Can Someone Explain how we can Impliment Socialism and Still Enjoy the Benefits of Capitalism?

[Woodznutz]

The system is now corporatism.

China is going to win because of this.

It may not be tomorrow, it may not be in two years time, but they will win nonetheless.

Greed always leads to the fall of civilizations.

Capitalism runs on greed ("whatever the market will bear"), but it's still preferred over socialism.

 

[Robert W]

Can Someone Explain how we can Impliment Socialism and Still Enjoy the Benefits of Capitalism?​

Well it's easy. You just get yourself a central government that takes care of things like building and maintaining roads, handles police and fire services, administers social safety nets, that kinda stuff.

Socialism does not guarantee decent roads. Roads and highways are part of social myths. Police are locally paid for. America has almost all of our fire departments set up to use volunteers as opposed to paid government workers. If America was socialist, it would own nearly all businesses.

 

[DGS49]

A basic fact of life is ignored by Government handouts: That is which penalized (taxed) will decrease, that which is subsidized will increase.

Almost every element of the Social Safety Net is an incentive to do something bad. Maybe it's an incentive to have children without an income or a husband. Maybe it's an incentive to waste the little money you have. The principle is both obvious and ignored.

 

[Winston]

A basic fact of life is ignored by Government handouts: That is which penalized (taxed) will decrease, that which is subsidized will increase.

Almost every element of the Social Safety Net is an incentive to do something bad. Maybe it's an incentive to have children without an income or a husband. Maybe it's an incentive to waste the little money you have. The principle is both obvious and ignored.

People have an "incentive", to be a beneficiary of the Social Safety Net?

 

[Woodznutz]

Socialism does not guarantee decent roads. Roads and highways are part of social myths. Police are locally paid for. America has almost all of our fire departments set up to use volunteers as opposed to paid government workers. If America was socialist, it would own nearly all businesses.

We could reduce the cost of law enforcement by just bringing back the lynch mobs.

 

[Hafar1014]

Look, not every market is a good fit for capitalism. Health Care first and foremost. We should not be delivering health care through a capitalist system. In many ways we don't. The government controls how many MRI machines or other expensive equipment is allowed in a certain operating area. Almost all developed countries have learned that health care should not be delivered via a capitalist system. We continue down that path and, by far, pay more for health care than any other country on a per Capita basis. We don't get spectacular results.

Want to know how it would work in health care? Medicare for all seems the easiest but it could come with choices, and experimental studies. I mean the VA is almost pure Socialism. In their case, the government really does own the means of production. Democratic Socialism would be private doctors, public and private hospitals, "competing" for customers, and receiving payment from a single payer. Sure, you can get "private" supplemental insurance, even Indemnity plans, catastrophic illness plans, cancer policies, do they still have them? You can do those things on Medicare now.

And yes, you can get a private doctor, one of those yearly payment doctors. One payment, perhaps paid monthly, unlimited access, including surgical procedures. All these things happen under Medicare, all of them are available in London or Ontario.

But damn, want to see Socialism in action? Do you know what an Electric Co-op is? I mean they provide power to over 42 million homes and businesses. And you know where they are most prevalent? High poverty areas. If it were up to the for-profit power companies, and they were the only player in town, millions of Americans living in high poverty areas would have NO POWER TODAY. And don't get me wrong, there really still are places where there is no power, no running water. But there would be many more if not for Electric Co-ops.

Going to have cranberry sauce with your turkey? Maybe even part of the stuffing. They all come through a co-op. Lots of orange juice too. And don't get me started on flour. Just Google North Dakota Mill and Grain Elevator. Socialism at work, and staying in North Dakota, where the whole fracking thing kind of started, lowest cost of capital because the state owns a flippin bank. SOCIALISM.

I guess the one that really gets me, and I don't know, maybe they don't exist anymore, or don't work, and are just eyesores. Water towers. I mean I remember what it was like. I mean the power could go out, but you still had running water. You lived in town, I mean never mind it was just a few hundred people. And even the smallest town, they had their name proudly emblazoned on that water tower. The people owned the damn thing, SOCIALISM.

But to be brutal, the one sector that should be socialized, without a doubt, the energy sector. Mostly, I am talking about oil, coal, and natural gas. It took millions of years for nature to produce that stuff. Just because some company, even a "wild cat" comes in, and drills. Well they don't get to keep everything, I mean that oil, or natural gas, or even coal, it belongs to all of us. Want an example? ALASKA. But take it a step further.

The United Arab Emirates. Health Care, they got you. Power bill, damn it is hot in the summer and that AC turns. Nope, government got that. I mean pretty sure everyone gets a stipend for food, we could call it what, "guaranteed income"? And do you have any idea of the vehicles in Dubai's police fleet? Bugatti Veyron? Shyt.

And I know they got oil. But we do too! I mean more than a little bit. But we also have so much more, and that "we" cannot be over-emphasized. In the end, that is what the wealthy few want, the power of the "we", and all the damn productivity.

The NHS in the UK is collapsing, Canadas system is a failure and every government healthcare plan fell apart in Americas. See a pattern yet

 

[Woodznutz]

The NHS in the UK is collapsing, Canadas system is a failure and every government healthcare plan fell apart in Americas. See a pattern yet

That's because few care about their health. Way too many sick people with too little money for care. The medical industry, which encourages illness, has become a victim of its own success.

 

[Hafar1014]

That's because few care about their health. Way too many sick people with too little money for care.

Its because the government is too incompetent to manage healthcare.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Democratic Socialism is a hybrid system. It does not have to involve total government control of a market. Yes, in some cases, the government should own the means of production, like in the case of North Dakota Mills. But what is wrong with the government competing with the private market? In almost every case, the market itself controls price and demand.

I look forward to answering your longer post, but since you threw out a short one, let me ask this:

Do you envision capitalism as the primary producer of goods and services and government stepping in to ensure some kind of fairness, equity, justice, or whatever the word would be for the results that you want?

In other words, are you a firm defender of capitalism?

 

[Woodznutz]

Its because the government is too incompetent to manage healthcare.

If the people would manage their health the government wouldn't have to step in. The root problem is the abysmal ignorance concerning human health, the single most important thing that people must know. Pills and procedures don't produce health; they just keep us on our feet until the next round of illness.

"The medical industrial complex is now an economic empire built upon the cultivated ignorance of the people."
-Woodznutz

 

[Hafar1014]

If the people would manage their health the government wouldn't have to step in. The root problem is the abysmal ignorance concerning human health, the single most important thing that people must know. Pills and procedures don't produce health; they just keep us on our feet until the next round of illness.

I see you have never experienced socialized medicine. Your argument has nothing to do with the problem. Yoi also have no understanding of medicine. Every socialized plan has failed. They all go broke. Private insurance never goes broke

 

[Winston]

I look forward to answering your longer post, but since you threw out a short one, let me ask this:

Do you envision capitalism as the primary producer of goods and services and government stepping in to ensure some kind of fairness, equity, justice, or whatever the word would be for the results that you want?

In other words, are you a firm defender of capitalism?

Yes, capitalism should be the primary producer of goods and services. And yes, the federal government, and state governments, should be the protector of fairness, equity, and justice. I believe in a "free market", not free from government intervention, but free from rent seeking. For it is rent seeking that is siphoning off all the wealth of the middle class.

 

[Crepitus]

Government did those things long before Socialism.

Thanks for playing.

Yeah, nope.

Fuckin' Plato wrote about socialism, kid. He was a bit before our time.

 

[Woodznutz]

I see you have never experienced socialized medicine. Your argument has nothing to do with the problem. Yoi also have no understanding of medicine. Every socialized plan has failed. They all go broke. Private insurance never goes broke

The root of the healthcare and health insurance problems whether public or private is the abysmal health of the people.

 

[Mac-7]

Can't do it ...end of story

Libs plan to do it anyway even if it doesent work

 

[Crepitus]

See?

It can't get better...


Oh. Just checking. You do know socialism is where the means of production, distribution and exchange are held in common cause, usually through the agency of the state?

That is one part of it. Not a part I ever thought we'd see here until tRump started acquiring large chunks of important industries...

 

[Seymour Flops]

Yes, capitalism should be the primary producer of goods and services. And yes, the federal government, and state governments, should be the protector of fairness, equity, and justice. I believe in a "free market", not free from government intervention, but free from rent seeking. For it is rent seeking that is siphoning off all the wealth of the middle class.

Yes, rent-seeking will always be the bane of a mixed economy. As soon as government starts to influence economic activity, people will line up to pay to have the influence enrich them at the expense of others, not the other way around.

There is no fairness equality and justice in the real world, only economic winners and losers, selected either by market forces, government mandates, or some combination.

Those who puport to enforce or bring about economic equality at the point of a gun will always be suseptible to bribery by those who have created the wealth that those government officials seek to re-distribute.

Any fool can point a gun, but a successful capitalist has built the means of production while at the same time increasing their personal wealth, outperforming competitors along the way. No elected or administrative government official can match wits with them. For a government to implement the kind of economic equality you envision, the capitalist must be dispatched.

Countries which have done that have inevitibly turned into places of subsistance-level poverty for the many and opulent wealth for the few.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Yeah, nope.

Fuckin' Plato wrote about socialism, kid. He was a bit before our time.

I doubt that. Point is, moron, those things you mentioned are not socialism. and they existed long before any socialist system was tried.

The most capitalistic country in the world has police and fire.

You're either being a dumbass for the sake of being a dumbass, or you really are that dumb.

Well?

 

[Mac-7]

Yes, capitalism should be the primary producer of goods and services. And yes, the federal government, and state governments, should be the protector of fairness, equity, and justice. I believe in a "free market", not free from government intervention, but free from rent seeking. For it is rent seeking that is siphoning off all the wealth of the middle class.

Economically Winton is closer to the fascist model than Marxist Socialism

Instead of socialist ownership of wealth he allows private ownership but government control over how the wealth is spent

 

[alang1216]

After more than one hundred and fifty years of capitalism, there is plenty of money available in the United States for Socialism to work - if money were the only reason it would not. But even if that were true, the money will have to run out and then socialism cannot work.

The False Appeal Of Socialism

Even in its new, fashionable, incarnation, socialism cannot fulfill people’s economic needs or their yearning for freedom.

www.hoover.org

Many Americans—particularly but not exclusively the young—remain intrigued by socialism. Indeed, a 2019 survey found that socialism is as popular as capitalism among young American adults. Well-known political figures such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez describe themselves as “democratic socialists” and advocate tens of trillions of dollars in new spending programs along with a massive expansion of state power over citizens’ lives. In academic circles, too, the debate surrounding the merits of socialism continues.

Yet, the clothes, the cars, the homes, the books (if any still read them), the devices and the services on those devices, and even their favorite social media influencers are the products of capitalism, brought to them by people in search of profit.

Imagine a version of Youtube in which government committees, rather than popularity driven monetization, paid producers to keep posting content. It would die on the vine or broadcast unwatched content into the ether, unless government decided to somehow mandate consumuing the videos.

"govtube.org" would probably manage to be even less popular than Air America was.

So when whatever socialist world you envision comes about, how will goods and services continue to be produced? Please be specific and step-by-step, not just "by the people's producers!" or some such nonsense.

How will production be motivated, and how will government determine what to produce?

In my mind, socialism is an economic system while democratic socialism is social system (welfare, SS, SNAP, etc.). Very different things.

To address the former, the answer to how we get there is that it is very easy. Most US businesses are publicly traded corporations, meaning they are owned by their stockholders though the stockholders have limited power. Having the government buy shares in those companies is, essentially, socialism. No less a capitalist than Trump has gone this path with deals with Intel and Nippon Steel.