Capitalism is NOT Democratic: Democracy is NOT Capitalist

[bripat9643]

Which suggests you've never read an Economics text.

What is economic surplus? Definition and meaning

"In mainstream economics an economic surplus refers to two related quantities:

1. Producer Surplus.
2. Consumer Surplus.

"Mainstream economics means orthodox economics, i.e., what most universities across the world teach and discuss.

Economic surplus is also known as Marshallian surplus, named after the British economist Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) who made the term widely known – economists also use ‘total welfare’ with the same meaning."

Your own chart shows there is no "surplus" if the economy is in equilibrium, which is 99% of the time.

 

[bripat9643]

US capitalists bled Venezuela for decades before socialists in Venezuela assumed control over their natural resources. Who else except the US gets the blame for that?

United States–Venezuela relations - Wikipedia

"After Hugo Chávez was first elected President of Venezuela by a landslide in 1998, the South American country began to reassert sovereignty over its oil reserves.

"This action challenged the comfortable position held by U.S. economic interests for the better part of a century.

"The Chávez administration overturned the privatization of the state-owned oil company PDVSA, raising royalties for foreign firms and eventually doubling the country's GDP..."

"Those oil revenues were used to fund social programs aimed at fostering human development in areas such as health, education, employment, housing, technology, culture, pensions, and access to safe drinking water."

Here we go: the old saw about how capitalism caused the failures of socialism.

Thanks to those social programs, Venezuelans had to eat their pets, and they have lost 30 lbs in the last year.

 

[bripat9643]

People like you are incredibly fucking stupid.

 

[bripat9643]

I prefer democratic control of the economy over the stewardship of brokers, banks, stock markets, investors, and capital markets; how about you?

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

That's because you're an imbecile. How did that social control work for Venezuela? Cuba? North Korea?

 

[georgephillip]

Government caused the global financial crisis

The best government money can buy contributed to creating the Great Recession; who got rich from that?

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

"After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services.

"Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world."

 

[dblack]

I prefer democratic control of the economy over the stewardship of brokers, banks, stock markets, investors, and capital markets; how about you?

Exactly the opposite. When you say "democratic control" you mean government control. You mean centralized, coercive control. I absolutely do NOT want government to have more power over the economy.

 

[bripat9643]

The best government money can buy contributed to creating the Great Recession; who got rich from that?

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

"After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services.

"Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world."

How does that prove government didn't cause the financial panic?

 

[georgephillip]

Can you acknowledge that Obama, the Clintons, Biden and other prominent Democrats are part of the problem?

Absolutely. Democrats like Clinton and Obama served Wall Street as diligently as Republicans.

Democrats and neoliberalism

"It is actually not the first time Democrats have been called neoliberal.

"In the early 1980s, the term emerged to describe a group of figures also called the Watergate Babies, Atari Democrats, and New Democrats, many of whom eventually became affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

"In this iteration, the term neoliberal was embraced not as opprobrium.

"Rather, it used a form of self-description and differentiation to imply that they were 'new Democrats.'

"In 1982, Washington Monthly editor Charles Peters published 'A Neo-Liberal’s Manifesto,' which aimed to lay out the core principles of this group; two years later, journalist Randall Rothenberg wrote a book called The Neoliberals that sought to codify and celebrate this cohort’s ascendency."

 

[struth]

US capitalists bled Venezuela for decades before socialists in Venezuela assumed control over their natural resources. Who else except the US gets the blame for that?

United States–Venezuela relations - Wikipedia

"After Hugo Chávez was first elected President of Venezuela by a landslide in 1998, the South American country began to reassert sovereignty over its oil reserves.

"This action challenged the comfortable position held by U.S. economic interests for the better part of a century.

"The Chávez administration overturned the privatization of the state-owned oil company PDVSA, raising royalties for foreign firms and eventually doubling the country's GDP..."

"Those oil revenues were used to fund social programs aimed at fostering human development in areas such as health, education, employment, housing, technology, culture, pensions, and access to safe drinking water."

the socialist who destroyed what was working.

 

[georgephillip]

Can you acknowledge the massive failures of Communist regimes?

Sure.
Can you acknowledge Stalin's WWII economic miracle when Communism destroyed the Nazi capitalist hordes?

How about capitalisms many failures in attempting to supplant feudalism?

Do you know how many human beings capitalism is killing today to maintain its profit margins?

Tallying Capitalism’s Death Toll

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Sure.
Can you acknowledge Stalin's WWII economic miracle when Communism destroyed the Nazi capitalist hordes?

How about capitalisms many failures in attempting to supplant feudalism?

Do you know how many human beings capitalism is killing today to maintain its profit margins?

Tallying Capitalism’s Death Toll

Where did capitalism kill 5 million from lack of drinking water?

 

[Rigby5]

Here we go: the old saw about how capitalism caused the failures of socialism.

Thanks to those social programs, Venezuelans had to eat their pets, and they have lost 30 lbs in the last year.

Except that the poverty in Venezuela is caused by the illegal economic sanctions, not socialism.
Nor do I consider Venezuela remotely socialist.

 

[Thunderbird]

Sure.
Can you acknowledge Stalin's WWII economic miracle when Communism destroyed the Nazi capitalist hordes?

How about capitalisms many failures in attempting to supplant feudalism?

Do you know how many human beings capitalism is killing today to maintain its profit margins?

Tallying Capitalism’s Death Toll

Stop kissing Stalin’s ass. Because of Stalin’s gross incompetence millions of Soviet citizens died: Joseph Stalin's Paranoid Purge - Warfare History Network

We can thank the US and UK for providing the Soviets with war materiel: 'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany?

Are poor African countries devoted to capitalism?

Capitalism can help the poor: Capitalism Is Good for the Poor | Steven Horwitz

 

[georgephillip]

rumps not a Conservative.

Trump's a crony capitalist equally willing to support Hillary Clinton or Qanon depending on short-term gain.

 

[georgephillip]

Circling back around to the topic: "Capitalism is NOT Democratic: Democracy is NOT Capitalist"

Is capitalism compatible with democracy?
Specifically is Friedman, Hayak finance capitalism compatible with one person-one vote?

Intro to the Study of Political Economy continued

 

[georgephillip]

The Soviet Union invaded Eastern Europe and dropped an Iron Curtain. Stalin created a man-made famine in the Ukraine and murdered 30 million people. THAT is murder and stealing.

The Russians dropped the Iron Curtain in order to prevent western capitalists from invading their homeland as had happened twice in the 20th century. The causes of the Holodomor are more complicated than you suggest:

Causes of the Holodomor - Wikipedia

"Sources such as Encyclopædia Britannica say there was no physical basis for famine in Ukraine, and that Soviet authorities set quotas for Ukraine at exceedingly high levels.[13]

"However Soviet archive data suggests the grain harvest was not as large as has been assumed, and the Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who lived through the period in question and was himself a victim of a Stalinist purge, described the famine as preceded by 'a year of drought coincid[ing] with chaotic agricultural conditions.'[14][15]

"This suggests that the famine was caused by a combination of a severe drought, chaotic implementation of forced collectivization of farms, and the food requisition program carried out by the Soviet authorities."

 

[georgephillip]

Capitalism allows anyone to be an owner and the people decide what they want and how much they want produced in a capitalist society. Producers make what the people demand, the people set the price, etc. Moreover in a capitalist society anyone can become an owner

And every capitalist who becomes an owner falls prey to the same internal contradictions that have plagued capitalism since it replaced feudalism:

Internal contradictions of capital accumulation - Wikipedia

"Economic geographer David Harvey argues that the multi-stage process of capital accumulation reveals a number of internal contradictions:

• "Step 1 – The power of labor is broken down and wages fall. This is referred to as 'wage repression' or 'wage deflation' and is accomplished by outsourcing and offshoring production.[1]
• Step 2 – Corporate profits—especially in the financial sector—increase, roughly in proportion to the degree to which wages fall in some sectors of the economy.[1]
• Step 3 – In order to maintain the growth of profits catalyzed by wage deflation, it is necessary to sell or 'supply' the market with more goods."

 

[georgephillip]

in leftist society, none of that is possible because the Govt owns it all, sets the price, and produces what they want

Socialism advocates the collective ownership of the means of production. The government is one of several possible alternatives to our current "privatize profits/socialize costs economic paradigm.

 

[georgephillip]

Rising productivity? That sounds awful!!!

Stagnating wages?
That sounds systemic

Internal contradictions of capital accumulation - Wikipedia

"The internal contradictions of capital accumulation is an essential concept of crisis theory, which is associated with Marxist economic theory. While the same phenomenon is described in neoclassical economic theory, in that literature it is referred to as systemic risk."

 

[georgephillip]

People are so quick to declare their utopian vision of government and economy superior they never consider it has been tried and failed.

Yes. We have the foul mouthed democrats denigrating everything they have not created.

Never before in history has a bunch of lazy ass never done nothings pontificated that they know so much yet their accomplishments based on their beliefs are nothing.

Denigrating capitalism. It is simple, lazy slothful lovers blame everything but themselves.

Anyone who isn't willing to recognize capitalism's many failures (like eternal war and endless debt, genocide, and chattel slavery) are likely apologists for a status quo that has long outlived its usefulness to productive members of society.