Why Welfare Capitalism Beats Socialism

[gobears10]

In my view, it is best to set up a system that takes advantage of both propensities. We can't change the course of rivers; I think it's an exercise in hubris to try to make the river flow backwards. Institutions have to be grafted onto human nature, and go with the flow of the river. It is true that human beings are selfish, and capitalism is the system that takes advantage of that. We need to put dams and locks on the rivers, but we can't make it flow the other direction.

Social-democracy, by contrast, is like building dams and dykes to contain the excesses of the river, while allowing it to flow in the right direction. In Scandinavia, you have an efficiently regulated capitalist system mixed with a welfare state. Sweden provides everyone an equal opportunity at success by providing universal public education, daycare, healthcare, infrastructure, and housing. These programs take advantage of people's innate tendencies for kindness, sympathy, and cooperation. But after you give people an equal opportunity at success, people can compete with each other to make more money, buy bigger and better cars, buy larger houses than others, buy the latest technological innovations, compete to defeat other businesses in the marketplace, engage in materialism, and so on. Social-democrats therefore also take advantage of people's innate tendencies for competitiveness and greed.

In essence, I feel it's important to view the best kind of society as an engineering problem. We need to look about what works well in existing society, and what doesn't work well. If parts of the existing system are great, there is no need for a complete overhaul. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. For the parts that need to be fixed, we need specific, concrete proposals. Moreover, we need to approach the economy with nuance, and refine our categories beyond simple dichotomies. There are many flavors of capitalism, just as there are many flavors of socialism.

Read full post here: http://policywonkroy.blogspot.com/2015/05/social-democracy-vs-socialism.html

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. "...take advantage of people's innate tendencies for kindness, sympathy, and cooperation"

"Take advantage" is right.

In other words, "make a buck exploiting those weaknesses".

[delrem]

2. I guess that's kinda like Arizona vs Scandinavia.

The problem with socialism is there's no welfare cheaters/moochers to bash, no way to get that primal satisfaction.

[newfie11]

3. +++++++++++++nt

[rogerashton]

4. Like a river through the desert, this piece is long but shallow.

In essence, I feel it's important to view the best kind of society as an engineering problem.

Before this could be done, the control of billionaires over the political process would have to be eliminated -- and that cannot be done without eliminating the billionaires -- and that means eliminating capitalism.

[Blue Meany]

6. I don't think we need to eliminate capitalism to

get rid of billionaires. We could simply put a limit on accumulated wealth and tax wealth over that amount at 100%. Of course, under the current circumstances it might take a revolution to make that happen, but capitalism would not have to end: we don't need billionaires for capitalism to function; indeed we don't need them for anything.

[rogerashton]

8. I am puzzled exactly what you mean by "capitalism," then?

Could you give us your definition? I understand capitalism to be a system in which the proprietor of the nonhuman resources in the business is legally the owner of any surplus generated by the business. When some businesses generate surpluses in the billions, capitalism gives you billionaires.

If by capitalism you mean a market economy, reread the link in the OP. The author concedes that some socialists would keep a market system, and also admits that, in principle, some other mechanism of economic management might improve on a market system -- albeit, he seems to think, none that is now known.

So -- your definition, please?

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

5. Capitalism is an unsustainable system...

it needs to grow almost uncontrolled to survive. Since we live in a closed system (earth) it will not be the a "forever" system.

I have posted this website here before, study it. Makes some very valid points. Lots of info. The link starts you out in what I considered one of the most interesting places on the site. Enjoy!

http://endofcapitalism.com/about/1-is-this-the-end-of-capitalism/

Welcome to DU.

[Blue Meany]

7. I'm not sure that the impulse to grow is specific to

capitalism. Campaigns of growth have taken place under socialism, too, such as the "Great Leap Forward" in China. I think the problem is actually deeper: a culture of materialism that gauges personal and collective success on the acquisition of wealth rather than other metrics, such as charity or character.

To be sure, modern capitalism has cultivated, exploited, and exacerbated materialism with advertising, planned obsolescence, and a financial system that creates nothing but siphons off profit from the real economy.
But there are small-scale enterprises that do not seek continuous expansion and that do try to work within environmental limits, so I do not think that capitalism itself is at the root of the problem.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

9. Good points...but

Quite simply, the sustainability of capitalism is being directly challenged, both by the Earth and by the efforts of millions of people who demand a better world. Like a shark, capital cannot survive without constantly moving, and motion requires growth. But growth, in this world of unmovable limits, is history.

So, while we live under a capitalist order, we likely will not for long. In fact, capitalism may have already died, and transformed itself into a zombie-capitalism which is content to cannibalize its own support structure in a self-defeating effort to produce short-term profits. We can see this zombie behavior through the austerity measures facing us right now – cutting social services and budgets, laying off employees, destroying public sector unions, closing schools and hospitals, and generally destroying any possibility for consumption to stay at its currently high levels.

As the economy decomposes, the good news is that new worlds which are currently closed to us may indeed open up. It may become possible to build on a larger scale what the Occupy movement attempted to do in city squares this past Fall – create spaces for people to come together, feed one another, house one another, and decide our fate democratically.

The future may be better than capitalism, or worse, but it will most certainly be different. I hope for a world where people and ecosystems matter more than profit. To get to that world, we first need to understand how capitalism structures our world currently, and how we can overcome it.