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POLL: Capitalism or Socialism
in Economy
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p6M-VgXHwwdpJarhyQYapBz-kRc6FrgdOLFAd3IfYz8/edit
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Capitiliam allows the people who work for their money become wealthy.
Socialism allows all people to have a "middle class" amount of wealth.
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Animal Farm highlights this where the animals are all working to death, literally in some cases , and the pigs end up living in the house and have everything they need. In the end it even mentions how the pigs and humans are almost impossible to tell apart anymore. Perfect example.
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"There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".
"Oh, you don't like my sarcasm? Well I don't much appreciate your stupid".
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Lol ikr. Animal Farm was for critiquing not only the USSR, but also other extremely authoritarian governments. It had nothing to do with socialism.
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Capitalism is a natural system for free individuals who partake in economical activities for their personal reasons, and not for the reasons of the collective.
The reason why the socialist camp lost the Cold War is pretty simple: socialist economies features a significantly lower return from economical activities and eventually lost the competition. And the reason for this discrepancy, in my opinion, is people's natural strife for being free. Being controlled is not in our genes, and our productivity drops significantly when such a situation arises.
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While I understand that people think socialism is all about control, it isn't. That's authoritarianism. The only people socialism restricts are probably large companies who already have too much power as it is. A democratic socialist government with perhaps some capitalistic values, would benefit almost everybody.
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The Socialism that you have outlined is not only that of a fairytale system, but in no way just. Where shall I begin with my rebuttal? By Socialism I can assume you mean the equal redistribution of wealth by an empowered and heavily centralized government. Please refute this assumption on the basis that it is an inaccurate representation of the Socialism you refer to, as I do not want to be subject to misinformation. However, if you are to refute this assumption by means of declaring that your view of Socialism is one "where government has some control with capitalistic values", then by no means is that Socialism, nor Democratic Socialism, for Democratic Socialism entails a democratically elected Socialized System.
And if you are to advocate for Social Democracy, then you are merely in essence advocating for a form of Capitalism.
REBUTTAL 1: THE MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF SOCIALISM VS CAPITALISM
I find it inconceivable that people have become fond of the notion of equality of outcome by means of redistributing wealth equally to a given population, and I find it even more reprehensible that this notion is deemed "fair". I should like to iterate that the means of redistributing wealth is by no means an effective way of creating a successful economy (I shall expand on whether it works further into my comment, for we are talking about the morals of socialism, and fairness)
It is not fair to take almost all of the money earned by somebody as a means of redistributing it to the population. This argument lies within the core of whether one individual values equality of outcome as opposed to equality of opportunity, which in essence on a social context is capitalism versus socialism. A rather anecdotal yet relevant analogy for the virtues of Capitalism versus Socialism is this: In a Classroom, the teacher grants all the students 10 days to study for an exam that all of them will participate in taking. You use the 10 days to study and work to the sweat, which eventually sees you obtain a 100% on the exam. However, your classmate, who spent the 10 days neglecting his studies obtained a 10%. Unfortunately for you, however fortunately for your classmate, the teacher deems it fair for compensation to ensue, and the grades that were so difficultly obtained by you have now been evenly distributed amongst the class in that everyone obtained an equal 60%, just passing the class
This is by no means moral. A government bent on theft, allocating usually hard earned money from those who stood up to give to those who are sitting down is by no means a "fair system". Fairness is granting everybody the opportunity to pursue a life of freedom, by means of avoiding any laws that forbid for an individual to attempt to reach his goal.
TERM: Understand that I used "Forbid" rather than hamper, for there are numerous governmental policies implemented with the idea of helping the poor, which only end up proving detrimental to certain communities (More on that later)
This is in essence, what Socialism entails. The entire idea of redistributing wealth is predicted on the misconception of there being the 1% (Who are supposedly the billionaires with their fat cats) and the 99%, the rest of us. unfortunately this is not the case.
REBUTTAL 2: THE 1% OF FAT CATS
According to Renowned World Economist Branko Milanovic, in regards to World Wide Statistics, those who are in the 1% are those who earn greater than $34,000 dollars, which in essence is over 80% of Americans. The majority of Americans who tout on about the 1% are they themselves, 1 percent"ers" within Gobal Statistics.
Studies show that the average American earns 50 times more than those in extreme poverty. I'd also like to emphasize that these statistics only take into account wealth in terms of money earned. The bottom 20% of Americans live a more comfortable life (In respects to food available, schooling, literacy and Material wealth) than the bottom 60% of Venezuelans, and the bottom 90% of Ghanaians (Both Socialized or pre-Socialized Economies)
According to a study by the Internal Revenue Service: More than half the people that were in the top 1% in 1996 were no longer there in 2005. This is just as true with the even richer. Within the top 100th of the 1%, over 3/4th of them were no longer there by the end of the decade.
Furthermore, those who inherent affluence or wealth don't find themselves keeping it for very long. The majority of inherited billionaires throughout history lose their wealth by the 3rd generation of inheritance.
No economic bracket is fixed, more the 95% of all Americans in the last 50 years have transcended into a new income bracket, whether it be higher or lower. Economic income brackets fluctuate often, and to make the assumption that we are all stuck under a specific position is ludicrous.
REBUTTAL 3: THE ASSUMPTION OF EXTERNAL DAMNATION AS A MEANS TO COMPENSATE FOR INTERNAL FARCE
Fortunately, I can tell you through various historical examples of a failing Socialized Economy. The evidence for which I will be using here will be from Thomas Sowell's 'BASIC ECONOMICS':
According to The Economist (1990): "India jettisoned four decades of socialized economic isolation and planning, and freed the country's entrepreneurs for the first time since Independence" This reform to transform into a freer market saw India's economic growth rate become 9% from 1978 to 1995.
"Back in 1978, less than 10% of China's Agricultural outputs was sold in open markets, by 1990, 80% was."
"The Economic shift from socialism to a capitalist market resulted in more food available in cities, and thus a rise in farmers income by 50%"
"Release of price control resulted in an economic growth rate of 9% from 1978 to 1995"
None of these countries were ever subject to direct collusion plans from any Capitalist country, yet they failed to grow into economic powerhouses until they released the shackles of their socialized ways and transformed into capitalist nations.
REBUTTAL 4: THE FAILURE TO ASSESS THE NEED FOR CORPORATIONS AND CAPITALISTIC INCENTIVIZED GREED
A huge problem with Socialism is that it fails to adhere to the necessity of greed. Incentivisation is crucial when it comes to a functioning economy, and this is apparent in any free-market system. One of the main incentives for people to work hours upon hours on end is the incentive to make money. This serves as a form of greed, a form of greed that is completely neglected within a world of equal distribution. This is non-arguable, and if you question my statement, I shall refer to the productive levels of former Socialist nations to purely Capitalist ones:
1
Luxembourg
$ 93.4
405,600
$57b
29
2
Ireland
$ 87.3
1,989,400
$302b
33.5
3
Norway
$ 81.3
2,753,000
$318b
27.3
4
Belgium
$ 69.7
4,601,200
$498b
29.8
5
United States
$ 68.3
151,000,000
$18,037b
33.6
6
Denmark
$ 67.6
2,829,000
$270b
27.2
7
France
$ 65.6
27,523,000
$2,648b
28.2
8
Germany
$ 65.5
43,057,000
$3,857b
26.3
9
Netherlands
$ 65.4
8,792,000
$818b
27.4
10
Switzerland
$ 64.2
4,962,600
$506b
30.6
This contrasts with former Socialized economies of the 80's and 90's within Eastern Europe:
25
Czech Republic
$ 38
5,179,700
$346b
33.8
26
Portugal
$ 35.4
4,575,800
$303b
35.9
27
Greece
$ 35.3
4,019,800
$288b
39.1
28
Hungary
$ 33.5
4,327,500
$254b
33.6
29
Lithuania
$ 32.6
1,334,700
$81b
35.8
According to the Guardian:
"States in the former west continue to be considerably richer than those in the former east, where ordinary households own far less than half of the wealth accumulated by those in the west. Of the 500 richest Germans, only 21 are in the east and, of those, 14 are in Berlin. Of the 20 most prosperous cities, only one – Jena – is in the east... wages in the east continue to be lower – at €2,800 (£2,075) a month, people earn about two-thirds of the average wage in the west – and that property in the east is only worth half as much in the west... Productivity in the former east was 70% of that in the west in 1991 and rose to just 73% in 2012"
This not only demonstrates the failure of a socialized economy in terms of productivity, but also the failure of the economy as a whole brought about by socialized planning. To force somebody to work a job for a set wage rather than let the free market dictate the price of individuals sees people leave socialized countries in search of a better life. Cuban doctors for example are fleeing Cuba from oppression of a government that has them work for hours without gaining benefits.
Socialism punishes the CEO's and the fat cats for their greed, without considering the basic fact that the rich are the ones who provide the jobs, build the infrastructure and hire the poor. I can list various preferential policies which harm the rich intending to help the poor, only to prove detrimental to the poor.
Taxes is one example of a policy that harms both the rich and the poor without consideration of consequence:
IDEA: Tax the rich and large companies more, redistribute the wealth to the poor, and equality shall ensue.
REALITY:
Rich create tax havens and large companies then move outside of the United States so that they can earn more and not be harmed from a tax bill that doesn't even properly allocate the money to the poor efficiently or effectively. You end up with larger corporations moving outside the country, resulting in less available jobs, resulting less people being able to work, resulting in an increased unemployment rate. You cannot strangle a business with a tax burden and expect those you strangle to give at the expense of those that are "free".
Another example is Minimum Wage (Socialized proposal):
IDEA: Implement a minimum wage in so that businesses are forced to pay workers more, and workers can finally make a living.
REALITY:
Businesses are now forced to higher people for a higher price. This results in a smaller profit margin, thus leaving them no chance but to fall back on any of these 3 options:
1) Hire less people. Hiring less people entails you compensate for the higher prices that you now need to pay, and thus still make a good livable profit margin. Unfortunately for the workers who the government intended to help, less of them are going to be able to find jobs because companies can no longer afford to pay them.
2) Have the same amount of people, but open for a shorter period of time. This results in the same amount of people working, but not necessarily earning more due to the fact that the store has had to compensate for this Minimum Wage change by opening for shorter hours in a day. Meaning the workers are unable to work for as long, and basic commodities needed by the people become more scarce.
3) Only higher experienced people (This happens the most times when minimum wage is increased): Now that companies have to pay people by a fixed amount of wage, they only hire people who are able to work said amount. The only people who are able to work for that said amount of money are experienced workers, which unfortunately means inexperienced youthful individuals will be unable to find a job. This is proven statistically, every time the minimum wage increase, youth unemployment increases shortly after. This is a common pattern found since the 50's within the United States. The repercussions of such an effect are dire. Not only does that youthful generation become impotent in finding a job, but their generation will be unable to properly raise the next generation, and the next generation, and the next generation...
CONCLUSION
If you don't enable a free market to fluctuate with prices, then chaos will ensue. Socialism is not only immoral, it's a flawed system without taking into account various social needs and tendencies. Hence why Capitalism is the only moral, and just system if the economy is left alone (With the exceptions of certain government regulations). Even Marx understood the role that price fluctuations must have in a society:
"Forcibly brought home to the commodity producers what things and what quantity of them society requires or does not require... What guarantee we have that necessary quantity and not more of each product will be produced, that we shall not go hungry in regard to corn and meat while we are choked in beet sugar and drowned in potato spirit, that we shall not lack trousers to cover out nakedness while trouser buttons flood us in millions."
I could have continued by talking about "Price Control" but I believe I could write a book about it, so I shall leave you with this study by Soviet Economists Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov:
"According to the calculations of the Soviet Institute of World Economy and International Relations, we (USSR) use 1.5 times more materials and 2.1 times more energy per unit of national income than the United States... We use 2.4 times more metal per unit of national income than the United States. This correlation is apparent even without special calculations: we produce and consume 1.5 to 2 times more steel and cement than the United States, but we lag behind by at least half in production of items derived from them... Recently, in Soviet industry, the consumption of electrical energy exceeded the American level, but the volume of industrial output in the USSR is - by the most generous estimates - only 80% of the American level."
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"Americanism not Globalism, will be our credo." ~Donald Trump
"A communist is like a crocodile" ~Winston Churchill
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While the problem of powerful entities such as corporations is important to consider and address, trying to address it by means of socialism is the same as trying to put down a fire by shooting at it with flamethrowers. Socialism is the extreme case of corporate monopolization, when the government is the dominant corporation. Advocates of socialism hope that this corporation will be benevolent and really use its influence to defend the competition on the free market and to redistribute the resources optimally... But if they have such a strong trust towards one centralized corporate monopolist, then why do they not have such a strong trust towards smaller naturally arising corporations, such as Walmart or Microsoft? Is the idea not that the ones having a lot of power become greedy and corrupt and need to be restrained? If so, socialism represents the apex of this problem, not its solution.
In general, socialism is full of contradictions. Socialism finds it immoral to be greedy - and yet is greedy for the resources of the rich. Socialism claims to be the defender of the weak against the strong - but is represented by a very strong government aiming to dictate its will to the weak. Socialism is about denouncing social classes - yet it starts with separating people into the poor and the rich, two distinct classes. Socialism wants to free people from being oppressed by their masters, yet makes the society into the master of each individual.
I have never understood why such a system is regularly placed as an alternative to capitalism, let alone as a better system. If anything, this system is an enemy of itself, as it tries to solve alleged problems by supplying them with more fuel.
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Blues and Raptors handed two very toxic teams embarrassing losses, 95% of the sports world is rejoicing in the news
Repealing the Second Amendment is the first step to Totalitarianism, and it needs to be prevented to protect our freedom
http://www.atheistrepublic.com/
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I've realized that I already commented on this post with what I was going to say.
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An interesting property of socialist systems is that, in practice, socialism only applies to the masses - the political elite actually is as capitalist as possible, accumulating the riches (usually imported from capitalist nations, because their own nation does not produce anything) and having quality of life to rival millionaires from the most prosperous countries. The reason Kim drive Mercedes-Benz, while the average North Korean collects grass for food after work, is because Kim lives in a very prosperous capitalist environment, while the average North Korean lives in a standard socialist system.
And it cannot be the other way around. A government that is given power to direct all economical activities necessarily will direct them in a way that benefits it and not the people - and it would be incredibly naive to expect otherwise. Benevolent governments can only exist with checks and balances in place, and socialism takes checks and balances away to give the government all the freedoms it needs to allegedly redistribute wealth in a fair way. Never happens in practice.
---
A bit clarification, however. China is not the second best economy, and it is pretty low as far as GDP per capita goes. It has second highest overall GDP, but the overall GDP does not mean much as far as the average citizen's quality of life goes. The quality of life of the average Chinese is below average by the world's standards.
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