It isn‘t “capitalism“ vs. “socialism“. That

[applegrove]

Last edited Tue Apr 2, 2013, 01:58 AM - Edit history (2)

just isolates the left. We should be talking “crony capitalism“ vs. “mixed markets“, Mixed markets are what beat communism. Mixed markets allow for single payer health care. Mixed markets include social programs. Crony capitalism in South America made for horrid inequality and thus perpetuated communism as an alternative on that continent in the 20th century. Don‘t let the fringe right define the parameters of the debate by imposing language on us all that slices & dices the electorate up to their advantage. We are for mixed markets on the DU. We are not for privatising everything like crony capitalism.

[snooper2]

1. Best OP I've seen in a while in GD

When the guy that owns the only auto shop in town is best friends with the mayor is when bullshit starts---

[applegrove]

2. Thanks. I‘m blushing.

[Nye Bevan]

3. There are many capitalist countries that have single payer healthcare.

There is nothing wrong with capitalism, when it is properly regulated, as it is in countries such as Sweden, Germany and Denmark.

[applegrove]

4. Those are all mixed markets. Mixed

markets include regulated capitalism. What the GOP wants is privatized everything. They want to move away from the mixed market that is the USA.

[Jamaal510]

7. +1

[Purplehazed]

5. I agree...

also "compassionate capitalism" vs "greedy capitalism".

[Cleita]

6. I agree too. n/t

[rhett o rick]

8. "Compassionate capitalism" is an oxymoron. nm

[Nye Bevan]

32. Really? How would you descibe a system like in Sweden,

which is capitalist but with universal health care and a strong social safety net?

[rhett o rick]

33. I think we've gone thru this before. My definition of capitalism doesnt include "a strong

safety net." I believe the leading capitalist country today is China.

[freshwest]

9. I don't follow all of that, but yes. Like Europe, mixed markets.

[applegrove]

10. I think I made it a little bit clearer.

[freshwest]

12. That's much easier to understand and it's fully correct. Thanks, will save this.

[RobertEarl]

11. Socialism is; then comes capitalism

Capitalism is a parasite of our socialistic way of life and government.

Our military, our schools, our roads and our libraries, our police and our environmental enforcements are all owned by you and me - the workers. We can tell our managers - the government - what to do with all that productive infrastructure that we the people own.

Capitalism just hangs around feeding off the body of socialism.

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. well yes of course, the whole world now knows that total collectivism does not work and history has

shown proven beyond any doubt that even unregulated, sweat shop capitalism is in the vast majority of circumstances a lesser evil. But fortunately we don't half to choose between those two - because history has also proven beyond any shadow of any doubt that a mixed economy based on strongly regulated and unionized market capitalism as the main engine of wealth creation supplemental with socialist type reforms such as a socialist health care system and an extensive economic safety net and other reforms such as mandatory worker representation in management is what works best. We KNOW this now. We can communicate with absolute confidence that we who advocate a mixed economy are the true moderates and the true pragmatist and most importantly we are advocating the only approach in the history of the world that has ever produced prosperity, freedom and social justice equity and justice - not simply the best system - but the only one that truly works.

[DFW]

14. I agree, but the opposition from both extreme ends is fierce

Like the joke goes: "Well, yes, it works in practice, but does it work in theory?"

[theKed]

18. Sarcasm?

[Douglas Carpenter]

20. I don't know what you mean. Everyone who knows the history of the 20th Century knows that total

collectivism has been a total failure. Just as everyone knows the history of the 20th Century knows that unregulated and unrestrained capitalism - although not as disastrous as total collectivism - simpy does not work very well and is self-destructive in the long. This is obvious to sane and rational people.

[theKed]

21. Oh.

Sane and rational people have never seen a pure collectivist state on Earth.

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. nothing that has sustained so far

Is it possible that a total collectivist model could work? I don't know. But all of those that appeared to work for brief periods of time such as the Paris Commune or the Spanish Social Revolution were not able to sustain when confronted with existential threats.

[theKed]

24. Um.

"the whole world now knows that total collectivism does not work"
"Is it possible that a total collectivist model could work? I don't know."

You're sending pretty mixed signals.

[Douglas Carpenter]

25. I don't know how that is

I'm simply saying that so far no total collectivist models have worked for longer than very short periods of time - defining working as offering a sustainable period of a level of personal freedom, freedom of speech, human rights as well as prosperity and security at least equal to that of any one of several European mixed economy social democracies. . Is it possible that another total collectivist model might work in the future? Anything is possible. But so far we have not seen it.

[TheKentuckian]

19. Why is being a sweat shop slave a clearly better life than a collective serf?

Especially in a time where the competition for the day labor position is fierce and many are turned away a few are allowed to remain in line as replacements? Elementary age children toiling away in coal mines. Indentured servitude. Deplorable, death and dismemberment causing environments to save a buck. Unlimited hours for whatever ownership wants to pay. Poisoning air, food, and water for extra profits?
Genocide for indigenous people in the way of resources and property. Species wiped out without regard. Colonialism for others to allow a level of underclass that would not long be tolerated in many populations. Education is for the few elites. The wealthy buy the government, regardless of political system.

Beyond a doubt, my ass.

It seems to me that the essential flaw of both systems given as close to a full run as possible is that resource control and political power ever get into fewer and fewer hands to the point that distribution of wealth and/or resources becomes so poor that the many are powerless subsistence drones and ruling classes that dominate governance are created and maintained.

Of course we need a mixed economy but your line of thinking will always lead back to unregulated capitalism...always because the system ever seeks monopoly and exploitation of resource while demanding eternal growth.
The espoused reasoning also avoids acceptance that the commons is fundamental, there is no purpose of capital except to profit from the commons and that property is extracted from the commons and is a form of stewardship and trust.

Given time and opportunity capitalism will undue socialist reforms in pursuit of ever increasing profits. In time it will devour the commons and supplant democracy ignoring the will of the people in favor of the designs of the wealthy which is why I believe that socialism must have the driver's seat and there be substantial capitalist reforms to push toward balance under supremacy of the common good.

Also, strong proponents of the dominance of capitalism forget or ignore that the system actually seems to be heavily affected by its own rules, capitalism it's self seems to best operate when it has real world competition. Once unopposed the once clear strengths begin to fade and prosperity becomes less and less broad and opportunity for upward mobility diminishes to levels to be found under feudalism.
The same folks also tend to conflate capitalism with democracy, how I do not begin to understand.

I will say that both sides are fighting the last war and that emerging conditions make both relics unable to deal with new conditions. The existing capital/labor paradigms just don't have long before not making sense in real world application. One day we will look up and neither will have a substantial place in a world where automation dominates and production is user end.

The world is changing and it does not fit within our feeble constructs. There is already drawing down of labor with little in place to humanely deal with the needs of those left behind and less in place to stem the bleeding meaning the list of those left behind grows seemingly by the day while those still in the game are struggling for an ever shrinking portion of the pie no matter how big the pie actually grows.

[Douglas Carpenter]

22. totalitarian communism was much worse - get real

I'm not advocating either. I'm advocating something that works - a mixture of socialism and capitalism. I'm advocating accepting reality as it exist on planet earth not in the world of gobbly gook political theory. Get real

[Starry Messenger]

28. +1000

[Douglas Carpenter]

30. there are no cases in the history of the world where the total collectivist model didn't either

quickly collapse or degenerate into a totalitarian order and then later collapse. There are no total collectivist models in the history of the world that even came close to offering the same level of prosperity and freedom as the United States - the absolute bastion of capitalism - to say nothing of the kinder and gentler version of reformed capitalism found in the social democracies. Social democracy still exist. The total collectivist models are now buried in the dustbin of history - except North Korea - I suppose.

[TheKentuckian]

34. There has never been a total capitalist model to work either and the closer one attempts to come to

one, the more likely an implosion or monopoly.

Your absolute bastion only generated broad prosperity when the mix of socialism was greatly increased and regulation tightened and when one looks at Europe and our country we get a chance to see the dynamics I describe both in history and in real time. Capitalism turns cancerous and begins consuming everything and supersedes democracy and over turns constraints and safeguards.

Given a full run at domination what do you think happens and if you start describing post WWII America then you are being willfully dishonest? Without substantial reforms, competition outside its self, much lower populations, more plentiful and accessible resources, and compromise from the pure idea where would the gilded age lead?
I'd bet the average person's life in pre-collapse Soviet Union would be lot easier, longer, and freer than under the whip of the capitalist endgame.

Economic systems are resource distribution tools, not religions. Worship is foolish, use what works and limit what does not and be prepared to adjust the scheme as time moves along. Get too far out of balance either way and totalitarian rule begins though probably for very different reasons, at least in the beginning.

[Douglas Carpenter]

35. I cannot imagine what I could have said to make it more clear that I believe in the mixed economy

I cannot imagine what more I could have said to make it more clear that I do not believe that total capitalism or total collectivism works.

[caseymoz]

15. Unfortunately, the crony capitalists . . .

. . . are doing their level best to prove Marx right after all.

Yes, I'd like to get back to a mixed market. Though I do have to ask, isn't that where we started before we ended up with crony capitalism.

What beat communism, I think, is that capitalism morphed into consumerism, which put a wedge between a person's identity as a worker and their identity as a consumer. It was able to play off workers against consumers.

The defeat of communism probably wasn't as total as you think. Bolshevism and its variants were defeated, not communism. The reason Bolshevik communism collapsed, IMHO, was probably not economics. Perhaps it was because Bolsheviks were cruel, psychopathic bastards. Lenin and Stalin set up a system that required terror to work. Once the terror flagged, the Bolshevik system lost its momentum.

[eridani]

16. Most RWNJs who yammer about "socialism" couldn't tell you the difference--

--between Karl Marx and Groucho Marx. What they are doing is attacking the existence of public goods. "Mixed markets" just means that some things are public goods and some things aren't.

[raccoon]

17. Well said! nt

[unblock]

26. Genuine competition and fair play -- rule of (economic) law

Nevermind government spending, the march toward monopolistic and unregulated powers by entrenched businesses is anti-capitalism.

Right-wingers want big businesses to play football without referees on a field that tilts in their favor and they want to make up rules as they go along then boast about their victory after doing what anyone else would call cheating.

All the theoretical benefits of capitalism stem from referees, level playing field, internalization of externalities, and genuine competition.

Big business wanted to do away with that, and it's government's job to prevent that.

[CrispyQ]

29. +1

it's government's job to prevent that.

Something's gone terribly wrong. The entire political system is corrupt & compromised.

[CrispyQ]

27. It makes you wonder why the dems don't hire someone like George Lakoff,

to help frame the message, the way that right-wing guy does for the repubs. Why could that be?

We're not against capitalism. We're against crony capitalism.

We're in favor of fair markets, not free markets.

Corporate Bailouts = Privatized Profit + Socialized Risk

[felix_numinous]

31. Great post