/2018 8:55:07 PM

rwoody, you misunderstand. I'm in favor of those things being government-run. But by and large, they're currently run poorly, and I don't think I'd hold them up as examples of what we want to aspire to: a population with some of the worst education statistics in the developed world, a crumbling infrastructure, etc.

Certainly I was not advocating private schools, which I have always detested on principle.

As far as libraries and roads being used, this is neither here nor there. People use public roads because they don't have a choice. This is not a mark for or against them.

Quote :

"Capitalism teaches people to be selfish. That doesn’t mean people are inherently selfish and can’t learn how to collectivize."

You have it backwards. Our inherently selfish nature has taught us to be capitalist.

Collectivization is not in our nature. On a large scale it has only been achieved at gunpoint, and it has been rotten to the core with corruption and other typically human selfishness. I'm sure there's a few million dead Ukrainians and Chinese who would agree to me.

On a small scale, little "collectives" can pop up and survive in tolerant, otherwise mixed-market societies where the members have comfortable safety nets of family or government services. Nobody dies in these, mostly because they eventually get bored and leave and find real jobs.

It is a good thing that humans are inherently selfish, because this gives us a means to direct their behavior other than boot heel and bayonet. We can provide a range of incentives to improve society. One of the central problems with America now is that all of our incentives are designed based on half-baked ideology rather than sound economics or psychology, with the result that you get programs that cost a mint just to do the exact opposite of what you want. This is how you end up with welfare and entitlement programs that can discourage work and encourage having children. It's how you get police forces scrambling for military hardware, or focusing on traffic tickets and property seizures to fund themselves rather than combating actual crimes. It's how 100% of the Federal budget keeps bloating and expanding. Everybody knows that particular perverse incentive: if a department economizes and spends less than last year's allotment, it will be rewarded with less money the following year. And so on.

9/9/2018 9:46:48 AM

Your entire political philosophy is based on a false premise, dude.

https://www.livescience.com/57991-conflicts-of-interest-science-humans-selfish-cooperation.html

9/9/2018 10:22:18 AM

Well shit, if a website I've never heard of says so...

...though really, it doesn't say so. The Haifa experiment, with which I was previously familiar, says nothing about human altruism or selflessness. At best, it indicates that our guilt (like everything else in the world) has a price. People feel a little guilty about being late. Evidently, in Israel that guilt can be bought for about $15.

OK, what can we do with that information? We could impose much higher fines and come close to eradicating late pickups. We could pass the proceeds from the fines on to the people who are inconvenienced by the late pick-ups, thereby buying their labor in much the same way we already do. This is exactly what I was suggesting: assess a cost on a behavior with negative externalities to compensate the people affected by them.

The other studies mentioned are all based on games, which have their place on a theoretical level but which are hardly going to elicit a pattern of real-world reactions. The firewood/water quality game, for example. In the game, poor water quality affects everybody. In the real world, the person who takes more firewood and makes more money buys La Croix flavored fizzy water while Flint Michigan gets lead poisoning.

9/9/2018 11:40:32 AM

Most human institutions are collectivist

Families, neighborhoods, communities, businesses internally, churches, and most every other group of people there is. Most people naturally understand that an individual might have to give something up if it means the group benefits.

Our economic system specifically incentives selfish behavior though, which means any business transaction is going to be driven by self-interests and winner-take-all.

If you want to know who’s doing it right, look at countries with predominantly market based economies, that have a low ratio of executive:worker pay, I think japan is at the top of this list.

In terms of literal capitalism there’s countries like Iceland where most land is owned by the government and leased (for decades or longer at very low rates) to private individuals for use. It means the government can terminate the lease at any time if there’s a compelling interest to do so, but also makes it clear no one person “owns” the land, it’s a resource which has the purpose of benefiting the people in society.

Americans don’t tend to look at capital this way. We view things that should be considered society’s shared resources, as trophies that individuals win for performing certain actions.

Ironically Trump is good at directly asking groups to suffer for a greater good, he just never asks his own peer group of millionaires and billionaires and capital owners to do the suffering.

[Edited on September 9, 2018 at 12:19 PM. Reason : ]

9/9/2018 12:19:23 PM

Quote :

"Most people naturally understand that an individual might have to give something up if it means the group benefits."

This is where it always falls apart. You see people giving up stuff for the benefit of the group, for the group's sake. I see people giving up stuff for the benefit of the group, because in the long term, the strength of the group benefits them. We give up some tax money so that police will benefit the neighborhood. This benefits the neighborhood as a whole, sure; but it also benefits us as individuals, keeping us safe, keeping our property values high, etc. We work hard at our jobs for the benefit of the company. In a large sense, this is because the company has to stay afloat to keep paying us. In a narrow sense, it's because we hope that our efforts will be rewarded with raises or promotions or casual Fridays or whatever.

9/9/2018 3:42:40 PM

The police do not exist to keep us safe. The police exist to protect private property. Generally speaking, those with the most private property get the most police protection. The preservation of property values is only a benefit to communities that own property. And that preservation of property usually comes at the expense of those who do not have property (mostly poor black and brown people).

They're called the "police FORCE" for a reason. They exist to preserve private interests by force, not cooperation.

9/9/2018 7:44:46 PM

Quote :

"Americans don’t tend to look at capital this way. We view things that should be considered society’s shared resources, as trophies that individuals win for performing certain actions."

Such is the beauty of "capitalism": People are free to organize how they see fit. If Americans are go-for-broke work enthusiasts who want to win and will work as hard as it takes to increase efficiency and drive up production in order to drive their competitors out of business, they get to do that for the benefit of their customers and through productivity society at large. If the French are eager to work 30 hour weeks and retire early with commensurately lower life-time pay and lower long-term productivity, they're free to be that way, too. If the people instead want to form collectives and cooperate to minimize stress and maximize stability, they're free to do that too.

The only problem arises when government gets involved and starts threatening people with violence to act in ways they do not wish to act.

9/10/2018 5:34:00 PM

"Capitalism drives innovation"

10/4/2018 12:20:14 PM

^Was he in the capitalist economy? Or was he an academic researcher?

Lots of innovation is performed by professors who don't really make a whole lot of money. That example may not be a good one if that's the case.

10/4/2018 12:23:46 PM

Quote :

"Lots of innovation is performed by professors who don't really make a whole lot of money."

Yeah that's my point. Capitalism is not required for innovation, and it's often detrimental to innovation. Government took us to the moon, invented the internet, the touch screen, most major scientific achievements. Capitalists hired workers to adapt them to make a profit.

[Edited on October 4, 2018 at 12:29 PM. Reason : .]

10/4/2018 12:27:48 PM

Of course not. Humans are naturally inventive. They'll be inventive anywhere you put them, including the Soviet Union.

However, some professor theorizing a new way to boost productivity is not actually helpful to mankind. What makes us all better off is when someone decides to do the work to implement that idea in the productive economy, perhaps to their detriment or all of our profit. It seems logical to believe a free enterprise system would be best at doing this, as those implementing the idea will be limited to those that believe in it and have a stake in making it work. In that way, firms that implement ideas that are detrimental, or simply refuse to implement new ideas, go bankrupt and disappear without harming the economy at large, while firms that implement new good ideas that are actually beneficial prosper and bid down prices for everyone.

To put it another way, landing a man on the moon made everyone feel good for a time, but it didn't actually help anyone at all. Meanwhile, the firms that took those ideas and used it to deploy private communication satellites lowered the cost of telecommunications and made everyone better off.

It is plausible to argue that capitalism is bad at the former, putting people on the moon or funding pure research. But capitalism seems to be very good at stealing ideas to implement them on a large scale, and that is really what matters for human productivity. In-so-far as we believe the government needs to fund pure research, it can, using tax dollars raised from the productive capitalist economy.

[Edited on October 8, 2018 at 4:47 PM. Reason : .,.]

10/8/2018 4:46:14 PM

Reminder that LoneSnark has heard all of the arguments and doesn't care. He's fascist-adjacent.

my response:

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."

aka

get with the program or fuck off

10/8/2018 5:39:44 PM

Lol so dramatic.

10/8/2018 6:23:26 PM

Yeah idc. Lonesnark and anyone else who defends capitalism at this point deserves to be called what they are: fascism apologists. It's pointless to debate them. They're the same people who enabled Nazi Germany.

10/8/2018 6:30:44 PM

I doubt they care. Fascism is a pointless blah word.

10/8/2018 6:35:43 PM

Just like a right winger will never admit to being racist.

10/8/2018 6:45:44 PM

And it's hard not to be a little dramatic when mass extinction of portions of the human race within this century becomes more and more cemented into reality. The time for debate is over - we need a radical movement or we're pretty much fucked.

[Edited on October 8, 2018 at 7:02 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2018 6:59:30 PM

Who’s going extinct??!!

[Edited on October 8, 2018 at 7:06 PM. Reason : ?]

10/8/2018 7:03:13 PM

^maybe hes talking about venezuela where socialism led to people dumpster diving for food. dunno

[Edited on October 8, 2018 at 7:28 PM. Reason : f]

10/8/2018 7:22:54 PM

you stupid fucks were literally just drenched with a hurricane of biblical proportions but fuck it, i'm sure you'll be fine

10/8/2018 7:24:57 PM

Ah yes global warming. Not gonna be pretty

10/8/2018 7:32:38 PM

can't wait for people like beatsunc to cheer on genocide when the "refugee crisis" gets literally 100x worse.

10/8/2018 7:43:37 PM

^because refugees always flee capitalism to get to socialism

10/8/2018 8:21:59 PM

Quote :

"anyone else who defends capitalism...enabled Nazi Germany."

wut

10/8/2018 8:30:00 PM

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/capitalism-and-nazism/

10/8/2018 8:47:32 PM

The only people actively genociding and putting millions of people in camps are on the other side of the planet.

Also this thread is about democratic socialism. Which is clearly still capitalism.

[Edited on October 8, 2018 at 8:54 PM. Reason : Back on topic you stupid communists. ]

10/8/2018 8:52:50 PM

did Canadians enable Nazi Germany? how about South Koreans?

[Edited on October 8, 2018 at 8:57 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2018 8:56:13 PM

Quote :

"Also this thread is about democratic socialism. Which is clearly still capitalism."

No. You're thinking of Social Democracy (the Nordic model) which is a mixed economy with a strong welfare state. Bernie does everyone a disservice by referring to himself as a Democratic Socialist when he is actually a Social Democrat (a New Deal Democrat who believes in a strong welfare state and Keynesian controls on the economy)

Democratic Socialism is workers controlling the means of production, which, by definition, is not capitalism, as the modes of production and property would not be privately owned by business interests.

10/8/2018 9:02:56 PM

Lol are we just making up definitions for capitalism so we can get pissed at it?

10/8/2018 9:12:52 PM

You literally just claimed that socialism and capitalism are the same thing

10/8/2018 9:15:44 PM

I have yet to read a platform from a “democratic socialist” that reject capitalism. Enlighten me!

10/8/2018 9:30:57 PM

It's okay, you can admit you were wrong. I'm not gonna sit here and rehash the arguments of Rosa Luxembourg for you

10/8/2018 9:41:53 PM

I will admit I was trying to get my dog to shit while Twwing.

I will also admit I think democratic socialism is pretty silly now realizing that they are actively differentiating themselves from social democracy. The active candidates in NYC have done a shit job of outling this.

10/8/2018 9:59:11 PM

Quote :

"I will also admit I think democratic socialism is pretty silly"

Why is that?

10/9/2018 12:12:38 AM

https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/#govt

Before we go further would you say this is a good breakdown of DS? Are there any other descriptions you’d like to include?

10/9/2018 7:05:32 AM

Quote :

"No. You're thinking of Social Democracy (the Nordic model) which is a mixed economy with a strong welfare state. Bernie does everyone a disservice by referring to himself as a Democratic Socialist when he is actually a Social Democrat (a New Deal Democrat who believes in a strong welfare state and Keynesian controls on the economy) Democratic Socialism is workers controlling the means of production, which, by definition, is not capitalism, as the modes of production and property would not be privately owned by business interests."

DSA literally says that major change is unlikely so we should make capitalism work better for people on their platform page, DSA is a party that exists in a capitalist economy
https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/#corporations

socialism is a means to make things more fare, to stop a few people from taking advantage of the rest, that's still true if socially owned companies are part of a capitalist market. this is a market socialism vs social democracy discussion which is a bit outside of the fact that even the democratic socialist party in the US understands that we aren't going to suddenly remove private property or the market economy

[Edited on October 9, 2018 at 7:34 AM. Reason : .]

10/9/2018 7:27:35 AM

Thank for posting that.

Socialism doesn’t remove capitalism. It changes some of its functionality but let’s not pretend it’s removed.

10/9/2018 10:39:32 AM

Quote :

"Yeah idc. Lonesnark and anyone else who defends capitalism at this point deserves to be called what they are: fascism apologists. It's pointless to debate them. They're the same people who enabled Nazi Germany."

So, hmm, you're saying it was the capitalists that enabled and defended the "National Socialists" in Germany? Odd. I would have thought it would have been the Socialists cheering on the Socialists.

Next you're going to tell me it was all those rothbardian anarcho capitalists that were playing useful idiots for the Soviet Union?

[Edited on October 9, 2018 at 10:47 AM. Reason : .,.]

10/9/2018 10:44:03 AM

This is going to devolve into a Dinesh D’Souza does history nightmare, isn’t it?

We are a second away from “actually Nazism was a far left ideology.”

10/9/2018 10:54:10 AM

^^ this is such a hilarious cliche at this point.

Even if National Socialism was the perfect essence of socialist thought it was still rooted in racism and nationalism. Why would I cheer on a countries economic structure when it also champions something I entirely reject?

[Edited on October 9, 2018 at 10:56 AM. Reason : ^^]

10/9/2018 10:56:23 AM

^^^
lmao

^^^^^

Quote :

"In the short term we can’t eliminate private corporations"

The goal & overarching philosophy is elimination of private ownership of the means of production. Obviously that's a pipe dream at this point, and we're forced to work within the current system, but you can't separate out the actual definition.

Quote :

" Even if National Socialism was the perfect essence of socialist"

It wasn't. They privatized state industries and literally killed socialists, communists, and liberals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany

[Edited on October 9, 2018 at 10:59 AM. Reason : .]

10/9/2018 10:56:24 AM

^ yes but even if it was, which it obviously was not, I would still reject the entire idea of nazism.

regarding public/private ownership, the largest corporations in the world are not privately owned. Moving the stock market structure internal and putting it in the control of the workers does not change the external workings of the corporation. I see how this increases the monetary gains of the workers but this is still capitalism in my opinion. Is this the end game or am I missing something?



[Edited on October 9, 2018 at 11:05 AM. Reason : bla bla]

10/9/2018 10:59:54 AM

Quote :

"DSA literally says that major change is unlikely so we should make capitalism work better for people on their platform page, DSA is a party that exists in a capitalist economy"

DSA's mission statement doesn't change the definition of what socialism is, though. There are other socialist organizations within the US that explicitly look to work outside of capitalism (Socialist Alternative, PSL, ISO, etc). The squabble between vanguard revolutionary parties vs reformists parties has always existed on the left.

The rift between center left and left exists within the US, and the question of reforming capitalism vs replacing it has always been there. DSA is a reformist structure, but socialism by definition is an alternatice economic model to capitalism.

The reason why DSA is so popular is specifically because they aren't a revolutionary party but rather reformist in nature. But that doesn't change the structural difference between Social Democracy and actual Socialism.

10/9/2018 11:32:42 AM

so market socialism is not socialism to you?

Quote :

"The reason why DSA is so popular is specifically because they aren't a revolutionary party but rather reformist in nature. But that doesn't change the structural difference between Social Democracy and actual Socialism. "

so my original post stands

[Edited on October 9, 2018 at 11:41 AM. Reason : .]

10/9/2018 11:40:28 AM

Quote :

"Even if National Socialism was the perfect essence of socialist thought it was still rooted in racism and nationalism. Why would I cheer on a countries economic structure when it also champions something I entirely reject?"

Quoth adultswim:

Quote :

"Lonesnark and anyone else who defends capitalism at this point deserves to be called what they are: fascism apologists. It's pointless to debate them. They're the same people who enabled Nazi Germany.""

It doesn't matter that you reject Nazi ideology. All that matters is that adultswim doesn't like your ideas, therefore you are not better than anyone else whose ideas he doesn't like.

10/9/2018 11:58:13 AM

ok good for him.

Regardless, your National Socialism should be cheered by "socialists" comment was retarded and I thought you were smarter than that.

10/9/2018 12:02:38 PM

^^
Sorry, let me clarify: I don't like your ideas. I don't mind market socialists or people who aren't hardline Capitalists.

10/9/2018 12:15:11 PM

Quote :

"so market socialism is not socialism to you?"

Well, no. No, it isn't. That's why you used a different word. I mean, it's more "Socialist-ier" than un-fettered free market capitalism, but it's not worker owned means of production, which is what socialism is. It's certainly a preferred alternative to our hyper form of imperialist capitalism, though.

Look, DSA is a big tent (I'm a member), and there are a wide range of center left liberals (capitalists), to more progressive social democrats (the Ocasio Cortez types), to the occasional intellectual Soviet sympathizer. Compare that with say, PSL, where you'll see more marxist-Leninist, maoists, anarchists, and other radicals who advocate for armed struggle to eradicate capitalism in order to usher in socialism. Where you fall in that spectrum is up to you. Do you want a kinder, more gentle form of capitalism? Or do you want something different?

10/9/2018 12:18:50 PM

Bernie's speech on the rise of authoritarianism today:

https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/1049683727880720385

10/9/2018 12:57:31 PM