Example from a state that failed? That didn’t even stick around for the existence of the iPhone??You were given great examples. Examples you should already know about.
You chose to balk at them instead of engaging.
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Example from a state that failed? That didn’t even stick around for the existence of the iPhone??You were given great examples. Examples you should already know about.
You chose to balk at them instead of engaging.
What's ridiculous is your bs that employees are slaves. The notion is a joke, a sick joke that any real slave would laugh at, if they didn't punch you first.
But it's vital to to Marxist sales pitch that people think of it that way, that they view themselves as hapless victims who can only be saved by state intervention.
Government corruption is a problem to be sure. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more we give the state power over labor and resources, the worse the problem will get.
The Marxist agenda is a class struggle, but not like they pretend. It's an attempt by the political class to transfer economic power from private wealth to the state, to themselves.
The socialist unicorn is the delusion that once they get their way, once the state controls labor and resources, wealth, greed and the lust for power will magically go away. That ambitious capitalists will reluctantly become subsistence farmers or something. But of course the lust for power won't go away. The people who are now chasing wealth via the free market will seek it through government "service" instead. And, when the economic power of wealth and the coercive power of the state are combined, they'll have much more power at their disposal.
What's ridiculous is your bs that employees are slaves.
The notion is a joke, a sick joke that any real slave would laugh at, if they didn't punch you first.
But it's vital to to Marxist sales pitch that people think of it that way, that they view themselves as hapless victims who can only be saved by state intervention.
Rank | Parent | Subsidy Value![]() | Number of Awards |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Boeing | $15,496,865,703 | 958 |
2 | Intel | $8,421,707,656 | 135 |
3 | Ford Motor | $7,742,056,086 | 703 |
4 | General Motors | $7,524,714,800 | 792 |
5 | Micron Technology | $6,790,131,915 | 21 |
6 | Amazon.com | $5,823,705,434 | 460 |
7 | Alcoa | $5,727,691,764 | 134 |
8 | Cheniere Energy | $5,617,152,523 | 43 |
9 | Foxconn Technology Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Company) | $4,820,110,112 | 74 |
10 | Venture Global LNG | $4,338,702,441 | 8 |
11 | Texas Instruments | $4,286,328,869 | 69 |
12 | Volkswagen | $3,977,630,513 | 217 |
13 | Sempra Energy | $3,828,022,782 | 51 |
14 | NRG Energy | $3,415,751,518 | 266 |
15 | NextEra Energy | $3,008,691,129 | 116 |
16 | Sasol | $2,836,049,845 | 72 |
17 | Tesla Inc. | $2,829,855,494 | 114 |
18 | Stellantis | $2,795,436,436 | 213 |
19 | Walt Disney | $2,543,219,673 | 265 |
20 | Nucor | $2,538,761,123 | 176 |
21 | Iberdrola | $2,380,558,984 | 110 |
22 | Rivian Automotive Inc. | $2,364,054,012 | 7 |
23 | Hyundai Motor | $2,349,743,470 | 18 |
24 | Oracle | $2,272,418,288 | 96 |
25 | Shell PLC | $2,211,676,001 | 132 |
26 | Mubadala Investment Company | $2,124,035,097 | 62 |
27 | Nike | $2,104,917,829 | 153 |
28 | Meta Platforms Inc. | $2,098,261,272 | 82 |
29 | Toyota | $2,071,010,689 | 239 |
30 | Alphabet Inc. | $2,054,325,527 | 125 |
31 | Brookfield Corporation | $1,979,408,388 | 288 |
32 | Paramount Global | $1,974,249,897 | 342 |
33 | Comcast | $1,927,402,844 | 405 |
34 | Exxon Mobil | $1,917,119,478 | 241 |
35 | Samsung Electronics | $1,891,136,597 | 41 |
36 | Apple Inc. | $1,845,004,670 | 63 |
37 | Nissan | $1,842,814,165 | 98 |
38 | Berkshire Hathaway | $1,830,986,253 | 1,200 |
39 | Summit Power | $1,783,593,414 | 6 |
40 | JPMorgan Chase | $1,740,972,699 | 1,151 |
41 | Energy Transfer | $1,736,836,843 | 175 |
42 | Cleveland-Cliffs | $1,705,497,604 | 129 |
43 | Southern Company | $1,694,958,172 | 45 |
44 | General Electric | $1,645,135,367 | 958 |
45 | Vornado Realty Trust | $1,623,857,336 | 33 |
46 | Duke Energy | $1,580,421,869 | 86 |
47 | Wolfspeed Inc. | $1,563,595,610 | 64 |
48 | General Atomics | $1,510,875,891 | 112 |
49 | IBM Corp. | $1,497,901,697 | 368 |
50 | Lockheed Martin | $1,462,674,082 | 325 |
51 | OGE Energy | $1,427,570,182 | 15 |
52 | SCS Energy | $1,419,011,796 | 5 |
53 | Corning Inc. | $1,391,603,359 | 401 |
54 | Panasonic | $1,384,147,584 | 61 |
55 | Microsoft | $1,366,243,159 | 113 |
56 | Sagamore Development | $1,320,000,000 | 2 |
57 | Northrop Grumman | $1,284,014,883 | 285 |
58 | Vingroup | $1,254,000,000 | 1 |
59 | Continental AG | $1,244,875,478 | 111 |
60 | RTX Corporation | $1,193,950,954 | 797 |
61 | CF Industries | $1,134,394,215 | 131 |
62 | Valero Energy | $1,053,812,692 | 207 |
63 | Dow Inc. | $1,049,354,213 | 640 |
64 | AES Corp. | $1,039,510,135 | 136 |
65 | Air Products & Chemicals | $1,025,557,482 | 88 |
66 | Exelon | $986,892,877 | 98 |
67 | Pyramid Companies | $973,565,278 | 93 |
68 | SK Holdings | $960,550,283 | 8 |
69 | SkyWest | $944,296,654 | 339 |
70 | Centene | $916,607,054 | 60 |
71 | Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc. | $900,000,000 | 1 |
72 | Apollo Global Management | $897,750,089 | 594 |
73 | Delta Air Lines | $871,485,833 | 13 |
74 | Jefferies Financial Group | $871,137,335 | 16 |
75 | SK Hynix | $866,700,000 | 2 |
76 | Bayer | $852,475,226 | 217 |
77 | Honda | $849,832,301 | 93 |
78 | Shin-Etsu Chemical | $828,683,936 | 106 |
79 | Enterprise Products Partners | $826,988,371 | 89 |
80 | SunEdison | $817,425,725 | 115 |
81 | Goldman Sachs | $800,873,386 | 253 |
82 | Bank of America | $798,426,128 | 956 |
83 | E.ON | $786,865,473 | 40 |
84 | Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. | $786,835,708 | 219 |
85 | EDF-Electricite de France | $774,590,441 | 36 |
86 | Triple Five Worldwide | $748,000,000 | 4 |
87 | EDP-Energias de Portugal | $733,674,868 | 14 |
88 | Related Companies | $714,675,504 | 8 |
89 | Koch Industries | $683,066,388 | 510 |
90 | Caithness Energy | $672,688,888 | 30 |
91 | Dell Technologies | $658,417,951 | 185 |
92 | Wells Fargo | $657,333,216 | 542 |
93 | FedEx | $647,035,546 | 633 |
94 | Entergy | $638,533,387 | 235 |
95 | OCI N.V. | $627,879,406 | 5 |
96 | Eli Lilly | $623,326,368 | 79 |
97 | Chevron Phillips Chemical | $619,839,444 | 20 |
98 | Bedrock Detroit | $618,000,000 | 1 |
99 | Dominion Energy | $615,436,089 | 79 |
Government corruption is a problem to be sure. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more we give the state power over labor and resources, the worse the problem will get.
The Marxist agenda is a class struggle, but not like they pretend. It's an attempt by the political class to transfer economic power from private wealth to the state, to themselves.
The socialist unicorn is the delusion that once they get their way, once the state controls labor and resources, wealth, greed and the lust for power will magically go away.
I'm simply not going to let you get away with making such an asinine statement. Even if you want to pretend that employment is "like" slavery, socialism is far worse. In a free market if you have have a falling out with your employer, you're free to look for other ways to make a living. There are other employers and you're free to start your own business if you want. Under socialism, there's only one game in town. And if you don't do as you're told, the consequences are far more extreme - compare losing your salary for a month or two to being sent to a gulag.Yes indeed, the employer-employee relationship under capitalism is a form of slavery ...
Sure, sure. That's why they were begging to have slavery re-instated.In the 1800s, former slaves actually agreed, it was a common theme and understanding that employees are wage-slaves, selling their bodies, and their very lives to a capitalist employer for several hours daily.
And that brings us back to your irrational faith in democracy to solve all problems and right all wrongs. The irony is that democracy, especially in a diverse country like the US, really only works when the powers of government are strictly limited.At least the government holds elections, allowing us to elect our managers, whereas capitalist-employers never hold elections.
Unicorn indeed. Ambition is a human trait, it doesn't depend on government. It will be there under socialism just as much as it is under capitalism. Greedy people will merely navigate the ranks of government, rather than the market.[-- senseless propaganda memes omitted --]
Much of the lust for wealth, greed, and power is conditioned and inculcated by the culture and a person's education. Our society's values heavily influence how greedy and lustful we are for personal, self-serving, destructive power. Under capitalism, such human-based desires and flaws are magnified 10 fold.
I'm simply not going to let you get away with making such an asinine statement. Even if you want to pretend that employment is "like" slavery, socialism is far worse. In a free market if you have have a falling out with your employer, you're free to look for other ways to make a living. There are other employers and you're free to start your own business if you want. Under socialism, there's only one game in town. And if you don't do as you're told, the consequences are far more extreme - compare losing your salary for a month or two to being sent to a gulag.
Sure, sure. That's why they were begging to have slavery re-instated.
And that brings us back to your irrational faith in democracy to solve all problems and right all wrongs. The irony is that democracy, especially in a diverse country like the US, really only works when the powers of government are strictly limited.
Democratic government depends on the consent of the governed. Most importantly, it depends on the consent on the minority in any given vote. For democracy to succeed, it's necessary that we all have enough faith in the system that we're willing to live under leadership that we didn't vote for. As long as government power is reliably limited, that's not so hard to do. The "other side" can only so much damage.
But as government power grows, it becomes harder and harder to concede power to the "other side". That's the situation we find ourselves in now. As we keep piling on with more and more laws, as government takes over more and more aspects of society, we see less and less consent of the governed. And the nation becomes, is becoming, ungovernable.
This will be amplified ten fold if the state takes over labor and the distribution of wealth and resources.
Unicorn indeed. Ambition is a human trait, it doesn't depend on government. It will be there under socialism just as much as it is under capitalism. Greedy people will merely navigate the ranks of government, rather than the market.
I'm simply not going to let you get away with making such an asinine statement. Even if you want to pretend that employment is "like" slavery, socialism is far worse.
In a free market
if you have have a falling out with your employer, you're free to look for other ways to make a living.
There are other employers and you're free to start your own business if you want.
Under socialism, there's only one game in town.
And if you don't do as you're told, the consequences are far more extreme - compare losing your salary for a month or two to being sent to a gulag.
Sure, sure. That's why they were begging to have slavery re-instated.![]()
And that brings us back to your irrational faith in democracy to solve all problems and right all wrongs.
Democratic government depends on the consent of the governed. Most importantly, it depends on the consent on the minority in any given vote.
For democracy to succeed, it's necessary that we all have enough faith in the system that we're willing to live under leadership that we didn't vote for. As long as government power is reliably limited, that's not so hard to do. The "other side" can only so much damage.
This kind of sophistry gets tiresome, which is why I usually ignore it. But let's put it to bed. Yes, there no perfectly free market. There's no perfect liberty. Just like there's no totally just society, no perfectly moral person - so what? The question is what our goals should be. Should we pursue these ideals, or not? Is freedom better than unfree?So-called "free markets" only exist in your imaginary, fantasy world, along with unicorns and fairies.
-- colorful multimedia BS omitted --
The objective should be not to need or be under the heel of capitalist exploiters and to increase one's control and power in the workplace.
Weak argument exposing the sniveling envy that drives your cause. I'm not an employer myself (but thanks for the compliment). I'm just not falling for your BS. Sorry.Under capitalism, there's definitely just one game in town in the form of the capitalist ruling class you're forced to rent yourself to for a wage unless you're lucky enough to have the capital to become a parasite leech and little tyrant yourself. Is that really something to aspire for? To become a parasite, living off of other people's labor?
You don't have to be afraid to address me directly. I won't bite. But I won't swallow BS either, so I guess there's that risk..... Dblack disingenuously mentions ...
Agreed. Slavery is, and should be, illegal. But it seems you're OK with the state (err... the "majority") owning other humans, owning all of us.Human beings shouldn't own other human beings, under chattel slavery, feudalism, or capitalism.
There you go again. My employer is no authority over me. Period. They offer me me money in exchange for my labor. It's up to me whether I comply or not. The government is an entirely different entity. It does have authority over me.. Again, conflating the two is central to your argument but it just isn't so.You're for unelected, practically unaccountable authorities over you, in government and in the place where people spend most of their waking hours, the workplace because you're supposedly rational and I'm supposedly "irrational" for wanting elected, accountable authorities. Sure.
No, it doesn't. You were telling me that if I don't like my employer-tyrant's rules, I should go to hell and find myself another employer-dictator to work for ...
I'm making a pragmatic point about democracy. Majority rule only works if the minority is willing to play along....and now you're demanding that the position or person who wins the majority vote isn't legitimately in force or in power until those who lost the election accept their defeat?
No, the Constitution stipulates that. And protects them by not empowering government to violate them. But only if the Court has the balls to tell the socialists to get lost.The law stipulates that you have basic rights that can't be violated, even if the majority decides otherwise.
You must have been on your third drink here, because I can't make much sense out of what you're saying. What "law" prevents government from passing a law banning farting in elevators? What are you even getting at?In society only that which is within the law, can be voted on, not that which clearly violates the law. So for example, if there's an election on whether society should hang dblack from a tree for being pro-capitalism, or farting in public, that referendum or election would never reach the voting process. Society can't legally execute you for farting in elevators. Only that which is legal can be voted on. Get it? Your human rights are always protected, regardless of whether you hold the majority position or not. That's democratic socialism.
Since the USSR broke up the number of members in the communist fell from over 10 million to only 50,000 today. In numbers, it ranks 5th in Russia. Communist is dead in Russia but it has been replaced by Putinism which almost as bad.Yes, and what's your point? Let's see if you're able to reason.
Communism in theory was a good idea but it is impractical as an economic system today because it outlaws private ownership as a means of production. Private ownership is the heart of capitalism and is the key to economic growth. The accumulation of wealth is a huge incentive to produce more and better goods and services. That is not to say unbridled capitalism is good. It has be controlled to protect workers and the environment and to protect the free market itself.Obviously.
Only 50,000 Communist members? Well, Communism was (is?) a good idea but men (like Stalin in particular) corrupted Communism to a point that partially reflected the Western World's nightmarish propaganda against it. Stalin passed but Stalinism lingered on. Men like Dubček were willing and able to reform his own country's form of Soviet Stalinism but he was crushed by well-entrenched Soviet corruption. When Gorbatjov came along and offered his own plan for reform it was too late and the American CIA had him ousted in order to put the inebriated rag-doll puppet Jeltsin in the seat of power. Anyway you look at it, no one can blame the Soviets for wanting out of the whole Communist model, imagining another Stalin to stroll in at the drop of a hat. It is a miracle that Putin has come to the fore and possibly the only chance Russia has to save itself from American-style Fascism. The Russians have run the gauntlet for sure between Stalinism and the present corruption of the CIA. It is going to require a whole lot of work plus a leader who can follow Putin's footsteps once he's gone. More power to them. I hope them well.
As of the most recent elections, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) garnered approximately 19% of the vote. This result solidified their position as the second-largest party in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament. Despite this, they only secured 12.7% of the seats, largely due to how the single-mandate seats were distributed, with United Russia dominating most of those seats.Since the USSR broke up the number of members in the communist fell from over 10 million to only 50,000 today. In numbers, it ranks 5th in Russia. Communist is dead in Russia but it has been replaced by Putinism which almost as bad.
Communism in theory was a good idea but it is impractical as an economic system today because it outlaws private ownership as a means of production. Private ownership is the heart of capitalism and is the key to economic growth. The accumulation of wealth is a huge incentive to produce more and better goods and services. That is not to say unbridled capitalism is good. It has be controlled to protect workers and the environment and to protect the free market itself.
Communism failed badly after Stalin. Three year plans, 5 years plans all designed to increase production failed time after time. The same thing happen in China until they discovered that allowing corporation ownership and management increase production of just about everything and made China the largest producer of goods in the world.
Communism in theory was a good idea
but it is impractical as an economic system
today because it outlaws private ownership as a means of production.
Private ownership is the heart of capitalism and is the key to economic growth.
The accumulation of wealth is a huge incentive to produce more and better goods and services.
That is not to say unbridled capitalism is good. It has be controlled to protect workers and the environment and to protect the free market itself.
Communism failed badly after Stalin. . Three year plans, 5 years plans all designed to increase production failed time after time. The same thing happen in China until they discovered that allowing corporation ownership and management increase production of just about everything and made China the largest producer of goods in the world.
Communism is a great idea and will replace both capitalism and socialism in the future. Socialism is an early stage of communism, or communism "light", when it still allows markets and maintains certain economic and political institutions and instruments that become superfluous in high-communism. Communism is the future successor of capitalism.
Actually, it's capitalism that becomes completely impractical and obsolete once technology permits socialism and communism. Advanced automation and artificial intelligence, render capitalism non-functional and socialism (and later communism) the solution.
In socialism, "private ownership" is the ownership of assets used to generate capital (money), often at the expense and exploitation of human labor. Any property used by one socioeconomic class to exploit another is categorized as "private property". If your business enterprise is simply yourself and maybe your family, then although technically one might still identify the assets of your company as "private property", it's not that in the same sense as a business hiring workers (from the general public or in other words, strangers) and exploiting them for a profit. Paying people less than what they produce and establishing dictatorial control over people's time and labor (their lives).
The other form of property ownership is "personal property", which is for personal use. Your house, plot of land to grow your food, car, computer, fishing boat, gun collection, toothbrush..etc. That's personal property, and isn't "outlawed". Whoever tells you that socialism outlaws all property, including personal, is lying to you.
There are different degrees of socialism, one allowing for the private ownership of the means of production, provided it's within the consumer-goods and services sector of the economy and not in the industries vital to the nation's infrastructure like mining, energy, banking-finance, and a few others.
For the most part, a business within the consumer goods and services market can continue, pretty much as before, with maybe a few more rules that protect labor (allowing workers to unionize). In many ways you have a better chance of being successful business-wise with a socialist government than you do under a capitalist plutocratic oligarchy, which is what we have today in the US. A socialist government might help you stay in business, because you're generating needed jobs. A socialist government will ensure you make a profit, become wealthy, provided your attitude towards business is one of service to the community and nation.
The bottom line of business in socialism isn't private profits but rather the public good. As a capitalist under the authority of socialism, you are serving your community and country. As a capitalist, your socialist government will actually consider you an asset to the community and hence will protect your business, provided you follow the rules and see yourself as a patriot serving your country and people.
As technology advances, allowing production to become more automated, a socialist economy, transitions to the public ownership of the means of mass production. This is socialism, out of necessity, due to material conditions, moving away from a capitalist market economy to a completely socialized economy until it enters into the next phase of mass production which is high-communism. High-communism is when all production becomes personally owned and operated.
In high-communism, you and your family can produce everything you consume without anyone else's assistance. You won't even need the government's infrastructure or resources to produce everything you consume. That's high communism or high-tech communism.
The heart of capitalism is human labor, not private ownership. Without human labor or without enough of it, there's no capitalism or private ownership. Markets crumble without human labor because labor is also the paying consumer and without people purchasing products and services, there's no market capitalism or private business ownership. Your views on economics are fundamentally flawed.
The pursuit of profits within capitalism, can also incentivize monopolies which undermine the production of better goods and services. Capitalists remain tied to old investments and hence technologies that are obsolete in order to maintain market share and continue profiting from those previous investments.
One of the reasons that we don't have more modern, public transportation infrastructure in the United States, like interstate highspeed rail and more trains in general, along with city busses, and trollies, is because the fossil fuel industry wants everyone using gas-guzzling vehicles. Human progress can be stifled as a result of the capitalist pursuit of profits.
For tens of thousands of years, humanity produced everything they needed without markets when human production was tribal and communist (primitive communism - no state, no socioeconomic classes, and no need for money):
In the future, humanity due to advanced automation and artificial intelligence, will become communist again.
"A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state (or nation state).[7][8][9]
Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more authoritarian vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a socialist state, followed by the withering away of the state.[10] As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, communist parties and movements have been described as radical left or far-left.[11][12][note 1]"
Source: Communism - Wikipedia
The free market is a unicorn, it has never existed nor will it ever exist. Markets are always regulated and heavily dependent upon government infrastructure and resources, especially at a national scale, in the modern age.
Capitalism becomes obsolete and non-functional when advanced technology automates production, replacing a significant % of wage labor. A modern society with a market-based economy is forced to adopt socialism by necessity when advanced automation and artificial intelligence begins to significantly replace wage labor. To assert otherwise is to be in denial, like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
The above statements amount to Flopper's skewed, self-serving, pro-capitalist, Cold War claptrap propaganda version of history. He either forgets to mention certain important facts about the circumstances and context in which the USSR was forced to function and grow, and also lies about what actually occurred.
Also ask yourself why these defenders of capitalism, are always appealing to events that supposedly occurred 100 years ago, 50 years ago, as if that sets the standard forever for what must happen in the future. These disingenuous capitalist polemicists pretend that there's only one form of socialism and that socialists aren't allowed to learn from their mistakes in the past and improve socialism in the future. Socialism and communism must exist in only one form, and must always emulate, perfectly, its past without any modification or adjustments. It must remain static forever because clearly, this version of reality serves capitalists, keeping them in power.
The only reason that I respond to people like "flopper" is for the sake of others, who are genuinely interested in the truth. Those who are sincerely concerned for truth, whatever that might be. I write for them, not for "floppers".
Russia was an under-industrialized, agrarian society, with at least half of its population consisting of illiterate peasants, before its socialist revolution in 1917. Tsarist Russia often suffered famines and wars, taking the lives of millions of Russians. Leninist and Stalinist socialism transformed Russia into an industrial juggernaut, rivaling the United States in less than 20 years. What took the US 100 years of industrial development with capitalism, took much less with socialism.
Socialism, according to all of the stats, recognized by even Western economists, significantly improved the standard of living of the vast majority of Russians. This despite the fact that the US, UK, France and ten other countries invaded Russia in 1918, immediately after WW1, to sabotage the socialist Russian revolution. Over 250K foreign troops, along with about 300K pro-capitalist, Tsarist Russian troops of the "White Armies", fought a brutal civil war against the socialist Red Army. There were also internal conflicts between the socialists as well, due to different groups wanting to carry out their version of socialism in Russia vs the others.
The socialists beat the white armies and foreign invaders by the mid-1920s and when Stalin took power a few years later, that's when the five-year plans began. Those economic plans which flopper dishonestly claims were a disaster, quickly industrialized the Soviet Union, turning it into an economic wonder and powerhouse.
Mind you, this was in the middle of the Great Depression in the United States and the Western world in general.
Thousands of well-educated Westerners, scientists, and engineers, traveled to the Soviet Union, to visit and also live and work. If you were an American professional and wanted a better life for you and your family, in the middle of the Graet Depression, you moved to Soviet Russia.
Then what happened in 1941? The Soviet Union was invaded by 4 million Germans. Operation Barbarossa resulted in the death of 28 million Soviets. They lost 14% of their population and yet they won the war. The Soviets beat the German invaders, just as they defeated the previous invading armies in the 1920s. The Soviets after WW2 rebuilt their new country without the Marshal Plan, offered by the United States to Western Europe and Japan. The conditions for the Soviets to accept financial assistance from the US, was that it had to essentially adopt capitalism. The Soviets said "no thanks" and they rebuilt their country on their own.
By the late 1950s, the Soviets were a nuclear superpower, launching rockets into space. By 1970, they had the second-largest economy in the world. The Soviets were war-weary, exhausted by conflict. Soviet government officials wanted to stop the Cold War and were looking at ways to in a way placate, pander to, satisfy the demands of their powerful Cold War rival, the United States. Perestroika and Glasnost in the 1980s, was that attempt, and it led to the dissolution of the USSR. If the USSR had continued implementing Stalin's five-year plans, the USSR today would be the world's #1 economy and superpower, without a doubt.
As far as China, it also was practically an unindustrialized, agrarian country, that like Tsarist Russia, had also suffered many famines before socialism, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. Socialist China tried to emulate Russian socialism, and in the beginning that led to serious difficulties. Russia and China are two different countries, with different natural resources and one can't expect that Stalin's five-year plans would work in China, without first being modified to meet the unique circumstances found in China. Nonetheless, by the late 1960s, China had overcome all of the famines and was gradually industrializing itself.
China today doesn't have a marketless socialist economy, but it's nonetheless socialist. There's heavy government involvement in the Chinese economy, as well as economic government planning. Capitalism is what happened to Russia in the 1990s, before Putin arrived and added some socialism to the Russian economy. Russia after the dissolution of the USSR, suffered what economists call "Capitalist Shock Therapy", it was forced to privatize everything and essentially sell all of Russia's public assets, once government-owned infrastructure to a bunch of wealthy capitalist oligarchs, who rapped Russia for pennies on the dollar.
China didn't do what Russia did in the 1990s, pre-Putin:
China implemented a form of market capitalism in its economy within the safe boundaries of socialism. As mentioned earlier, there's heavy government involvement in the Chinese market economy. It's not by any stretch of the imagination, Milton Friedman-style "free-market" capitalism. Friedman actually had really strong criticism of Chinese "capitalism", he hated it, due to how much government involvement there was.
Soon, due to advanced automation and artificial intelligence, markets will become obsolete and hence unsustainable. Marketless, more democratic, socialism will in time fully replace capitalism, out of necessity.
Dblack, the capitalist wannabe, a working-class man brainwashed by his wealthy capitalist masters, says:This shit stream is like the old Soviet propaganda during the cold war. You'd think they'd try something different.
You are like a kid with a book on algebra but you haven't yet leaned how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide yet.This shit stream is like the old Soviet propaganda during the cold war. You'd think they'd try something different.
You have an active fantasy life.Dblack, the capitalist wannabe, a working-class man brainwashed by his wealthy capitalist masters, says:
"Please capitalist master, don't replace me with a robot or artificial intelligence, I'm willing to work for ten cents an hour....."
And Dblack's master says, "Don't worry Dblack, I got you covered. I'm having my cronies in the government, pay everybody a UBI, and then after a few years of UBI, you will receive a UI. Get it? Get it? Here is some chewing tobacco and a cup. Remember to spit in the cup, don't swallow the chew because you'll get sick".
"Thanks, for your kindness my lord. I can use a UBI and a UI, and of course, some of that chew too. I once had some dip, and I didn't have a cup, and I swallowed it and puked on my dog. My dog stunk for ten days, and I had to give him a bath every day, just sayen. I know what you mean about spitting in the cup. I always have my little cup here with me when I chew some dip."
"I like you Dblack, but I can't hire you anymore, because I have robots and artificial intelligence doing all of the work you used to do. I don't need human employees anymore, I have my robots."
"Well, I guess I'm going to have to be a worthless consumer-serf, living off of a UBI. At least I have my chew-dip, and my dog Roscoe with me."
And how does the mountain of dead bodies that comes along with the failure of Capitalism compute with your logic?... what also never changes ....the mountain of dead bodies that comes along with the failure that is socialism... .
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."They all believe the same lie Lenin told ,che ,mao
Mountain of dead bodies the last 60 years has been brought to you by the MIC division of cronyismAnd how does the mountain of dead bodies that comes along with the failure of Capitalism compute with your logic?
When you try to put corporations on the same level as common society, limiting their gains and increasing the taxes they pay on dividends and other income, you are ensuring communism and socialism.To Conservatives
Anything you do to help Corporations is Patriotism
Anything you do to help the People is Socialism
Corporations pay lower tax rates than common societyWhen you try to put corporations on the same level as common society, limiting their gains and increasing the taxes they pay on dividends and other income, you are ensuring communism and socialism.
Communism is a great idea and will replace both capitalism and socialism in the future. Socialism is an early stage of communism, or communism "light", when it still allows markets and maintains certain economic and political institutions and instruments that become superfluous in high-communism. Communism is the future successor of capitalism.
Actually, it's capitalism that becomes completely impractical and obsolete once technology permits socialism and communism. Advanced automation and artificial intelligence, render capitalism non-functional and socialism (and later communism) the solution.
In socialism, "private ownership" is the ownership of assets used to generate capital (money), often at the expense and exploitation of human labor. Any property used by one socioeconomic class to exploit another is categorized as "private property". If your business enterprise is simply yourself and maybe your family, then although technically one might still identify the assets of your company as "private property", it's not that in the same sense as a business hiring workers (from the general public or in other words, strangers) and exploiting them for a profit. Paying people less than what they produce and establishing dictatorial control over people's time and labor (their lives).
The other form of property ownership is "personal property", which is for personal use. Your house, plot of land to grow your food, car, computer, fishing boat, gun collection, toothbrush..etc. That's personal property, and isn't "outlawed". Whoever tells you that socialism outlaws all property, including personal, is lying to you.
There are different degrees of socialism, one allowing for the private ownership of the means of production, provided it's within the consumer-goods and services sector of the economy and not in the industries vital to the nation's infrastructure like mining, energy, banking-finance, and a few others.
For the most part, a business within the consumer goods and services market can continue, pretty much as before, with maybe a few more rules that protect labor (allowing workers to unionize). In many ways you have a better chance of being successful business-wise with a socialist government than you do under a capitalist plutocratic oligarchy, which is what we have today in the US. A socialist government might help you stay in business, because you're generating needed jobs. A socialist government will ensure you make a profit, become wealthy, provided your attitude towards business is one of service to the community and nation.
The bottom line of business in socialism isn't private profits but rather the public good. As a capitalist under the authority of socialism, you are serving your community and country. As a capitalist, your socialist government will actually consider you an asset to the community and hence will protect your business, provided you follow the rules and see yourself as a patriot serving your country and people.
As technology advances, allowing production to become more automated, a socialist economy, transitions to the public ownership of the means of mass production. This is socialism, out of necessity, due to material conditions, moving away from a capitalist market economy to a completely socialized economy until it enters into the next phase of mass production which is high-communism. High-communism is when all production becomes personally owned and operated.
In high-communism, you and your family can produce everything you consume without anyone else's assistance. You won't even need the government's infrastructure or resources to produce everything you consume. That's high communism or high-tech communism.
The heart of capitalism is human labor, not private ownership. Without human labor or without enough of it, there's no capitalism or private ownership. Markets crumble without human labor because labor is also the paying consumer and without people purchasing products and services, there's no market capitalism or private business ownership. Your views on economics are fundamentally flawed.
The pursuit of profits within capitalism, can also incentivize monopolies which undermine the production of better goods and services. Capitalists remain tied to old investments and hence technologies that are obsolete in order to maintain market share and continue profiting from those previous investments.
One of the reasons that we don't have more modern, public transportation infrastructure in the United States, like interstate highspeed rail and more trains in general, along with city busses, and trollies, is because the fossil fuel industry wants everyone using gas-guzzling vehicles. Human progress can be stifled as a result of the capitalist pursuit of profits.
For tens of thousands of years, humanity produced everything they needed without markets when human production was tribal and communist (primitive communism - no state, no socioeconomic classes, and no need for money):
In the future, humanity due to advanced automation and artificial intelligence, will become communist again.
"A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state (or nation state).[7][8][9]
Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more authoritarian vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a socialist state, followed by the withering away of the state.[10] As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, communist parties and movements have been described as radical left or far-left.[11][12][note 1]"
Source: Communism - Wikipedia
The free market is a unicorn, it has never existed nor will it ever exist. Markets are always regulated and heavily dependent upon government infrastructure and resources, especially at a national scale, in the modern age.
Capitalism becomes obsolete and non-functional when advanced technology automates production, replacing a significant % of wage labor. A modern society with a market-based economy is forced to adopt socialism by necessity when advanced automation and artificial intelligence begins to significantly replace wage labor. To assert otherwise is to be in denial, like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
The above statements amount to Flopper's skewed, self-serving, pro-capitalist, Cold War claptrap propaganda version of history. He either forgets to mention certain important facts about the circumstances and context in which the USSR was forced to function and grow, and also lies about what actually occurred.
Also ask yourself why these defenders of capitalism, are always appealing to events that supposedly occurred 100 years ago, 50 years ago, as if that sets the standard forever for what must happen in the future. These disingenuous capitalist polemicists pretend that there's only one form of socialism and that socialists aren't allowed to learn from their mistakes in the past and improve socialism in the future. Socialism and communism must exist in only one form, and must always emulate, perfectly, its past without any modification or adjustments. It must remain static forever because clearly, this version of reality serves capitalists, keeping them in power.
The only reason that I respond to people like "flopper" is for the sake of others, who are genuinely interested in the truth. Those who are sincerely concerned for truth, whatever that might be. I write for them, not for "floppers".
Russia was an under-industrialized, agrarian society, with at least half of its population consisting of illiterate peasants, before its socialist revolution in 1917. Tsarist Russia often suffered famines and wars, taking the lives of millions of Russians. Leninist and Stalinist socialism transformed Russia into an industrial juggernaut, rivaling the United States in less than 20 years. What took the US 100 years of industrial development with capitalism, took much less with socialism.
Socialism, according to all of the stats, recognized by even Western economists, significantly improved the standard of living of the vast majority of Russians. This despite the fact that the US, UK, France and ten other countries invaded Russia in 1918, immediately after WW1, to sabotage the socialist Russian revolution. Over 250K foreign troops, along with about 300K pro-capitalist, Tsarist Russian troops of the "White Armies", fought a brutal civil war against the socialist Red Army. There were also internal conflicts between the socialists as well, due to different groups wanting to carry out their version of socialism in Russia vs the others.
The socialists beat the white armies and foreign invaders by the mid-1920s and when Stalin took power a few years later, that's when the five-year plans began. Those economic plans which flopper dishonestly claims were a disaster, quickly industrialized the Soviet Union, turning it into an economic wonder and powerhouse.
Mind you, this was in the middle of the Great Depression in the United States and the Western world in general.
Thousands of well-educated Westerners, scientists, and engineers, traveled to the Soviet Union, to visit and also live and work. If you were an American professional and wanted a better life for you and your family, in the middle of the Graet Depression, you moved to Soviet Russia.
Then what happened in 1941? The Soviet Union was invaded by 4 million Germans. Operation Barbarossa resulted in the death of 28 million Soviets. They lost 14% of their population and yet they won the war. The Soviets beat the German invaders, just as they defeated the previous invading armies in the 1920s. The Soviets after WW2 rebuilt their new country without the Marshal Plan, offered by the United States to Western Europe and Japan. The conditions for the Soviets to accept financial assistance from the US, was that it had to essentially adopt capitalism. The Soviets said "no thanks" and they rebuilt their country on their own.
By the late 1950s, the Soviets were a nuclear superpower, launching rockets into space. By 1970, they had the second-largest economy in the world. The Soviets were war-weary, exhausted by conflict. Soviet government officials wanted to stop the Cold War and were looking at ways to in a way placate, pander to, satisfy the demands of their powerful Cold War rival, the United States. Perestroika and Glasnost in the 1980s, was that attempt, and it led to the dissolution of the USSR. If the USSR had continued implementing Stalin's five-year plans, the USSR today would be the world's #1 economy and superpower, without a doubt.
As far as China, it also was practically an unindustrialized, agrarian country, that like Tsarist Russia, had also suffered many famines before socialism, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. Socialist China tried to emulate Russian socialism, and in the beginning that led to serious difficulties. Russia and China are two different countries, with different natural resources and one can't expect that Stalin's five-year plans would work in China, without first being modified to meet the unique circumstances found in China. Nonetheless, by the late 1960s, China had overcome all of the famines and was gradually industrializing itself.
China today doesn't have a marketless socialist economy, but it's nonetheless socialist. There's heavy government involvement in the Chinese economy, as well as economic government planning. Capitalism is what happened to Russia in the 1990s, before Putin arrived and added some socialism to the Russian economy. Russia after the dissolution of the USSR, suffered what economists call "Capitalist Shock Therapy", it was forced to privatize everything and essentially sell all of Russia's public assets, once government-owned infrastructure to a bunch of wealthy capitalist oligarchs, who rapped Russia for pennies on the dollar.
China didn't do what Russia did in the 1990s, pre-Putin:
China implemented a form of market capitalism in its economy within the safe boundaries of socialism. As mentioned earlier, there's heavy government involvement in the Chinese market economy. It's not by any stretch of the imagination, Milton Friedman-style "free-market" capitalism. Friedman actually had really strong criticism of Chinese "capitalism", he hated it, due to how much government involvement there was.
Soon, due to advanced automation and artificial intelligence, markets will become obsolete and hence unsustainable. Marketless, more democratic, socialism will in time fully replace capitalism, out of necessity.