What are the pros and cons between Capitalism and Socialism. I hear these terms thrown around by the media a lot, and have fundamental understandings of both.
Capitalism is an economic structure and socialism is a political one. Despite what various wealthy whites would have you believe, we were founded on the political structure of democracy and that doesn't get superceded by the economic structure of capitalism. Giving democracy sway over capitalism doesn't magically turn your nation socialist. When most of the people are suffering at the hands of unhinged capitalism, the democratic thing to do is reign it in. The government's job is to help its citizens, not sit back as a passive referee as plutocratic bodies cannibalize each other and purchase representatives. Allowing people to fucking pillage isn't freedom.
socialism is merely a line on the gradient line of government control. Basically socialism is government control while capitalism is less government control, but focused in a specific area (seperation of government and business) I tend to like to have freedoms (socialism doesn't mean no freedoms or even less freedoms), but different forms of government work for different countries in different situations.
" Capitalism is an economic structure and socialism is a political one. Despite what various wealthy whites would have you believe, we were founded on the political structure of democracy and that doesn't get superceded by the economic structure of capitalism. Giving democracy sway over capitalism doesn't magically turn your nation socialist. When most of the people are suffering at the hands of unhinged capitalism, the democratic thing to do is reign it in. The government's job is to help its citizens, not sit back as a passive referee as plutocratic bodies cannibalize each other and purchase representatives. Allowing people to fucking pillage isn't freedom. "
Surprisingly enough, I more or less agree with your sentiment here, even if I disagree with the terminology. And anybody who says "capitalism works" clearly forgets every god damn time the world has had to resort to socialism to save capitalism. Capitalism doesn't work, leave it unattended for five minutes and it'll eat itself. But because we haven't yet figured out a way to make people not scared about socialism, we're stuck with a mix of both.
@SathingtonWaltz: Type each one into wikipedia and stop listening to cable news when you don't even understand basic civic and economics terms. That's what they(mostly Fox) feed upon.
" Capitalism is an economic structure and socialism is a political one. Despite what various wealthy whites would have you believe, we were founded on the political structure of democracy and that doesn't get superceded by the economic structure of capitalism. Giving democracy sway over capitalism doesn't magically turn your nation socialist. When most of the people are suffering at the hands of unhinged capitalism, the democratic thing to do is reign it in. The government's job is to help its citizens, not sit back as a passive referee as plutocratic bodies cannibalize each other and purchase representatives. Allowing people to fucking pillage isn't freedom. "
Socialism actually encompasses a set of both political and economic beliefs. Socialism is predicated upon a concept similar to what many in the west know as the Guarantor State, which arose following WWII. The fundamental belief here is that the government has a duty to assure some degree of fairness among those living under it, rather than merely representing their views.
There's a lot more to it, but that's the most basic and, hopefully, helpful, description I can give without delving into concepts of redistribution, welfare, et cetera, although it is admittedly also quite a crude description.
@KaosAngel: Last I checked the Swiss had a pretty damn free nation....Americans are so afraid of that word, I do not understand it...and before you start the freedom shit, capitalism in North America has lead to something like 3 or 4% of the population having damn near all the money...it's a monarchy, we just won't admit it.
PURE Capitalism is as bad as PURE socialism...they get exploited by human greed. You are so quick to rag on socialism, but what do you think social security, employment insurance, public schools, etc are? And as a Canadian, I like the social health care as well
Socialism/Co mmunism. Far left political views. Breeds people like Stalin. Capitalism. Breeds people like Bobby Kotick. You decide which one is better.
Capitalism looks good on paper and usually works out ok.
Socialism looks good on paper but never works no matter who tries. Although keep in mind they are two different types of systems, you could possibly have a capitalist socialist nation. It would be fucked up though.
@zAMERICANLIONz
said:
"
Socialism/Co mmunism. Far left political views. Breeds people like Stalin. Capitalism. Breeds people like Bobby Kotick. You decide which one is better. "
I wouldn't try and compare them, I like not paying for my Call of Duty multiplayer, but Kotick hasn't killed anyone... that we know of, so he tends to win every time.
" Socialism/Co mmunism. Far left political views. Breeds people like Stalin.Capitalism. Breeds people like Bobby Kotick. You decide which one is better. "
Communism didn't create Stalin the urge and attraction of power attracted the curruptable Stalin. In the words of Frank Herberts Dune series, Power doesn't currupt it attracts the curruptable. the same with Bobby Kottick hes a prickish suit that was attracted to the power that top ceo of Activision gave him.
@Mikemcn: Ahem ... excuse me, but where have you been for the last 2 years? Governments all over the world had to bail out banks of all sizes because the financial market was too "free", and too capitalistic, to care about the fact that it was thriving on a huge bubble. That bubble had to burst eventually, just like other bubbles have before. If people really believed in the free market to sort it all out, there would have been no bailout, all of these banks would have become bankrupt, the global economic system would have crashed and the world would look different today. Obviously, this is not what happened. Governments had to chip in - bona fide socialist behaviour. The notion that "capitalism works" pretty much died with the Lehman Brothers.
Pure capitalism works well as an economic theory, and so do several forms of socialism and even communism. It's just that In the real world, to put it bluntly, people eventually tend to fuck it all up. That's because they don't work in the framework of the theory. For instance, the economic theory behind capitalism is basically: profit is the ultimate goal. And in theory that would not only pertain to a short-term increase in money. In theory, having clean air, a well-balanced income distribution in society, a good education system for your kid, and so on and so on, while at the same time making more money than you spend, would all contribute to your profit. The theory requires all people to do what's best for their profits, but also not to act irrationally by destroying their environments, creating social unrest, using very unhealthy products, being so competitive as to effectively obliterate their competition, etc.
So, pretty much all nations on this planet are "fucked up" according to your definition, because most are actually neither 100% capitalist nor 100% socialist, but somewhere in the middle. And that's probably the most sensible way to go, as long as you want to live in a democratic society, because it is what the majority of the people can agree on.
" @Mikemcn: Ahem ... excuse me, but where have you been for the last 2 years? Governments all over the world had to bail out banks of all sizes because the financial market was too "free", and too capitalistic, to care about the fact that it was thriving on a huge bubble. That bubble had to burst eventually, just like other bubbles have before. If people really believed in the free market to sort it all out, there would have been no bailout, all of these banks would have become bankrupt, the global economic system would have crashed and the world would look different today. Obviously, this is not what happened. Governments had to chip in - bona fide socialist behaviour. The notion that "capitalism works" pretty much died with the Lehman Brothers. Pure capitalism works well as an economic theory, and so do several forms of socialism and even communism. It's just that In the real world, to put it bluntly, people eventually tend to fuck it all up. That's because they don't work in the framework of the theory. For instance, the economic theory behind capitalism is basically: profit is the ultimate goal. And in theory that would not only pertain to a short-term increase in money. In theory, having clean air, a well-balanced income distribution in society, a good education system for your kid, and so on and so on, while at the same time making more money than you spend, would all contribute to your profit. The theory requires all people to do what's best for their profits, but also not to act irrationally by destroying their environments, creating social unrest, using very unhealthy products, being so competitive as to effectively obliterate their competition, etc. So, pretty much all nations on this planet are "fucked up" according to your definition, because most are actually neither 100% capitalist nor 100% socialist, but somewhere in the middle. And that's probably the most sensible way to go, as long as you want to live in a democratic society, because it is what the majority of the people can agree on. "
Socialism leads to things like universal health care, a free and well educated public, and a higher quality of life. Capitalism leads to a disappearing middle class, the highest crime rates of the first world, neo-feudalism, ownership of the nation by the top 2%, and cripplingly personal and national debt.
" What are the pros and cons between Capitalism and Socialism. I hear these terms thrown around by the media a lot, and have fundamental understandings of both. "
" Socialism leads to things like universal health care, a free and well educated public, and a higher quality of life. Capitalism leads to a disappearing middle class, the highest crime rates of the first world, neo-feudalism, ownership of the nation by the top 2%, and cripplingly personal and national debt. "
I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say that this user is a Socialist.
@Bones8677: I am an empiricist. Look at what works in developed countries and what does not. Look at what nations have the highest life expectancies, the best health care systems, the best welfare programs, the highest rates of education, and the happiest peoples. It's a simple matter of evidence. Ideology does not factor into it..
First thing Americans should learn is that Socialism and Communism isn't the same thing. Many countries in the world are socialists (like Germany for example) and they have free elections, a market economy, free speech and all that we hold dear. Also learn not to confuse liberals with socialists. It seems Americans believe that liberals are left-wing when they are in fact traditionally considered to be right-wing. In the traditional sense of the word Ronald Reagan was a liberal (his famous quote that the state is the problem is a classic liberal argument) and Obama is socialist (wanting universal health care is classic socialism).
I would say you can categorize Socilaisms into 4 types.
Managerial An elite group of individuals technocrats politicians experts economists deploy capital and the locus of control is centralized. Distributive(egalitarian) catagorized by transfering wealth or attempting to stimulate consumption by transferring wealth. (welfare state) Paternalist Catagorized by a putative expert making normative decisions, What a person believes is best. For a good example of this i would refer to Cass Sunstein's "Nudge" Parentalist Decentralized emergence of socialism where people pass off decisions to elites because people would rather not make these decisions for whatever spectrum of reasons.
According to Buchanen's 05 which attempts to derive a taxonomy. "Afraid to be free: Dependency as desideratum" http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.74.7534&rep=rep1&type=pdf
I think the Methodology of Socialism differs from capitalism with regards to the idea of transferring a single unit of capital where as capitalism has a scalar set of capital ( vote vs money). Under socialism one's political capital is attenuated and binary where under capitalism your capital is scalar. This gives capitalism an advantage in providing individuals autonomy and fidelity bcs when you trade your capital you may do so in a scalar fashion which produces a magnitude with regards to the things you want. Under democracy this sort of resolution doesn't occur Citizen A's vote for policy X has the same magnitude or preference for Citizen B's vote. Bcs of this citizens are forced to engage in other forms of participation reducing the efficacy of their political capital.
Also decisions made with this particular socialist methodolgy tend to result in aggregated purchases, meaning when you trade your vote for a policy or rep your not getting a single product or service but thousands simultaneously. This further distorts our ability to analyze what society wants because if Citizen A and Citizen B votes for representative or Policy X that does not mean that both A and B want all components of policy X equally. Under a market order purchases based on price changes or alternative goods might be purchased on a second to second basis give a better idea of how individuals value the things that their institutions offer.
Under capitalism exit capabilities are increased where as socialist systems tend to reduce the defection rate of consumers with regards to the goods and services provided by these institutions. Political decision and democracy are slow so you cannot punish an institution if you believe it is hurting you by revoking future dealings with it. In a Game theoretical sense this allows institutions to maintain iterative games and creates moral hazard in these institutions. Basically exit costs are higher under socialism.
This problem doesn't jsut apply to the institution known as the state but also to smaller institutions called firms or corporations which can obtain market power by engaging in regulatory capture or what is classically called political corruption.
Fundamentally this allows individuals under socialism to transfer their costs to other unwilling parties, of course i skipped property so forgive me. Classic forms of cost transfer i think would be like teh Welfare state, or i would argue a corporation based on the limited liability aspect where the owner of a public company is not held liable for the damage it does to 3rd parties.
" First thing Americans should learn is that Socialism and Communism isn't the same thing. Many countries in the world are socialists (like Germany for example) and they have free elections, a market economy, free speech and all that we hold dear. Also learn not to confuse liberals with socialists. It seems Americans believe that liberals are left-wing when they are in fact traditionally considered to be right-wing. In the traditional sense of the word Ronald Reagan was a liberal (his famous quote that the state is the problem is a classic liberal argument) and Obama is socialist (wanting universal health care is classic socialism). FYI I'm a liberal-socialist. "
Germany is not socialist. First thing Americans should learn is actually that "social" does not mean "socialism". Germany is famous for basically inventing social economy or social market economy ("Soziale Markwirtschaft") in the boom years after WW2. It's now more or less used in every european country.
I was born in socialist East Germany. Saying that the Federal Republic is socialist, too, is such a joke.
As a rule, if a government bails an entity out --- it is not a capitalist system. Capitalism allows companies to fail. Socialism is politically easier but leads to bigger problems. A government inflated bubble is not capitalist since the state should not be involved in the first place.
Would the world have collapsed if governments did not interfere? No. It would have sucked for a year ot two, but the rot in the system would have been purged and we would be better off for it.
What did these bailouts accomplish? The EU is nearly dead and people are placing bets on which country will collapse next (I am betting Spain). The US has a basically dead economy outside of government employees and Wall Street and it shows few signs of life. the actions taken in 2008 are going to extend the problems as badly as FDR and his bad policies extended the Depression.
Stalin isnt exactly an outlier of Communist leaders. He is par for the course. Mao killed more. Pol Pot killed a greater percentage. Jong Il has killed a lot. Castro has killed a lot.
Communism always tends to lead to mass slaughters.
To answer the original question in short: Capitalism - Is the economic structure based upon the idea that everyone has a shot at making their fortune and are entitled to the wealth they have earned. (Minus taxes of course) Socialism - Is the political system based upon the idea that every man is equal and everything within a country is property of the government. The wealth of the nation is the divided among the population equally. (Of course this never quite works in practice)
Sure, that is a over-simplification but I tried...
Not much and it should appear to be fairly obvious.
Almost no country in the world is remotely truly pure capitalistic because the government needs to at least provide basic services to the people, and there's barely any pure socialist countries left. Even North Korea resorted to allowing bartering goods between each other instead of using currency.
" As a rule, if a government bails an entity out --- it is not a capitalist system. Capitalism allows companies to fail. Socialism is politically easier but leads to bigger problems. A government inflated bubble is not capitalist since the state should not be involved in the first place. Would the world have collapsed if governments did not interfere? No. It would have sucked for a year ot two, but the rot in the system would have been purged and we would be better off for it. What did these bailouts accomplish? The EU is nearly dead and people are placing bets on which country will collapse next (I am betting Spain). The US has a basically dead economy outside of government employees and Wall Street and it shows few signs of life. the actions taken in 2008 are going to extend the problems as badly as FDR and his bad policies extended the Depression. "
Finally, some sense spoken. People keep saying that capitalism leads to companies needing to be bailed out. No. As Mike said, capitalism would allows those companies to fail.
Someone else here spoke about how socialism leads to great health care, great welfare, etc. Perhaps that works in other countries. Not so much here in the US where people are more than happy to sit on welfare for years and years and years. I don't appreciate paying for someone to sit on their ass and do nothing and still manage to live better than me.
" To answer the original question in short: Capitalism - Is the economic structure based upon the idea that everyone has a shot at making their fortune and are entitled to the wealth they have earned. (Minus taxes of course) Socialism - Is the political system based upon the idea that every man is equal and everything within a country is property of the government. The wealth of the nation is the divided among the population equally. (Of course this never quite works in practice) Sure, that is a over-simplification but I tried... "
Let's try and keep this positive huh? Anyone see those awesome bonuses that the bankers managed to pull off this year?!
It's pretty uplifting to see that they we able to repay the taxpayers the hundreds of billions they borrowed, fix their broken system, and still have billions of dollars left over to get themselves a little something too :)
To my mind Capitalism is more concerned with money and Socialism with people - the names would probably suggest this as well. If OP you are American please don't be swayed by the idea that Communism and Socialism are the same thing - this really isn't the case.
" @Deeveeus: No, not monarchy. We live in an oligarchy. "
Good call, and astoundingly true.
Nothing is capitalist or socialist. These are ideas about societies and governments that serve to influence management styles and legislation. It seems to be ingrained in the American thought process that capitalism and socialism are concrete terms for systems of government. Our economy is capitalist in nature, but not for certain things we all agree should be social. That's why people get their electricity from "Commonwealth Edison" - we all own it. It is socialist. We're smart enough as a society to know that if our energy was open to a capitalist market, we wouldn't have energy. Socialism co-exists with capitalism.
" Capitalism is an economic structure and socialism is a political one. Despite what various wealthy whites would have you believe, we were founded on the political structure of democracy and that doesn't get superceded by the economic structure of capitalism. Giving democracy sway over capitalism doesn't magically turn your nation socialist. When most of the people are suffering at the hands of unhinged capitalism, the democratic thing to do is reign it in. The government's job is to help its citizens, not sit back as a passive referee as plutocratic bodies cannibalize each other and purchase representatives. Allowing people to fucking pillage isn't freedom. "
Surprisingly enough, I more or less agree with your sentiment here, even if I disagree with the terminology. And anybody who says "capitalism works" clearly forgets every god damn time the world has had to resort to socialism to save capitalism. Capitalism doesn't work, leave it unattended for five minutes and it'll eat itself. But because we haven't yet figured out a way to make people not scared about socialism, we're stuck with a mix of both. "
i don't know whats more hilarious, the idea that major industries collapsing would only be a problem for "one or two years" or that poster that has apparently never left the eighties and still thinks welfare queens exist (or have ever existed)
First off let me begin with this, Capitalism =/= freedom. You can have a dictatorship and still be Capitalist and be a democracy and be socialist. But anyways
Capitalism is a belief in the free market, that everything can be driven in a country by search of profit. The government only really governs the country and doesnt really interfere much into the private market. They may do things like break up monopolies but thats just about it.
Socialism is the belief that the government should have the major role in the economy, not private business, though private business could still be around it would have a much smaller role. Socialism believes that this system can be maintained democratically, and that people are only truly equal if they can vote. Communism combines Socialism with an authoritarian government.
Most western countries have combined the two and formed a "mixed market economy". The government plays a large role in regulating the private sector, but the private sector is still the primary deliverer of goods and services; mixed market economies may nationalise certain sectors of the economy, like banks, to preserve the system. The government provides welfare and benefits to its citizens to make the system more fair and may even control vital services such as utilities, health care, education, fuel distribution ect. Mixed market economies vary however, a country like France has much more government intervention than the United States. Examples of mixed market economies are the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany ect.
" i don't know whats more hilarious, the idea that major industries collapsing would only be a problem for "one or two years" or that poster that has apparently never left the eighties and still thinks welfare queens exist (or have ever existed) "
I've lived with one and have a couple in my extended family. I can attest to the fact that not only have they existed, they still exist, and they seem to pass on the trait to their children.
I've lived with one and have a couple in my extended family. I can attest to the fact that not only have they existed, they still exist, and they seem to pass on the trait to their children. "
I know this is hard for people to believe, but this is pure fact. I also have relatives that are this way. Not that I talk to them very often or acknowledge their existence, but I do see them on select holidays.
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