A capitalist/socialist balance...

[SHRED]

...with strong democracy-based governmental oversight.

Ideally.

But we have a runaway capitalist economic system that has turned monopolistic and predatory.
Damaging Democracy.
It has bought our government away from us and into the control of the wealthy few.

Pure socialism leads to communism.
Pure capitalism leads to fascism.


OK...am I just way off in my thinking here?
:shrug:

[Deep13]

1. I think it's a false dilemma.

If we steer clear of ideology and simply do what is calculated to benefit the ordinary or worse off than ordinary people, then it will lead to improvements. If we base public policy on fact rather than on prejudices or the pressure of powerful interests, it would necessarily be a gigantic improvement.

[asdjrocky]

2. It can be done.

But I don't know if it can be done without the whole system coming down.

[KharmaTrain]

3. A Delicate Balance

You are spot on with your perspective and well worth fleshing out. In essence our government is a corporation...run by people who seek money and power but through a different door. The concept of a fully socialistic or communistic system flies in the face of one of human nature's greatest "virtues": greed. In the "workers paradise" of the Soviet Union you had the leader who lived in the Daschas and shopped in well-stocked government stores while the rest stood in lines waiting for toilet paper. There will always be those who are more aggressive and will seek the fame, the power, the money...to be one-up on the next guy.

Inversely, unabashed captalism as we've seen over the past 30 years has led to a kleptocracy...where not only the corporates but the government are involved in making money and gaining more power. Our country was turned into a mass consumer society fueld on debt and the clock has struck 12...the very consumers, the middle class, has been tapped out and there won't be a true economic recovery until this sector is recharged. The too big to fails still don't see it, but they do so at their peril as more and more industries fail.

One thing to consider is that "pure" capitalism is a society driven by corporations while socialism is driven by a government that also can act like a large corporation with even less accountability...thus there needs to be a balance between the two. That's why the public option was a wonderful concept as it put the government in competition with the corporates. But it also was a threat to both and thus was killed.

The pain of the collapse of our current crony capitalism system still hasn't been fully felt. As more people go into debt, as the economy continues to erode so does the power of the corporates. 2010 could be a very interesting year as so many distressed industries will no longer be able to kick their debt cans down the road and the frustrations of the public, right and left, put pressure on the politicians. We're in a quiet class war right now and our side isn't doing too well.

Cheers...

[jb2u11]

4. capitalism is better than socialism

I don't think socialism is good for anyone

[BeFree]

6. Oh?

Schools should be run for profit? Roads should have tolls? Cops should be privatized? Fire departments? Department of Defense?

Socialism, actually, means good for everyone.

[Deep13]

9. It's been good to me.

Public schools, public college, public law school, low cost medical care before I found a job (thanks OH taxpayers!), publicly funded medical research giving us longer, better lives, medicare, medicaid, (increasingly stingy) protections for workers, civil rights and that is just off the top of my heads. Of course post offices, police, roads, fire dept., public water etc. are not socialist because they are the traditional functions of governance.

And the most socialistic countries of western Europe are also objectively the best places in the world to live. So factually you are wrong.

[jb2u11]

10. Where did all that tax money come from

It came from working people who own businesses or work for businesses that prospered under a free market system. I'm not saying every social program is bad, but socialism can only go so far before it runs out of other peoples money.

I have a lot of family in Europe (Germany and England), it is not better there at all. They envy us and would prefer to be here.

[Deep13]

11. Much of it came from working people...

...and some of it (too little) came from the wealthy. The idea is that working people are entitled to some of the fruits of their labor. Simply allowing the wealth of the nation to concentrate into the hands of a corporate elite is not free enterprise and is not democracy. Citzens are shareholders and not merely consumers or workers. I often hear Americans are the hardest working people in the world. Frankly, that's not something to brag about. It means we are being duped and that we are working to support the rich elite. THAT's what we can't afford. The limited communisty services offered by the state are one of the few ways of mitigating the problem. Most of those working people send their children to public schools and will use medicare when they retire.

And frankly, I don't believe you about the UK or Europe. The grass is always greener elsewhere and I think your friends have a bit of that. I have a cousin who moved here from UK, got married and now wants to move back because she has no health care and because the economy sucks so bad. In terms of longevity, distribution of wealth, general health, leisure time, education and workplace oversight*, the best place to live is France or Scandinavia.


*When I was in Yorkshire in 1999 I observed that grocery store cashiers all sat on secretary chairs behind the register. I found that remarkable. Here we would be so paranoid of seeming lazy that it would not occur to anyone. Not only does that make 8 hours behind the register more bearable, but it prevents foot and back problems that would be the inevitable result of standing all day. That's just an example, of course. We don't do things like that here because workers are disposable.

[jb2u11]

12. response

I appreciate your opinion. I agree, working people are entitled to the fruits of their labor. Thats why it is important they are able to keep their paycheck and not have to pass it all on to the government. It's their money, not mine and not yours and certainly not the governments. It's easy to blame all of the problems on the rich and corporate greed but the fact is most people in the country are employed by small businesses, not large corporations. I suspect if you took all of the money away from all of the rich people in the US you probably couldn't run the government for a month and it would all be gone. The fact is the middle class is where all of the money is as it makes up 90% of the population.

As far as europe goes I have been there many times, they do ok but they don't have nearly the standard of living we do here. They have no money to buy many of the things we take for granted, they pay ungodly taxes and the services that are free are very poor. My aunt needed a hip replaced and came here to have it done. She was 64 and they would not do it there. I suppose we could go back and forth on this all day and still disagree but the fact is we have it pretty good here compared to there.

[Deep13]

13. You are selectively ignoring the real problem.

It's not a question of keeping what they earn. It's a question of never getting what they earn in the first place. As far as standards of living goes, you are selectively ignoring the millions who do not share that standard including over 40 million without accessible health care. We have the highest rate of infant mortality in the industrial world, the high rates of incarceration, illiteracy, teen pregnancy and violent crime. Our standard of living is good for some, obscenely posh for a very few, and just plain shitty for many. This is in large part because the wealth of the nation is concentrated into a corporate elite and never gets to working people. A major CEO makes something like 400x his lowest paid employee. (Is GM out of bankruptcy yet?) In England, it is around 28x. On the continent, it us under 20x. Face it, we are working for them, not ourselves. There needs to be significant tax increases on wealthy estates and income, at least to Nixon-era levels, and substantive laws restricting how much executives may pay themselves. Frankly, working poor do not make enough for a tax reduction to make any difference.

As far as taxes go, as you said, they are already very low by the standards of most industrial nations. Nevertheless, it seems we do everything as ass backwards as possible to avoid offending irrational prejudices or powerful interests. Look at that rate of incarceration, for example. How many of them are in prison (perhaps for a short time) because of drug possession. Keeping someone in jail or prison is pretty damn expensive. Marijuana, which is far less harmful than alcohol, tobacco or probably caffeine, does not need to be illegal for public safety. It is only out puritanical ideas about productivity that makes it so. That and the fact that drug interdiction employs a good fraction of the nation's cops and correctional officers. Once in prison, of course, first timers become exposed to habitual criminals and learn how to be professional criminals themselves. I personally feel that discouraging the alcohol culture would reduce violent crime and eliminate the #1 gateway drug. Let's face it. Drugs have won the war on drugs. We need to look at this as a public health problem and not as a moral one.

Anyway, prisons are just one example. Another is our approach to social problems. Unfortunately, sex education and STD prevention is required to conform to irrational, backward ideas of sexual "morality" and are, therefore, a complete waste of time and money. What about all the public cash spend on school sports programs? I don't know where you live, but around here people actually care about high school sports like it mattered or something. 2300 years after the fall of Sparta, we ought to admit that their warrior-education system failed and use our school money for actual education.

And of course there is the granddaddy of wasteful spending: war. Every war in American history (and in fact just about every war everywhere) has been accompanied by a tax increase to pay for it. Not this time. Bush ordered and for some reason got a tax cut on the rich (primarily) and instead borrowed heavily from communist China. WTF?? That's what has killed the value of the dollar. That was the trigger for our economic collapse. When the world starting buying oil in Euros instead of dollars, we all got a pay cut. And the debt and expenses of war mount every month. It is outrageously expensive and those profiting from it are not paying their share. The Iraq war did not need to be fought and now after that fiasco, our economy and military is wrecked. There's no draft to replace the soldiers etc. and no revenue to pay the costs. What is more is that revue that could be providing for the basic needs of this country is being absorbed by the wars. I knew we were not getting comprehensive health care reform because we squandered that money on war. Even at peace, however, are armed forces are still outrageously expensive. We spend more than the rest of the world put together. Why do we need such an imperialist military? Canada manages to guard as much territory with far fewer men. Same with Australia. What makes us so paranoid? Yeah, we need an effective national defense. What we have is gross overkill. And since so many of the best and brightest are either building weapons or are in uniform, we are deprived of their talents in solving this country's problems.

Sorry for the tirade, and of course I am only hitting a few obvious examples. Taxes on working people is not the main problem in this country. It is not even a real problem.

[jb2u11]

17. I guess i don't see the real problem you do.....

While I respect your opinion on the subject I do disagree with your basic premise.

I think it's pretty much a fact that our standard of living is very good for almost all, posh for a few and very poor for a few. the middle class in this country lives at a much higher standard than most other countries.

Your premise seems to be that when one individual becomes obscenely rich it takes away from others when in reality it doesn't take anything away from anyone assuming he didn't steal the money to get it. If I started a business and hired a thousand people and payed them a fair wage and over the course of time made millions.......who did I hurt or take anything from? As a matter of fact it is more accurate to say i helped a thousand people make a decent living. Why should I be punished for this?

I'm not going to defend what CEOs are paid, I agree with you that many times they are over paid particularly when they do a lousy job. But I also maintain a CEO who does a responsible job should not be denied his pay. Oprah is an example of one of the highest paid CEOs in the country. As far as i can tell she worked hard and earned it. But to say we could somehow limit it would smack against our form of government. It is up the shareholders of the companies to determine the pay of the CEO, not me not you and certainly not the government.

Prisons are over crowded, we disagree very little on this. I have many thoughts on this, too many to put in this thread.

Education. I agree that we spend too much time on things not related to education including sports. Private schools as a rule do a much better job with much less money, we should model our public schools more after them. If kids want to play sports the parents of the kids who play should pay and the program should be self sufficient. Of course this would never happen as too many would argue it would exclude the poor from sports.

Bush's' tax cuts were across the board, everyone including myself benefited, not just the rich. It is a tired cliche to say they just benefited the rich when a simple look at the tax rules show that a family making less than 100K saved a lot of money. It is also a fact that tax revenues climbed during this time, they didn't fall as many would try to make us believe. What happened to the money? The war, additional security nationwide after 9/11 and a whole bunch of crap that nobody needed. Canada doesn't have a big military because they are not a leading nation and nobody cares about Canada.

Just a rant of my own. It was nice chatting

[sharesunited]

5. Ownership of controlling interest in public companies in the hands of non-profit voting trusts.

Whatever political candidates or parties you donate money to, your money would be better spent buying corporate shares and voting them in the public interest.

[WT Fuheck]

7. capitalism works only when it is regulated to the point that it is no longer capitalism.

[blindpig]

8. Yep, way off.

First of all, capitalism abhors socialism, all socialistic programs are rightfully seen(from the capitalist pov) as unrealized profits, that cannot stand. Every time it has been tried the capitalists eventually overwhelm the socialist programs. It is what is continuing to happen to the New Deal and it is happening in Europe as we speak.

"Pure socialism leads to communism." Well, that is true, but I don't think in the way you mean. There has never been an accomplished communist society, all such attempts have been stillborn, though those societies did make great strides. The unremitting pressure of the capitalist powers sooner or later has worn them down and in the process retarded the development of those societies. Cuba is a prime example of how this works. The Soviet Union, battered by capitalist backed civil war, fascist invasion and the debilitating Cold War was just worn down. Considering that they started with a semi-feudal society ravaged by WWI they made fantastic strides but never achieved the promised goals. Capitalism and socialism cannot co-exist.

Capitalist societies can be politically organized in various ways, as long as the capitalist maintain economic mastery. Fascism is very congenial to capitalism.

[Union Yes]

14. Capitalism requires a Communist Chinese lifeline of commie cash to stay afloat.

American capitalism would have died long ago without communism funding American Supply-Side Economics aka capitalism.

We'd be a defunct nation if we didn't borrow from China to fund our warpiggin ways.

We owe China 12 TRILLION DOLLARS.

[Tim01]

15. I think you are totally right. And we're pretty much fucked.

Giant corporations have figured out how to buy govt officials, and very effectively manipulate public opinion.

I really don't think we can stop them.

[Andronex]

16. It's not capitalism versus socialism...

It's really concentration of power and wealth versus democracy.