Someone please explain how there can be an alternative to capitalism

Maybe not, but we've done some of those systems a hell of a lot better than others. TO go from a black and white worldview to one where everything is the same shade of gray is to lose detail, not gain it.

edited 6th Sep '15 11:11:44 AM by Kzickas

You can't deny that America is on the verge of collapsing into an affluent singularity though.

Really? To me America doesn't seem to be on the verge of collapsing into anything.

Yeah, I meant that money is being concentrated among a very small percentage of people, so it's got a really high "density"...

It was a black hole metaphor.

Does anyone else think this thread would be "DOTH FOMEONE EXPLAINETH HOWSO THERETH BE BY THE GRAFE OF GOD AN ALTERNAFIVE TO FEUDALISM" if the internet existed hundreds of years ago?

edited 7th Sep '15 3:31:59 PM by Aszur

Well, if there are no further questions, I guess we can let this die.

Increasing wealth inequality is certainly a problem in the US, but not quite to the point were talk of collapse is justified.

I dont think he was referring to that type of collapse. In any case, it's not at all impossible that we are looking at the beginning of a "New Feudal Age" based on elite control of capital.

New Feudal age, huh? CAN I BE THE CLERGY

I PROMISE I WILL MAKE UP A COOL RELIGION

It will have hookers. And blackjack.

Can I ask Pope Francis to excommunicate you, filthy heretic?

Yes. But Fran is a friend so we will prolly just end up playing Mario Kart and he will be k with it after all.

Poor guy looks like he needs the break anyways.

At the risk of thread necromancy and the invocation of a slippery slope, our current status might be compared to the various coloni in the late Roman Empire: We are legally free, but our choices and personalities are shaped by the crippling debts we must seemingly take on, and this state of affairs seems to flow partially from the exceptionally wealthy evading taxation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonus_(person)

edited 9th Sep '15 10:23:56 PM by Artificius

Socialism and Capitalism are two words with so much political connotation it’s nearly impossible to include them in a topic and have a meaningful conversation with anyone. But when you get down to it, they’re technologies, and like all technologies they do what they’re built to do and work well if you use them for their intended purpose.

What is socialism, if you strip away all the connotations and cruft we’ve attached to it? It’s a means of redistributing wealth so that an economy is resistant to personal misfortunes like illness or loss of work. You tax wealth in the economy progressively, so people with more pay more (although there are other means that a central government could raise the necessary capital). Then you use the funds to provide people with a minimum floor so they don’t want for food, housing, medicine, education, or basic transportation. And well implemented, it works. Universal healthcare works. Mincome worked, and other basic income projects can work too. Housing First projects like Utah’s work really well. When people don’t have to worry about starving, going without a roof over their heads, or recovering from illness and injury, they are more productive. They have more leisure time and disposable income to spend on purchasing goods and services, which drives the economy. It’s simple and pragmatic.

What is capitalism, if you strip away all the connotations and cruft we’ve attached to it? It’s a means of making an economy liquid. All you need to make an economy capitalist is a common currency (because barter system’s just aren’t fluid and flexible enough) and property laws that a) allow people to agree on the value of an item, and b) permit shareholding and partial ownership. The rest just emerges from that.

The only reason these technologies have had the issues of usage that they do is because governments have been treating them as ideologies rather than technologies. The modern West realized (to varying degrees, admittedly) in the mid-20th century that the incorporation of both was necessary to running a modern, functional economy. The U.S. sabotaged much of its position as an economic superpower by trying to sabotage its socialist infrastructure (Social Security, veteran’s benefits, etc.) while at the same time overusing its capitalist infrastructure. Rather than enable investors to make enterprises happen safely, capitalist infrastructure was used to channel more and more wealth to less and less productive demographics (the aptly labeled 1%). It was an overuse of a tool towards ends for which that technology was not designed. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union demonstrated, by failing rather spectacularly, that you can’t bludgeon your economic problems to death with overuse of socialist economic technology and a neglect of the capitalist tech. “All I have is a hammer” thinking is what kills economies. It is killing the Eurozone now, it killed the U.S.S.R., and the only reason it hasn’t killed the U.S. yet is because the New Deal and the Great Society introduced enough socialist tech to stave off a collapse - perhaps even enough time for Americans to upgrade their economic technologies and handle the problems that have gotten steadily worse since the Reagan presidency.

There’s no left-right spectrum of political solutions that requires some golden mean to negotiate. There’s simply different economic tools, and like all tools, they do what they were built to do regardless of how they are used.

No. Socialism refers to direct ownership, or control, of businesses by the government.

Isn't that communism?

Communism is government ownership of all businesses by the government + no social classes. Socialism can be just the control or ownership of some.

Actually Communism is about direct control of the means of production by the people, oftentimes that's done via the state but it doesn't have to be, there's a reason anarchism is argued to just be a sub-branch of Communism.

You can still have independent businesses under a Communist system, but the means of production (the definition of which a rise greatly) need to be under the control of the people (normally via the state).

Socialism is very different, with the line between Communism and Socialism being a fuzzy one, as at least initially the two terms were petty much interchangeable and meant the same thing. Nowadays Socialism generally just means Communism-lite, so people ownership over some of the means of production, like energy and infrastructure like transport.

And what does popular ownership of these resources actually do? Move the wealth they produce around to keep the economy going so everyone has some guaranteed support. That was always the point of that economic technology, going all the way back to Marx.

But if you meet those goals by other means than public ownership or control then it's not socialism.

Wow, are you guys deliberately illustrating Rad Tao's point, or is s/he just that right?

Meh I've been taught actual academic definitions of things like Communism and Socialism, it's part of studying politics, in my world these terms are much more concrete then they are in the world in general.

See. it is better to be stupid and uneducatedlike me. That way, to me, commies are those darn red invaders with AK-47s and capitalists are those greedy fat pigs in suits that barely fit and their pockets full of the poor man's green

Checkmaet itlelectooal...intlel...intelele...int...uh...NERDS!

edited 11th Sep '15 11:19:16 AM by Aszur

There is an alternative that has been proposed called Distributism, in short is a system in which there is freedom of capital but there is also a heavy involvement of the state in favour of those who have little or who need protection.

How would it play in RL is something that only God knows.

That's basically a proper welfare state. The Nordic countries pull it off pretty well.

Big props up to Radical Taoist for post #38. Good stuff.

The important thing is not what you call the tool, but picking the tool that has the best fix for a given problem. We know not to expect every tool to have application to every problem. Can't paint a house with a hammer; better grab a brush or a sprayer.

Also, arguing over whether you can call a brush a hammer or vice versa isn't going to get the house painted.