Socialism Vs Capitalism

[Brandon]

Discuss the pro's and con's of both of these systems. Why is one better than the other? Is your nation moving closer to either of these systems? What system would best serve society?

 

[sarah]

I think Capitalism is a more smooth system. The corporations provide product based on the requirements of the people. I just like the way it works.
Capitalism has made great progress over the past years, and Socialism for the most part seems to have fallen. I believe there is a good reason for that.

 

[dong]

Socialism is a fine idea if one values a literal interpretation of egalitarianism. But in terms of application, it is problematic in that it is essentially arbitrarily restrictive.

Capitalism or societies tending towards capitalism have their own dangers but by the same token it also allows for far greater opportunities to be had. Because it's sometime in the dead of the morning and I'm tired, I'm going to be extremely brief and simply say that there is inevitably a competition for resources, so to artificially level the playing field places a society at risk of compromising the grounds of their own infrastructure. In a capitalistic society, the rich get richer and those who do not have opportunity get screwed, but as long as one can differentiate between capitalism with a nod to public structural integrity (in the more regulated of democratic nations), and libertarianism, I would advocate for a particularly regulated form of capitalism.

Australia seems to have become more libertarian in terms of a series of privatisations of major formerly-public-domain, and various industrial relations acts. It is often said that in being concerned about fancy numbers on the budget sheet, John Howard has resorted to screwing the people truly responsible for putting those numbers there.

 

[l99999us]

i guess I lean more in the direction of socialism or likly more of a European style social democracy. I do think their needs to be a good amount of regulation of the capitalist system to keep it functioning. Plus I do think it ignores many issues that may not be adequetly represented in the market including worker rights, the enviornment etc.

Plus their is the tendency to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few people which i think can be harmful to democracy.

I guess I may be more sympathetic to small buisiness but often i think (at least for big companies) they will just do whatever they can get away with and often small buisinessesare often forced to do similar things to compeate.

 

[Furious George]

Capitalism here in America, is not Capitalism that was theorized by Adam Smith, and his fellow intellectuals. In Capitalism, Markets are essential, and currently in America, we have a sort of psuedo-market system. Why? It's simple. Markets are about INFORMED consumers. Since when are American consumers informed? They may be informed about the latest gadget, or fad, but not about the BEST gadget. Many people are fad shoppers, which is against the idea of Capitalist Markets. Here's a good example--iPods. Who would've thought that there was an alternative to an iPod which had longer battery life, and overall, much better quality? Sure, they didn't dump as much money into the design, but wouldn't an informed decision be to purchase the item that was a better deal, and more functional? This better decision is the 'Creative Vision: M'. It has four times the picture quality as an iPod, twice the battery life, as well as an FM radio tuner and voice recorder, and is the same price. The only problem is, it's twice as thick, but when you look at an iPod, you think--twice as thick? It's still pretty damn thin. I have had the pleasure of owning both products, and I must say, the Creative blows the iPod out of the water.

Would it be accurate to say I made an informed decision, or in other words, a Capitalistic decision?

 

[l99999us]

i think a large part of it is the power of advertising and the ability of large corperations to dominate in the marketing aspect. It is almost as if the need to make a good product is less important then the need to market it.

Capitalism here in America, is not Capitalism that was theorized by Adam Smith, and his fellow intellectuals. In Capitalism, Markets are essential, and currently in America, we have a sort of psuedo-market system. Why? It's simple. Markets are about INFORMED consumers. Since when are American consumers informed? They may be informed about the latest gadget, or fad, but not about the BEST gadget. Many people are fad shoppers, which is against the idea of Capitalist Markets. Here's a good example--iPods. Who would've thought that there was an alternative to an iPod which had longer battery life, and overall, much better quality? Sure, they didn't dump as much money into the design, but wouldn't an informed decision be to purchase the item that was a better deal, and more functional? This better decision is the 'Creative Vision: M'. It has four times the picture quality as an iPod, twice the battery life, as well as an FM radio tuner and voice recorder, and is the same price. The only problem is, it's twice as thick, but when you look at an iPod, you think--twice as thick? It's still pretty damn thin. I have had the pleasure of owning both products, and I must say, the Creative blows the iPod out of the water.

Would it be accurate to say I made an informed decision, or in other words, a Capitalistic decision?

 

[Furious George]

Which is--against our capitalistic foundation. Quite simply, uninformed consumers will only lead is into a more Corporatistic world, which we all know is never a good thing.

 

[kelkat]

I believe in capitalism. Anyone can get anything if they try and try again. If you work, you get paid. In Socialism, you all get the same thing regardless of how you work.

 

[dong]

I believe in capitalism. Anyone can get anything if they try and try again. If you work, you get paid. In Socialism, you all get the same thing regardless of how you work.

Try to be a little more rigorous in your approach. That statement (much like your statement in the gay rights thread under Controversial Issues) presumes that significance only be granted to those that fall within standards of normalcy, which is anomalous in light of the liberal axiology that formed the basis of true capitalism. In this case, you presume that anyone can get anything if they try and try again. This is clearly untrue. While we believe that everybody should be granted some kind of equal rights, we are justified in not believing that everybody is born equal, and that there are aspects of our lives that we cannot control ourselves. It is harder for some people to achieve certain things than others and how this manifests now depends largely on the values that society hold.

Also, the options open to us are not simply "capitalism" and "socialism" like they exist as two islands and a Pacific-sized gulf in between. Socialism by principle is complete regulation, and libertarianism (not capitalism, I think,) zero, the point being that there exists a multi-dimensional spectrum of economic policy. Because our social dynamics and paradigms have been far removed from our basical corporeal parameters, it is important to have regulations that mediate the discrepancies, else those who have limited resources will be denied the opportunities that may yield greater results than if they were simply let alone in the hands of those that recieved them.

 

[supersheep]

Also, the options open to us are not simply "capitalism" and "socialism" like they exist as two islands and a Pacific-sized gulf in between. Socialism by principle is complete regulation, and libertarianism (not capitalism, I think,) zero, the point being that there exists a multi-dimensional spectrum of economic policy. Because our social dynamics and paradigms have been far removed from our basical corporeal parameters, it is important to have regulations that mediate the discrepancies, else those who have limited resources will be denied the opportunities that may yield greater results than if they were simply let alone in the hands of those that recieved them.

Socialism is not necessarily complete regulation. There are socialist ideas which are completely regulated (Marxist, or authoritarian, socialism) and there are socialist ideas which are completely free (libertarian socialism, or anarchism). In the same way, there are totally regulated capitalisms (fascism or corporatism) and totally free capitalisms ('anarcho'-capitalism or libertarianism being two examples), although the problem with totally free capitalisms is, due to capitalism's tendency to produce monopolies, they lead inherently to corporatism and fascism.

I'm an anarcho-communist (communist here meaning favouring communes, rather than being Marxist-Leninist or whatever). I believe that capitalism is inherently authoritarian. I also believe that free associations of people are the best solution to just about every problem we have.