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Fewer Than Half of Young Americans Are Positive About Capitalism (cnbc.com)
gollum123 writes: According to a new poll from Gallup, young Americans are souring on capitalism. Less than half, 45 percent, view capitalism positively. "This represents a 12-point decline in young adults' positive views of capitalism in just the past two years and a marked shift since 2010, when 68 percent viewed it positively," notes Gallup, which defines young Americans as those aged 18 to 29. Meanwhile, 51 percent of young people are positive about socialism. This age group's "views of socialism have fluctuated somewhat from year to year," reports Gallup, "but the 51 percent with a positive view today is the same as in 2010."
The boomers pulled the ladder up on them.
As long there is strong regulation behind it keep things honest and upfront.
No-small-print capitalism.
... seeing as how fewer than half of them will ever be able to pay off their college loans. Maybe if we want to prove capitalism can work for everyone we should stop letting rich people write all the laws?
The young always think there is a better way. As they grow up, they realize that the current way works, while most "good ideas" don't. But, enough new ideas do work to keep the system changing.
When you got millionaires and billionaires putthing themselves ahead at the expense of the public, people are not going to have a positive opinion of capitalism.
The people who came before them are rigging the system against them so only they and their kids who made it can benefit. The ladder has been pulled up and these young folks are starting to realize this more and more.
If you're not a liberal at 20... https://quoteinvestigator.com/...
Just remember, half the people are stupider than that...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
And only fifty million Chinese had to die miserably for that communist utopia!
Lets not mention that the average standard of living in China only began to improve once they began adopting capitalism or that the communist regime risks being overthrown if they hint at turning back the clock to that utopia.
Darn. You beat me by two minutes. B-b
For those not familiar with it, and who don't want to follow the link and read a page, the current version of the old saw is:
(The article linked by the parent poster tracks variants back as far as 1875 in France.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The system we have now is really corporatism. Very large, essentially immortal, companies that are able to achieve regulatory capture and get laws written for themselves.
Look at the way that the coal companies were able to get an exemption to clean water laws to blow the tops off of mountains and destroy streams and creeks. All so they could reduce labor costs. That's one hell of an externality they got out of.
small "c" capitalism is something a free society has to have, i.e. the ability to buy and sell goods in a relatively unfettered market. No you don't get to sell nuclear weapons, so there has to be some manner of regulation.
corporatism is all about shifting costs to the public and creating a bullshit concept that companies are somehow outside of morality and ethics. They want to be outside of morality and ethics but that doesn't mean we have to let them.
Absolute statements are never true
this again. Socialism =/= Communism.
they haven't lived in a (real) socialist country.
Norway and Sweden have both been pretty successful at what they are doing, maybe they are better examples than China or Russia.
It makes sense younger people would be susceptible to bad ideas and in particular people that say everything should be free. Hell I'd take everything free if I believed someone it was possible. Still these people have no experience, things that are too good to be true often are. And hell at that young age people are voting democrat solely because America is a democracy and democrat sounds similar.
I think actually it's because they are envisioning Europe; they don't want socialism as in a real socialist country, but things like socialized medicine, etc. I've heard often from conservatives that Europe is socialism and it's failing, meaning while things couldn't be more different in that living in a european country is quite different than many people think and really they don't have socialism from that strict sense of the term.
Let's see, the economic system that has raised more people out of poverty than any other, young people aren't sure about. The education system in every country on earth is just..wow.
It's not an A or B choice, though. There's a 2-dimensional spectrum with one dimension being capitalism --- socialism, the other being authoritarianism --- libertarianism. Most younger people want less authoritarianism and more socialism, but it's not a bilateral choice between "Mao" and "the US."
In your version of history did you fail to include all the people that died due to capitalism as well? Also what is your definition of socialism?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's almost like capitalism hasn't done shit to help 2+ generations of people in a row.
Surely, blaming them for the problem while selling them down the road will serve the generations that didn't get totally fucked over.
This is what happens when post-modernists take over the school systems and Western Values are treated as bad instead of good.
Or young people see the generation before them loaded with debt and unable to afford to purchase a house, see a political ruling class that does not care about them, and see companies making record profits and all the money going to an increasingly smaller percentage of the population and are realizing "yep, the system's broken".
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The problem is that everyone wants something for nothing. It doesn't exist. Socialism has been tried many times on many levels and it simply doesn't work.
Capitalism has a successful record. It has raised more people up from poverty than any other system in history. But you have to work for it.
As far as the U.S. college debt situation: look at who is running it: Government. Is adding more government to the problem going to solve it? Probably not. Be smart about it. Use community college (or high school) to get GE requirements done cheaply. Get a job to help offset some of the cost, don't just use the college loans to pay for 100% the cost. Use credit cards wisely and don't spend money you don't have. Don't eat out. Ramen noodles and PB&J are your friends.
Before entering college for that 4 year degree, be absolutely certain that's what you want to do. Most of my friends that graduated college aren't using their degree in their current field. Hell, some didn't need a 4 year degree at all.
Trade schools. Seriously. Use them. These careers can be very rewarding and pay very good salaries. Less student debt, start a career earlier and start saving for retirement earlier.
Many 4 year college grads have the equivalent of a home mortgage when they leave school. That's bad for many reasons and a drain on the economy.
Obviously I'm posting generalities. But they are truths. In the U.S. you are responsible for your education after high school. Choose wisely.
Government run education is extremely costly. In my home state they decided to offer free preschool to everyone. In my blue-collar town of 25,000 where up to 40% of the population is receiving some type of government assistance our preschool participation rate was 96%. After "free" preschool was announced by the state the cost per pupil per year went from $1,200 to $3,700 in one year. The new participation rate was still 96%. Why did the state government run program cost 3 times more to run than the private and community based system? Nobody seems to know. How do you suppose that would translate at the college level if college were determined to be "free"?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
You do realize that socialism is mainstream in Europe, right? I'm looking around and I don't see any gulags here.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
That's easy, it's none.
Now with communism, you could argue that it's higher. Then again, was it communism or totalitarianism that caused the Ukrainian famines?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Once upon a time, most of the value of the American economy was from actual goods and services, and not so intrinsically tied to the stock market. Since about the late 1970s, the American economy has been tied to the stock market, which has engendered dangerous short term thinking.
This, combined with the hollowing out of organized labor and the ever widening wealth disparity in the US has led to inevitable situation.
What would anyone expect? A heart warming embrace of a system geared to enrich and empower those who are already rich and powerful?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
We raised a generation of idiots.
If you raised them and screwed it up then YOU are the idiot, not them.
And apparently we didn't teach them history, like how many in the past died due to socialism
You seriously think capitalism hasn't resulted in anyone dying? Evidently you didn't learn much history yourself.
.....or maybe there's a generation of people who don't blindly accept what they're told and question things, apply logic/reason, and think objectively.
It's quite obvious that most core ideas underlying (free market) capitalism also fail, just like socialism has in the past. That's why over the years, governments and their people stepped in to make modifications (e.g., welfare capitalism). Many existing models have pretty huge flaws. Take the US for example where capital accumulation continues indefinitely leading to higher and higher concentrations of wealth. One obvious issue here is this then shifts social power to the wealthy through governmental manipulation.
While it's true most modern day capitalistic economics work better than other models we've seen in the past, that doesn't mean it will continue indefinitely and it certainly doesn't mean we have the "be-all-end-all-model." Thinking we do is both ignorant and arrogant.
We also need to revisit the social contract as to what a society expects by agreeing to fall into a governmental system. It's quite obvious people aren't happy with the current social contract because most citizens are falling further and further into losing their half, so to speak. As such. they're rightfully upset. Now, we can both agree socialism isn't the answer but our current frame of capitalism isn't the answer either and it needs some changes to give people what they rightfully deserve.
Capitalism is bad at:
No where on earth is there a purely capitalist society outside of complete anarchy (e.g. Somalia). Once a government is established, the first thing it does is socialize something: defense.
Some other things most countries socialize:
Education is a prime example of capitalism dealing poorly with long time horizons. If we took loans out to pay for our entire education, it would be 20 years before we could make the first payment. Most debt is expected to be paid off in less than 30 years.
In terms of natural resources, the value placed on them is based on the labor required to extract them. However, air requires minimal labor to extract. You do it every time you breath. Because of this, we have subconsciously, and collectively agreed that no one owns the air. It is shared by all of us as a community. It's a communist system.
In summary, capitalism is a tool in our economic system, that works along side socialism and communism to get resources to people that need them. The trick is choosing the correct tool for the task!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
they haven't lived in a (real) socialist country.
I neighther have you, apparently.
Because if you did you'd know about a number of social-democrat countries, particularly in Europe, that have been doing spectacularly well for a number of decades.
But your post clearly shows that you're ignorant, but it also shows, and that is worse, that you don't even know that you're ignorant.
And that is to be expected for such a closed, culturally isolationist country like the US, where the vast majority of the population, especially in the red states, speak only one language and have never been more than fifty miles away from the place where they were born, let alone travelled the world.
More accurately stated, young people are not positive about how Capitalism is practiced in America.
You are quick to blame people without closely examining how corrupt and rotten the system become. From debtor's prison of student loans, to bank bailouts, to suppression of tech wages by no-poaching agreements and H1Bs, there is plenty reasons to be skeptical.
As to idealized version of Capitalism, that would be great, but what country has it implemented?
We raised a generation of idiots.
We started by breeding the compettion out of them all....that "everyone is a winner" bullshit, with you get a trophy just for processing oxygen.
And apparently we didn't teach them history, like how many in the past died due to socialism, nor did we teach them civics on how govt should work and their part in it...etc.
Well, its been a good run till now....just hope this crap doesn't come to pass till I'm well dead and underground, so that it doesn't affect my quality of life I and my peers worked hard for....
Or it could just be that when they say "socialism" they actually mean "I want a more progressive tax system, slightly more government regulation of business, and public healthcare, ie, Northern Europe".
One of the things that changes between generations is what they think a label actually means.
I stole this Sig
Or young people see the generation before them loaded with debt and unable to afford to purchase a house, see a political ruling class that does not care about them, and see companies making record profits and all the money going to an increasingly smaller percentage of the population and are realizing "yep, the system's broken".
And everything you describe is a symptom of consumerism, not capitalism.
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
Granted, in a capitalist system, the private owners of the means of production would like to promote consumerism, as it helps ensure their increasing profits. However, the root problem is that too many people feel like they have to own the latest iPhone and iPad or Samsung Galaxy phone and Galaxy tab (as soon as it comes out each year) as well as drive a new Mercedes or BMW, go on an overseas vacation every year, and go out to eat with friends every night when they are in their 20s and early 30s. When young adults spend 110% of their earnings and don't start saving for retirement until around age 40, of course we are going to end up with the state of things we see now.
That is not to say that there aren't people with real legitimate financial hardships. However, for every one person I see with real hardship resulting from a debilitating medical condition, or family situation that inhibits earning potential, I see at least half a dozen or more who are in a financial quagmire resulting form their own lifestyle choices.
Fix that nonsense by properly educating people about sound personal financial management principles, and most of the other things you describe will fix themselves as a result.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Eh.... I'm very curious as to precisely how the poll was conducted. This is one of those things where the precise wording is important, and the subject is vulnerable to a lot of bias.
As an example, I will use my own views. I'm well aware of how poorly socialism has fared historically, but I'm also aware of how the implementation of socialist ideals has always been hindered by human corruption and greed, just as those same vices have caused inequality and suffering in capitalist societies. If I were asked whether I'd want to live under a socialist government, my response would be a resounding "no".
However, if asked whether I would be in favor of socialism as a legislative doctrine, I would have to answer "yes". I have seen significant evidence that governmental structure can actually run social services decently, if the human corruption can be adequately checked in the system design. Philosophically, I believe that we as a society should work to support the whole society, rather than seeking personal hegemony.
To borrow a phrase, capitalism is the worst system, except for everything else we've tried. There are certainly some good ideas in socialist systems, but they rely on an awful lot of trust. Capitalism assumes no trust, but brings its own collection of faults. I think an ideal system would draw on both ideologies (and others), with careful thought toward how the system can be exploited in the future.
One way that balance can be acheived is by using technology to monitor and control governmental services, filling the role that bureaucracy does today. It is much easier to design a "fair" computer than it is to ask a human to be "fair", because it's relatively straightforward to have computers explicitly ignore certain input.
That means we need to educate our children not just on civics, but on security, philosophy, history, and technology, as well.... We're doomed.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Shhhh. It's a secret to keep those dirty Americans from moving to Europe.
"Socialism is terrible. Nothing to see here. Move along. These aren't the droids you are looking for."
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Also what is your definition of socialism?
That's one part of a two-part problem. The first part is that there is a concerted marketing effort by a large chunk of progressives to redefine "social democrat" to simply "socialist". I think this may be some kind of political Darwinism as people try to emulate the stadium-filling success of Bernie Sanders by cargo-culting his misuse of the word "socialism".
Then on the other side you have people who know that their ideological opponents are misusing the term, but pretend that they are in fact referring to centralized control over production. So the resulting criticism is not about Denmark, but rather Venezuela. I suspect they are doing this because it makes their opponents an easy target.
So here we are with a discussion overwhelmingly dominated by people making dishonest arguments, and apparently we've done such a poor job educating our young people that many of them are oblivious to the total sham of a discussion going on.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Also what is your definition of socialism?
Socialism: Government ownership of the means of production.
That is what "socialism" means. That is the only thing it means. It has been tried many times, and has never worked well.
But when "young people" say they like socialism, that is NOT what they mean. They mean we should be like Denmark.
The problem is that Denmark is a capitalist country. In many ways they are more capitalist than America. Even their post office is privatized. They rate higher than America on the ease of doing business index.
They have fairly generous tax payer funded social benefits, but so does Greece. Nobody talks about the "Greek Model", but it is basically the same as the "Danish Model" except Greece is populated by Greeks instead of Danes. The "Danish Model" doesn't transplant well. It didn't work in Greece, and it didn't work in Detroit either.
When young people say they want socialism, they really mean they want someone else to pay off their student loans.
Competition is a powerful tool, but it requires a referee, and intelligent rules that ensures that competition continues, and that once you have a "winner", another contender can emerge and eat his lunch if he's sleeping. In many cases, we don't have that. Also, unlike sports, you have to consider the well being of the loser, which is where a government focused entirely on capitalism falls short. You want people to play the game, to play hard and ensure there's something to "win", but you don't want your losers to fall out and give up (or just plain die, when applied to real life). You need a safety net.
Young people are perhaps overreacting to the negative realities of capitalism. It is not a perfect system, it has many faults, as does socialism, as does a command economy. The overreaction is in part due to the fact that the US has reached a plateau, that geopolitics is not favoring us significantly and there is a lot less to go around, but also in part to the hard right turn reflected in both parties. We are seeing some facets of socialism that we have had for a long time, that were working amazingly well, get defunded and brutalized for an agenda that doesn't really make any sense. We're also seeing the government move away from the safety net idea that was going to enable us to be competitive globally, shoring up the weaknesses of capitalism, in favor of some very naive and misguided libertarian principles, all while ignoring the very real reality of a global economy, that will succeed no matter what we do.
I don't know what economics courses you took, but when I read about the ISMs, I didn't hear "this is the best and clear winner". What I heard is here is what it does well, here is what it does poorly. Even command economies have strength: no other ism can move and adapt as quickly, no other ism CAN be as skillfully manipulated for a purpose. But of course, the weaknesses are tremendous. It's important to understand these shades, China manipulates all of the isms masterfully, at least in comparison to literally everyone else.
Exactly. It's more a question of redistribution. I don't think many progressives (however that is defined) want a state-run economy, which really is what socialism, at least as it is traditionally defined, is about. It's been useful for conservatives and libertarians to define progressive economic ideas which are fundamentally redistributive as somehow Marxian, but they're really not.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What's the difference?
Communism: technically the government runs everything. Very autocratic- usually one party. People are responsible to the government (not the other way around). No private ownership.
Socialism: democratic- government answers to people and human rights valued.. Some private ownership but for things that are intended for the good of the public there is public ownership (such as mass transit, healthcare, public education). Socialist states try to "even out" wealth by placing progressive taxes on higher earners and taxing poorer people less. The goal is to be as egalitarian as possible and for the common man to have ownership of his future. Society protected from abuses by industry through regulation. (such as dangerous materials banned from food)
Capitalism: usually democratic but under a pure capitalistic society the democratic vote is skewed because only the rich can afford to run and get their name out. Very little public ownership to none- most things, like education, transit, healthcare privatized. Little to no redistribution of wealth- human rights may take back seat to economic drivers in a pure capitalistic society. The goal is for people to earn more by striving to be richer because wealth brings about a higher quality of life. In theory people will work harder because they want more money to live a better life. Little or no regulation of industry to protect society from things like dangerous materials in food... as it is believed consumers will stop buying unsafe things by themselves.
Most western nations (including the US) are somewhere between capitalism and socialism- which is probably for the best. Most people wouldn't fare well in a purely capitalistic society; but some capitalistic tendencies are needed for a healthy economy.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I'd argue that a purely socialist state has never really existed at all. Marx's fundamental theory was that agrarian societies were not at a level of social or economic development where his economic and political theories would even work. Both the Soviet Union and China had to literally ramp up their fundamentally agrarian economies through rapid industrialization just to get them to a point where the whole notion of collectivism, in the Marxist sense, would even be possible. And really, since most of the Communist economies ended up being labeled some variant of "Marxist-Leninist", these economies still retained a limited space for private enterprise, at least until the Cultural Revolution in China, which even most Chinese Communists now view as a horrible aberration that had more to do with Mao reasserting control of China after he'd been effectively sidelined when the full extent of the catastrophe that the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s had created.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The system we have isn't Capitalism, it's Cronyism. Brought on because people think that Keynesian economics is somehow a good thing. Sadly this line of thinking is so prevalent on both sides of the isle, that it will never get fixed until the system collapses. Young people today have never seen Capitalism, they have only seen Cronyism and yet everybody calls it Capitalism. It isn't.
You do still see Capitalism at lower levels of society. The farmers markets, the used/antique markets etc. But those in government don't make money on these, they would rather make the big bucks working with large corporations. As a result, the large corporations get the laws passed that they want, usually at the expense of the little guy. Hence Cronyism wins the day.
Now, if we can just get young people to understand the difference...
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
That's an oversimplified description. Socialism isn't just that the government owns the means of production, but also that it is responsible for the distribution of the produced goods and services. Since that's also the much larger and more difficult part of the philosophy, it's also the part that should be discussed most thoroughly.
In essence, any government that collects taxes already has a government-owned means of production. The government produces tax income. How it then uses those taxes is the subject of endless debate, and those of us who want a bit more socialism want to see distributions that focus on the socialist philosophies. We want to see less focus on propping up private industry, and more focus on community projects. We want less subsidies for corporate expansion, and more grants for anyone to claim.
In short, the socialist influence the young people look for is for government to aim to improve life outside of work, rather than dumping resources into privately-managed companies that have primarily just increased inequality over the past few decades.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Your signature speaks volumes about your message.
No one has died due to socialism. Many people have died due to single-party dictatorships that called themselves socialist.
In many ways, Canada could be called socialist. Strong social programs including universal medical care. Not nearly as far down that spectrum as some, but still very successful and a higher standard of living and higher average life span than the US, so that says something.
There is nothing that says that competition has to be absent in a socialist system. What socialism is saying is that there has to be a better way to distribute income and wealth than the system we currently have. Capitalism is failing to attract young people because in its natural state, it is a system that encourages coalescence of wealth into the hands of a very few. A system of financial oligarchs. The whole array of financial rules that try to make stock trading fair, anti-trust laws, and consumer protection legislation work to partially correct some of the more egregious natural effects of capitalism, but those protections are failing more and more.
Young people are failing to flock to capitalism's banner for the reason that they are simply better informed. The standard of living has improved all around and the young don't have to fight for survival. They are more global thinkers, and less personally greedy. And they are seeing the results of generations of capitalism and what it is doing not just to third world countries but our own. Corporations are getting absolute erections at the possibilities afforded by the use of technology to control and gather wealth. iphones and their walled garden, smart TV's and home voice controllers that send all your voice to central servers for processing, social media that is rife with fake news and social manipulation, DRM methods that restrict people from even the fair use of their purchases. Pharmaceutical companies purchased by larger corporations where their product is subsequently raised in price, not by double, but by factors of ten or a hundred.
I don't have a replacement system to propose that fixes everything. But I do know that we have to have a discussion about it and try something, because the system we have is broken, and it's getting brokener.
Greed is simply not a principle that can sustain good public policy.
It's also what happens when the only thing that trickles down is urine. If the big winners in capitalism don't want the game to end, they'd best make sure to spread the wealth a little better.
For instance, Sweden, Norway, and Finland are definitely socialist countries.
No they aren't. They are capitalist countries with slightly higher spending on social programs. If you call that "socialism" then the word has lost all meaning.
An American is more likely to work for the government than a Swede. The Swedish post office is privatized, and their education system is more privatized than America. They have LOWER per capita government spending on healthcare: America spends more money per person on Medicare+Medicaid+VA to cover 30% of the population than Sweden spends to cover 100%. Just because America's system is stupid and wasteful doesn't make it "less socialist".
Norway's Statoil is an example of socialism, but that is a special situation of a massive public resource owned by a small population. Very few other countries have that benefit.
Removing environmental protections that are "unnecessary regulatory burdens" that are there to prevent the death of people.
But even still your definition of people who died due to capitalism is unreasonably burdensome. It can be easily argued that smokers due because of capitalism. People who die in states that allow all sorts of things from coal ash and other pollutants to be placed in the water.
Or even easier that the administration is wanting to remove the regulatory barrier for asbestos.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I feel that capitalism works well for economy building,
Correct. Capitalism serves the needs of the masses so long as you are experiencing significant growth. When the growth slows or stops, as it must if we are to avoid destruction of the biosphere upon which we depend, pure capitalism has run its course. At that point, [more] socialism is needed in order to serve the masses, who are no longer offered a share of excess.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, now they want another trial at what failed in the Eastern Europe
What failed in Eastern Europe was communism. I'm not a huge fan of socialism but it is far less extreme than communism. Europe and Canada are now somewhere on the spectrum between socialism and capitalism, trying to find a balance between allowing people the freedom to generate wealth while also ensuring that some of that wealth provides a social safety net for those less fortunate.
And there is no mechanism to prevent the owners of production from gaining ever more profit and accumulating the benefits of that profit, nor to keep them from desiring to do so.
That mechanism exists. It is called consumer choice. It can roughly be stated as, "don't by stuff you don't need."
Unchecked capitalism is as bad for the economy as unabashed communism.
This is flat out wrong.
Eventually a significant portion of those profits have to filter back down to everyone else, yet instead more and more of it is being hoarded by companies and individuals.
You clearly do not understand how the economy works. Yes, there are a small number of corporations and extraordinarily wealthy individuals/families at the top of the income/asset heap. However, the vast majority of the capital in the economy is the retirement savings of individuals and groups (i.e., individual retirement accounts and pension funds). In 2012, total estimated retirement plan assets in the US were $23.7 trillion. When the economy grows, the millions of current and future retirees invested in those plans benefit from the growth, as will the small number of corporations and individuals/families with very large assets. However, the fact remains that a large portion of those profits are already filtering down to regular people in the form of dividends and capital gains in retirement assets.
Without a natural mechanism to distribute those profits, government must and has an obligation to step in.
We have a natural mechanism to distribute those profits: entrepreneurial spirit. I have the privilege to know quite a few entrepreneurs. They are doing some great things. I made a run at it and decided it isn't for me yet. So, I can't on the one hand say "I am unwilling to take the risk of starting my own business" and then on the other say "how come I don't get the same profits as those who are willing take risks?" If the government steps it, it creates a disincentive to innovate.
What I find intensely ironic is that things like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so on arose out of one person or a small group doing something daring. They should be rewarded for their ingenuity, acumen, and for the risk they took. If you want profit, go do something daring.
... 3 hours in.
Part of the reason for that is the US political parties defy classification... our system practically demands only two parties, and so almost everyone is forced into a tent with other people who may or may not be like-minded. Roughly 1/4 of the US electorate is "liberal" (in the sort of modern progressive sense), and almost all of them are in the Democrat tent. Around 1/3 are "conservative" (in the classically liberal and/or social sense), and virtually all of them are in the Republican tent. The remainder of the population is "moderate" and picks one camp or the other for some reason. Exceptions to this include blacks, who may be very liberal or very conservative - but one way or the other will mostly register and vote Democrat for historical reasons.
If we had some electoral reform that left room for more than two political parties, I think you'd see a lot more alignment between political party affiliation and ideological bent.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Like roads and bridges ?
Yes. Roads and bridges are capital.
Every country in the world has a mixed economy, with some socialism, and some private production. In America, the government builds roads, bridges, and airports. North Korea has private vegetable markets. Cuba has small private restaurants (which can't hire more than 2 people).
You can go too far in either direction. North Korea and Cuba are 90% socialist, and are impoverished. Somalia has almost no government spending on roads and ports, and is also impoverished.
The "sweet spot" is about 30-40% socialism and 60-70% capitalism. That is enough for infrastructure and a social safety net, but not enough to stifle innovation and economic growth.
There is no single incident but lost of smaller ones e.g. the Bhopal gas disaster plus lots of similar accidents often caused by companies prioritizing profit over people's safety with the dumping of toxic chemicals, refusal of valid health insurance claims etc. On top of this, there are the unknown numbers of preventable deaths caused by the US's lack of free, public healthcare which is a socialist idea.
While these do not meet the standard of "brutalize and murder" it is also true to say that I cannot really think of any incidents where socialism has lead to much of this either except for similar isolated incidents with the trade union movement. On the other hand, Communism has clearly caused massive suffering on this sort of scale so perhaps you are getting communism and socialism confused? The two are not the same.
And yet, if you ask young people about this, they see that Denmark and similar countries have high living standards and rank at the top for happiness. Meanwhile in the US they see poverty, a massive gap between rich and poor, unaffordable education, unaffordable housing, unaffordable health care, and so forth. So is it any surprise that when given the poll that young people think about these issues?
Taxes are a matter of perspective. We tend to hate our relatively low taxes in the US because we see so littlle in return for our money, whereas in many high tax countries thre is a visible return of services back to the tax payers.
And also there are extremes. Denmark isn't engaged in autocratic centralized control of all facets of the economy. Yet some people spit at the word "socialism" as if it were equivalent to Stalinism or Maoism. We also don't have an extremist model of capitalism in the US either. Most modern countries are indeed a mix of some capitalist ideas and some socialist ideas. Denmark is clearly a capitalist state but it also has had social-democrat governments with strong social welfare programs - it's not 100% one way or the other.
Another problem is that "socialism" is being used by the right as an insult to apply to anything they don't like, exactly the same as the left using "fascism" to apply to anything they disagree with.
The thing I find so disheartening is how many younger Americans reject Capitalism, in favor of a form of Socialism -- without realizing that this isn't as simple as an A or B pair of options. If you want Socialism, fine .... There are many places in the world actively practicing it, and you're welcome to move there. America was created as a unique experiment in the world, creating a Democratic Republic. IMO, it's proven itself not only viable but arguably superior to many other forms of rule by central governments. I wholeheartedly believe that as a U.S. citizen, I should do everything in my power to preserve this framework.
Obviously, we have a lot of flaws, corruption and other negatives. But show me ANY government that's perfect, except on paper.
IMO, what we need to be focusing on in America is how to move forward, to PRESERVE the Democratic Republic that our Founders created and made into a reality. Corporatism is really what most people are complaining about when they say they're anti-Capitalist. Corporatism is simply a situation where big business managed to collude with government to avoid being governed fairly by it. This can be addressed and mitigated without resorting to Socialism!
America has already done too much dabbing in Socialist practices to appease various groups. Even when it creates a "workable" solution to a specific problem? It weakens our whole system of government, because it means we took an "easy way out" or shortcut, copy-catting what other countries did, rather than finding an answer that doesn't go against the principles that built what we've got here.
Perhaps the place this "battle" is most evident, today, is the healthcare debate. Single-payer or Socialized medicine is something I just can't accept, even though I accept that it's ONE solution that basically works for other countries. If we stick to our core values and principles that defined America, I think we have to conclude it's unfair to demand medical professionals all get paid a fixed salary, as dictated by Federal government. I think we have to conclude that no, healthcare is NOT a right in America. You have every right to pursue better health for yourself, obviously. But as soon as you need medical care, you're demanding the services of another person or group of people who invested many years into education and training to be good enough to perform those services. They aren't your slaves, nor do you have a right to force other American citizens to pay their fees to treat you. We DO need to stop the collusion/ Corporatism that allows big pharma to get protectionist treatment by government for exclusive rights to sell medications, and to prevent competitors in other countries from importing their offerings here as legal alternatives.
Take the US for example where capital accumulation continues indefinitely leading to higher and higher concentrations of wealth. One obvious issue here is this then shifts social power to the wealthy through governmental manipulation.
Shifts? This presupposes that social power was ever out of the hands of the wealthy. I'm not entirely sure it was.
From ancient times to medieval times, people in power were rich and rich people were in power. They were practically inextricably linked.
In the Age of Mercantilism, rich people were so powerful they owned private armies. The Dutch West India Company managed to capture the Spanish silver fleet in 1628, stealing their entire cargo. (Among many other similar things of that era.)
In the Gilded Age in North America, a dozen men controlled the industry of the entire continent.
In the 1940s and 50s, television was such a fantastically powerful propaganda tool that Boomers were effectively controlled by a few dozen people.
Today, a handful of major websites are so influential that Congress holds hearings about it.
Control has been getting less overt and somewhat more diffuse, but it still rests with rich people. They're having to work harder to maintain it, but they are maintaining it. Tax law benefits them, not me. The courts benefit them, not me. Congress represents them, not me, except by accident.
When was this mythical time when society was controlled by anything other than rich people?
It's quite obvious people aren't happy with the current social contract because most citizens are falling further and further into losing their half, so to speak. As such, they're rightfully upset.
Rich people back through the Gilded Age knew to allow more than mere crumbs to fall from their table. Modern rich people seem to have forgotten that. They have far more medieval attitudes than we've been accustomed to for the past century and a half.
It's gotten so bad that we're no longer better off than our parents. That's when we really noticed things not going well. I personally am, but my brother isn't. Going down the list of my cousins, only one of them is doing better than his parents, because he married well. The rest are either hanging on, or doing markedly worse than their parents. Looking around my neighborhood, the number of houses with 3 and 4 and 5 cars parked at them is higher than it ever was when I was young, as Millennials either fail to launch and boomerang home, or launch much much later than was previously the norm, because they simply can't afford the real estate to move out. What I see jives with the statistics I hear about.
The Libertarian Lunatic fringe of Slashdot will be quick to point out that young Americans are being heavily propagandized at their universities about socialism and communism, so it's all their fault. I contend that universities have been propagandizing since the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. It's gaining traction again now because capitalism is failing to make young people's lives better, for the first time in quite a while. If capitalism was working better for the masses, they would go on ignoring university propaganda just as they did for most of the last 170 years.
I'm not so sure that there's a generation of people who don't blindly accept what they're told and question, or apply logic and reason. Reading Youtube comments for an hour is enough to disabuse you of that notion. What I am sure of is there's a generation of people looking up from their empty plates and saying, "I was promised cake. Where's the cake?"
You could have made the same argument about Slavery in 1830.
Just because a system hasnâ(TM)t been tried yet isnâ(TM)t an argument for not trying that system.
The Soviet Union failed at that. Yes it was Communism but they aren't too different. Even in socialist countries today you still have the haves and the have nots. People fail to believe that society stratifies on its own and not by the will of some uber ultra elite. There are those that will work to the bone to secure their lives and there are those that will complain that the man holds them down, even when the man is the only thing propping them up.
I don't know the death toll exactly, but the various european corporations operating in Asia, like the East India Company and Dutch East India Company did a fair bit of murdering. Now, it isn't clear that they did more murdering than the baseline present in those locales, but they certainly were motivated by profit. For the record, I'm not a socialist.
I've got a buddy with Type-I diabetes. The kind your born with and that you die of without insulin. He can't work because the illness kicks the crap out of him for about 2 months every year, and it's a random 2 months. He barely made it through high school. Smart guy, but not Einstein grade smarts so no employer is going to put up with him.
He's pretty right wing. Has a got family who worked in defense. So he gets his political views from there.
When asked about healthcare he understands that he needs socialized medicine or he dies. Again, he's smart. He's figured out that in a pure capitalist economy he couldn't possibly earn the money to pay for his care. You should hear the convoluted mess of a healthcare system he came up with that preserves his ideological system while ensuring he gets care. It was like Obamacare but with much bigger subsidies and more guarantees of care. To his credit when I pointed out that he agreed that he'd basically created a socialized medicine but with a 30% surcharge for private insurance profits.
I'm not saying we can't have a mixed system. I'm in favor of single _payer_, e.g. the gov't pays but otherwise stays out of things. But that's still socialism. At some point I think we have to admit that capitalism as we idolize it just plain doesn't work.
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Yeah like those hellhole of danemark , sweden, etc... You can mark everything as a failure if you ignore the success the only gather the failure. The truth is, socialism and capitalism together , the one to build a social net to avoid people falling down, the other to enhance society as a whole is MUCH better than either one pushed to 11. At the moment the US is doing capitalism pushed to 11, and the younger generation can recognize they are getting fucked in the ass without vaseline. You know people are young, not dumb.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
but real socialism looks different. Trust me.
Ah, the No True Scotsman argument. Any ideology taken to a logical extreme is bad. This includes both capitalism and socialism. Demonizing one over another is silly, because capitalism, socialism, and communism all have high ideals at their core - and they've all been twisted beyond recognition as a means to an end. It all comes down to who is the one with power - a government, a dictator, or the people themselves. In the US, the people themselves have less power than ever, even when capitalism is what gave them the power in they used to have in the first place.
As a result of capitalism? Or "capitalism" as it's being practiced? We've had a long string of "you can't make an omelette without breaking an egg" followed by "mommy gubbamint! mommy gubbamint! wipe out my debts and save me from debt servitude, people want me to pay for the eggs I broke!" Take a look at the long list of Superfund sites as it grows year-to-year and tell me not one person died from any of those disaster zones.
One good way to partially fix the House of Representatives would be to change the way the Speaker is elected:
1. Allow Representatives to vote for ANY House member to be Speaker... by secret ballot, using a Condorcet method. No nominations, and members can't refuse if they win (otherwise, parties would just punish any representative from their party who accepted the position without their approval). Representatives can vote for as many or as few members as they like, and indicate different preferences for those they vote for (with everyone they don't vote for at all being treated as "last choice, with equal preference... so even someone who loyally supports his or her party's choice for Speaker would, at a minimum, have to vote for everyone in the party... assigning the party's choice as their #1 choice, everyone else in the party as their #2 choice, and everyone else as choice #3).
2. The top three candidates from step 1 run against each other, once again via secret ballot among House members. If one of them gets a simple majority, he/she's the new Speaker. Otherwise...
3. The top two candidates from step 2 have a run-off election (also by secret ballot). If one of them gets a simple majority, he/she's the new Speaker.
4. If, however, step 2 produces a result where the top candidate wins a plurality & the remaining two are tied, or if step 3 produces a tie, step 2 is repeated... but this time, under Condorcet rules (as per step 1).
Electing the Speaker this way wouldn't be likely to result in a Speaker who's from a party different from a majority of Representatives... but it WOULD effectively throw a monkey wrench into either Party's ability to enforce party discipline on Representatives, and quite probably result in the election of Speakers who are absolutely, positively NOT the first choice of the Party's own leadership. A Speaker who gets to be TOO heavy-handed about bringing representatives in line would be unlikely to win again, because he'd ultimately piss off too many members of his own party. By keeping the votes for Speaker secret, Representatives could freely vote against those who've pissed them off or antagonized them without fear of reprisal or punishment by the Party.
I think Americans need to travel abroad more and get a broader perspective. :) oki, I exagerate
That is problematic.
No guns
Driving at 18, not 16
Drinking from 16 on, not 21 (even in public on a bench in a park)
Having sex from 14, not 18
Walking to school
No police sirens all day long
Working and afordable public transport
No elevstors in most houses
Food that actually tastes
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Everyone should live in a commune for a year in college or there abouts. Naturally, maintain your studies etc but much of the romance of utopian economic models is that people don't really viscerally understand them... understand the pros, the cons, the function, and the dysfunction.
Live in that context and the attraction of the greener grass on the other side of the fence loses its luster.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Sure, if taxes are so important and you prefer to pay premiums for healthcare, pension and the school education of your kids, and need a gun to feel save, and several cars for your family to go around over the course of the week, then Denmark is nothing for you.
If I earn a million per year, or for funk sake only 100,000 ... I don't care if the tax is 33%, 50% or in case of fhe million, even 90%
For what would I need more than 50,000 - 100,000 disposable income?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
And when the economy inevitable crashes again because companies are hugely overvalued (especially all the advertising, er, um, "tech" companies) , those retirement savings will be wiped out and the government won't have the money to make up for it.
That is part of why investing carries risk. First, diversify. Nobody forces you to invest in stocks. Second, if you are concerned about the stock markets, then invest in commodities, real estate, or any of another of instruments that are not tied to the stock market. Again, it is a matter of personal choice.
Have to work until we drop dead, poor the whole time?
Not at all. Work, live beneath your means, save, and retire comfortably at a time of your choosing.
And in any case, starting your own business doesn't make the slice of the pie any bigger-it stays they same, the only thing that changes is how a big a bite you get to take.
I don't doubt that you are an intelligent and skilled individual, but your statement makes it yet more clear that you do not understand how the economy works. If the economy grows, through innovation, investment, etc., then the whole pie does get bigger and with that the opportunity for everybody's slice to get bigger as well.
The problem with having the only chance to succeed come through becoming one of the 1% is what happens to the other 99%.
You don't have to become part of the 1%. You just have to look for opportunity and be ready and willing to act. None of the entrepreneurs I know are in the 1%. Yet, they are doing great things, employing people (and paying them excellent wages, I might add), growing the local economy, and in general growing the size of the pie.
small "c" capitalism is something a free society has to have, i.e. the ability to buy and sell goods in a relatively unfettered market.
You're confusing a free market with capitalism, which is not the same thing. It's also a very common mistake to make given the propaganda in the US that intentionally wants us to associate "freedom" with capitalism.
Capitalism simply means private ownership and control of resources -- land, natural resources, and modern industrial means of production. Private ownership means generally speaking a person (a dictator or monarch) or a small board of directors (an oligarchy) make all the decisions about the use of resources and production. On the surface, this seems like a very fair thing -- you own it, why shouldn't you get to decide? -- but the problem with this line of thought is the scale we're talking. When a capitalist decides to clear cut a forest, that forest is now gone and even if he sells the land later, no other person gets to use that forest ever again. What if someone else wanted to create a park? Too late, capitalist decided already. What if a majority of people in the area wanted a park instead of a clear cut field? What if that forest and all those tree roots helped soak up water and prevent flooding, but now without it, surrounding neighborhoods easily flood? What if that forest held a rare species of tree or animal that could have lead to a medical discovery? Even if we needed to cut the trees down for firewood or paper or whatever, maybe we would have preferred to the wood go to local community members and not sold in China or wherever? Too late, capitalist already decided.
That's the problem with private ownership of resources and production. Most if not all resource use decisions actually impact all of us, at least community-wide if not planet-wide (as climate change is producing). And yet we are allowing monarchs and oligarchs make those decisions for our communities and nations without any input. Is that fair and just for someone else to decide things that impact your family and community without you having any say in the process whatsoever? I understand you might not always get what you want, but right now you don't even have a vote. A CEO decides and that's it, can legally do what they want (within broad confines of regulation that politicians continually cut and weaken) and completely ignore you and your family and your community. If it makes your house flood more, they don't care. If it causes environmental damage that gives you and your family lung cancer, they don't care. You don't have any say.
Socialism is the idea that resources and production should be publicly-owned and democratically managed. That's really all it is. Because of certain historical events people confuse socialism with authoritarian takeovers of those countries, but again, like the free market and capitalism, they are not the same thing. All we're talking about it more democracy, that you and your family and your community should have a vote and decide how those resources are used and that it should not be left to private decision-making behind closed doors by people who don't necessarily live in your community or even country.
Note also, as a common misconception, that socialist theory typically distinguishes between "private property", which is private ownership of natural resources and industrial means of production, and "personal property" which is your family home. Socialists don't generally care about your family home or your toothbrush or your clothes or your car, do whatever you want at home when you're not bothering anyone. No one is going to take your house. It's about democratizing economic decisions for the big industrial questions that affect all of us, it's about making sure no one businessperson CEO can force their economic vision on you and the community, you have to all agree together democratically. You get more individual freedoms and more say-so under a democratic system -- both politic
The Great Famine that occurred when China prohibited farm ownership (big feature of Communism), replacing (killing) all of the skilled farmers and replacing them with "The People" who had no clue how to grow food and no one left alive to teach them. All part of that Great Leap Forward!
Slavery, e.g. in the early US. ... ... ...
Conquests and colonizations.
Polution
The supression of all 'socialist' revolutions/governments in south america (and converting them into dictatorships)
Selling contaminated food, e.g. olive oil containing machine oil.
Traffiking people
The wars about oil
People kill people, not *ISMs
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Agreed. Part of the reason for this is the absolutely poisonous attitude people have when debating safety net programs. The discussion devolves to welfare queens vs not caring about the poor. When I talk to liberals about reforming safety net programs they immediately become suspicious that I'm trying to destroy them. When I talk to conservatives, I get lumped in with liberals. I don't mind "helping" people, but in my opinion it isn't really helping people to keep them cooped up subsisting in ghettos or trailer parks with no way to support themselves. The government bureaucrats need to be incentivized to get people off of assistance, but not the way it was done in the past. The so-called "welfare reform" from the 90s did indeed remove people from welfare roles, but really just shuffled them over to long-term disability. That's not what I mean by "helping" :) On the recipients side, they need to have proper education and given some carrots to move to where the jobs are. You can train someone to be the best widget maker in the whole world, but if there isn't a widget factory nearby it won't help them.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
People could easily look past capitalism's iniquitous allocation of wealth when everyone's standard of living was going up and America was the freest country in the world.
Unfortunately most people's standard of living has been dropping for at least a generation. At the same time the American Gulag has become the largest in the world, filled almost entirely with persons who were coerced into "confessing".
No longer able or willing to provide freedom & prosperity, the capitalist/financialist oligarchy has lost the mandate of heaven. People are beginning to look at it more like criminal gang and less like a legitimate government.
Again, we have people saying "capitalism is bad, socialism is good", so clearly they're not talking about what you're talking about. They see this as an either/or situation, mutually exclusive.
Do you have ESP?
The overwhelming majority of the deaths attributed to communism by the capitalist propaganda organs were due to famine. Those famines resulted from failed agriculture policy (forced collectivization), with a lot of help from the weather.
It's interesting to look through a list of historical famines and try to identify which were due to capitalism. It's not always an easy call.
Otoh, capitalism certainly has a commanding lead in the number of deaths resulting from war.
What remains is a plutocratic corporate socialism sold to the masses as free market capitalism. No wonder they don't like it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Also, the "gig" economy is sham. Lyft and Uber are corporate parasites the cash in off the lowest possible rung, the driver. A "taxi" driver gets a wage and benefits. Gig drivers work for sub-minimum wage, often pennies per hour. (http://fortune.com/2018/03/02/uber-lyft-driver-income/ ), You're living off the equity in your vehicle, which is non-sustainable. By driving for or using these services, you perpetuate the inequality. ....
Tiny houses are brain damaged. They're really expensive RV's. period. Re-estate has a value and appreciates over time. Tiny houses lose value
When it comes to the gig economy, tiny houses, looking for unicorns - "but I get to live life on my terms", well, then you've decided your terms are poverty.
The system we have isn't Capitalism, it's Cronyism.
So you're saying "that's not REAL capitalism!"? :-) funny that many don't let socialists get away with making that same argument.
Can you point to a time when we *didn't* have cronyism? Because the last time we had such concentrated wealth and lack of regulation and oversight was the Gilded Age, the height of cronyism and poverty. If you're referring to economic prosperity since the world wars, that comes partly from being the major economic power left standing as well as FDR's New Deal and progressive reform that actually took very strong cues from Socialist Party demands (the Socialist Party was actually winning seats in Congress and state legislatures as a third party and that was enough to scare the establishment into giving into some of the demands). So in modern US history we've actually done the best with progressive/socialist reform and the worst under deregulated "free market" capitalism (that quickly becomes cronyism).
So why is it so wrong to point out we've never had real full socialism either and should give it a chance? Socialism is about economic democracy instead of the economic dictatorship of CEOs under capitalism, what's so wrong about democracy?
I still don't see it. We live far better than our grandparents by any metric. Could it be better? Hell yes! Hopefully that's what gets you out of bed in the morning and contributing something positive to the world instead of sitting around bitching and repeating hyperbole. Nobody owes you anything, get out there and make it happen.
Communism: technically the government runs everything. Very autocratic- usually one party. People are responsible to the government (not the other way around). No private ownership.
I'll admit, I haven't read Marx. However, I think this definition is flawed. Communism means everything is a shared resource. Ideally, there would be no greed, and people would share resources willingly. It's for the good of "The People". This is requires a great deal of camaraderie among citizens (comrades).
However, people don't work that way. We are greedy, and easily splinter off into factions. Government's role is to arbitrate between "The People" to overcome these obstacles.
In theory, the government represents "The People" with their best interest in mind. However, the open nature of democracy tends to divide the nation (like the US right now). In the interest of camaraderie, only one political party is allowed. It's very hard to represent the people in this form of government.
In summary, people are responsible to each other, with the government as arbitrator. This has never been tried in a democracy, because the population needs to be united under the cause.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
not everyone can. For a lot of folks it's hard to be stable for 6 years without a college degree to fall back on. Post high school tuition waivers (usually worth about $4k/yr) generally require you to enroll full time and finish in 4 years. A lot of the grants do too. If there's a break in your enrollment you're kind of screwed.
Also, if you did it for $24k you I'm guessing she didn't go to a regular public U (or she got a bunch of scholarships). These days you're looking at $12k/yer. Now, if her income was low or nonexistant (and the income of her parents wasn't factored in) grans & scholarships might have covered half of that. Again, great if you can get it. But scholarships are hard to come by and as mentioned most grants want you full time.
Source: I've got a kid in college right now for Nursing. It's costing me $16k for her last 2 years (each) alone. That's before I account for the car she has to have (clinicals are too far apart to bus too and Uber costs more than the car, so unless she's secretly Nightcrawler she needs a car) and for food/rent. I could have forced her to live with me and saved about $6k/yr if I had to, but that's about it.
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....
FDR, Truman, Nixon (yes, Nixon), and Clinton all tried to introduce universal healthcare. That is nothing new.
...
Nixon introduced HMOs to America, and health insurance has suffered for it every since.
Before HMO's I had BCBS while working in a luggage factory for a year. At the end of that year I went to college. In the first week of college I had an emergency appendectomy. The entire bill for the doctor and the hospital came to $750.50, which included a week in the hospital. BCBS paid for every penny.
Today, the average price for an appendectomy (laparoscopy) is $18K, with specialty chop shops offering it for $7K. With "deductibles" and co-pay and the like the average consumer will pay between $1K and #18K for their share of the bill, IF the insurance company pays anything at all.
Dental or vision? Usually a rider that costs $30-$50/mo but pays usually less than half and sometimes nothing. Many dental procedures are covered only once during the year or not covered at all. Need three teeth filled? Sorry, only one is covered, you'll have to pay full boat for the other two.
Also, "co-ordination" prevents you from buying and using more than one health insurance policy when, if you are willing to pay the fees, it shouldn't matter to the insurance companies how many policies you bought.
The entire problem with health insurance, as it is with most other social problems and scientific research, is that Uncle Sam has stuck his greedy nose into it and thus give the insurance companies the ability to stick their hand into Uncle Sam's pocket and extract taxpayer's money at will.
All the medicare supplemental insurance companies are doing is acting as a middle man. They get cash from the federal government to pay medicare patient hospital bills AFTER taking a nice chunk of change out for themselves. The less they pay you the more they put into their own pocket. That's why the CEO of one national supplemental insurance company can live in the midwest and fly every day to his job in California and home again at night, while pulling down several million in annual salary and benefits. People die or go bankrupt so he can do that.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I'm not dismissing anything. I think Communism is a doomed political and economic theory, even if one were to find a society that was at Marx's right level of advancement for the workers revolution. I'm actually underlying the most critical flaw of Communism as it was enacted in places like Russia and China. The only way an industrialized country ever became Communist for any length of time was largely because it was imposed (I'm thinking Poland and Czechoslovakia in particular, both of which had a large industrial base before the Soviets imposed Communism on them). It never came to fruition in the nations that Marx figured it would be. The greater workers revolutions that were supposed to deliver Communism to the masses in the 1850s and 1860s in Europe never happened, in part because the rulers of these states were canny enough to realize that they needed to reform their political and economic systems (hence limiting hours of work per week, the growth of free primary education, health and safety laws, and so forth).
No, I honestly believe that the purist forms of socialism even in the ideal capitalist state that Marx envisioned would failed every bit as spectacularly, and probably far more quickly, then it failed in the Soviet Union. But the fact is that the revolutions Marx predicted never happened at all, and the first communist states were primarily agrarian states still not heavily industrialized. The Hungarian revolution in 1919 is a bit of an exception, though it lasted less than a year, so I consider it a bit of an outlier.
Even Lenin had to concede that Russia was not ready, and implemented or retained limited free enterprise, simply because the Russian economy was so broken by WWI and the civil war, so right from the get-go, the Soviet Union couldn't invoke Marx's purist version of socialism. Of course Stalin was much more doctrinaire than Lenin, and his collectivization efforts lead to the catastrophes that gripped the Soviet Union in its first two decades. A similar process occurred in China int he 1950s, with Mao's attempts during the Great Leap Forward to increase steel and agricultural output leading to worthless chunks of iron and mass starvation.
So, in fact, I agree with your primary point that Communism was a doomed enterprise from the beginning. I'm just pointing out that not only was it not workable in the long term, it wasn't even workable at the outset, and in fact, the supposed conditions that would lead to workers revolts which would see the Proletariat boot out the Bourgeois never happened either. Marx was, in fact, wrong about just about everything, with one exception. I think where Marxist theory does tend to shine some light on things is on the notion of class struggle. While it doesn't apply in all times in places, it is a useful tool for explaining various peasants uprisings, and even more general civil wars and revolutions like Rome's Social War and the American Revolution.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
because if you don't someone else will. They'll get all those "dumb" people who aren't eating. Give them rifles and boots and, well, I think you can figure out the rest...
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Mostly, because Condorcet logic is really hard to explain to normal people, and even HARDER to pitch to the media as something that can be presented via soundbites and headlines. My hybrid scheme makes the first round a relatively low-key internal affair for the House of Representatives, then gives the media 3 candidates to talk about & handles the Speaker's election in a relatively straightforward (by American standards) manner beyond that.
The main benefit of using Condorcet rules for round 1, and having the entire vote for Speaker via secret ballot, is ensuring that whomever ends up winning as speaker probably WON'T be the preferred first choice of either party... and that any Speaker who pisses off too many Representatives by getting overly heavy-handed about enforcing party discipline won't be re-elected as Speaker.
There's a second reform I can think of that would severely limit the power of party leaders over individual representatives: whenever a bill is defeated, there's an immediate and automatic secret "no confidence" vote among representatives. If the Speaker loses the vote, a new Speaker is elected immediately (under the same rules as above), and the newly-elected Speaker is not bound by the previous Speaker's committee appointments or policies.
This would put a stop to Speakers who ram bills through the house with single-vote victories by putting the Speaker's position in EXTREME peril if he allows a vote to proceed without being REALLY confident of a solid victory. It might work once... or twice... but eventually, s/he's going to piss off one Representative too many, the bill will be defeated, and the Speaker will be defeated as well. Every Speaker would have to choose between loyalty to his/her party, and desire to keep being Speaker. The relative power of parties to dictate legislation would probably ebb and flow, but any party that pushed TOO hard to control its Speaker would find itself having to continually re-establish its power over new Speakers -- each of whom would be harder to control than the last.
No, socialism has a broader meaning than that. See this. In particular, "worker self-management of production" is a key element and that directly relates to trade unions which are clearly a step in that direction. Strict regulations on private industry is also another tool which falls under the socialism banner even though ownership may reside in the private sector. In a free, public healthcare system often the hospitals and clinics etc. are all government owned and hence socialist, although private companies may be contracted to provide services too.
Canada and much of Europe is socialist to varying degrees. It seems to work well where the competition required to make capitalism work is impractical e.g. utilities, public transport, passenger trains etc. Even in the US you have strict regulations for utility providers which is on the socialism spectrum.
My grandparents had:
- much healthier food
- cleaner air
- more personal freedom
- larger living space
- greater economic opportunity
- less crime
- less mental illness
- much stronger families
- easier access to medical attention
Thanks we have:
- much better plumbing & HVAC
- far better medical technology... for those who can afford it
- wider access to long distance travel
- access to far more information, i.e. the internet
The progressive ideology that things just keep getting better in every way with the passage of time is ahistorical.
Sure they are. They could charge individually for their services. We don't need protection or law enforcement all the time; it could always be privatized.
What a load of nonsense. You have bought into sensationalist news. Crime is lower than any time in last 50 years. Practically everything is safer - cars, planes, household items, medicines, food, etc. Creature comforts are so much better; you likely ride around in a car that is so far advanced over what the wealthiest person could afford. I am going to guess that home ownership rates are better thanal.ost anytime in history, and the houses are better built, too. If you honestly think the past was better then you are misguided and ignorant. Humans easily forget the bad and remember the good so are memories are distorted.
My comment has nothing to do with capitalism vice any other system. It is against blatant lies about history.
You can go too far in either direction. North Korea and Cuba are 90% socialist, and are impoverished.
In order to be honest, you should note the role of US embargo on Cuba's impoverishment.
I would argue some of this is wrong.
Your grandparents had:
- greater economic opportunity under the assumption that wages were higher in relation to inflation at the time than they are now
- easier access to medical attention under the assumption that premiums were lower, barring the fact that a nationwide health insurance market didn't exist back then
As to the rest of your first list, it's virtually impossible to say that they had:
- more personal freedom: what does this even mean?
- less mental illness: lots of problems were unknown or not talked about, such as suicide rates and depression
- much stronger families: are you referring to gay and lesbian families? I would argue as the LGBTQ lifestyles become more accepted those individuals will have much more stable mental health and have much stronger families, as opposed to fucking parents who disown them
- much healthier food: are you referring to the prevalence of places like McDonalds? It's been studied that healthier food tends to cost more, something that may be out of the reach of poorer families, thus they tend to eat less healthy and have more health issues. Greater economic opportunity plays into this.
They certainly didn't have:
- cleaner air, because now there are more laws surrounding pollution, as more states/countries work to get rid of gas cars and other sources of pollution. New York City used to be full of smog. It's not now.
I graduated HS in the late 70's. We didn't have any of that crap. But for the last 20-30 years, the indoctrination centers called government schools, have been feeding these kids the dictate that capitalism is bad, socialism is good, America is terrible and on and on. So, it's no surprise to me, that a poll would reflect that. Lenin once said something to the effect if you give me the mind of a youth, the seeds I plant will never be undone. Or something like that. Well, how about we put some WEED KILLER on those plants!
In other news, a majority of young Americans are retarded (in the clinical sense, before political correctness rewrote the DSM) snowflakes, and big government likes them that way because they are easier to control. Wind 'em up, spin 'em around...
Also, we're besties with North Korea and war with Russia is imminent. No wait, that was yesterday's copy. Today we are besties with China, war with Iran is imminent and neither Russia nor China play fair and we are very upset about it.
Charities don't give the money out equitably. For the most part they have an agenda and you either have to meet a criteria or do something for the charity. What happens to the people who don't meet the criteria or are incapable of what is asked? Gay youth make up something like 40% of the homeless children. I can guarantee you that most of the Christian charities would ask them to "renounce their wicked ways" before helping them. Since being gay isn't a choice, that would be a little difficult for the kids to do.
Charity isn't a guarantee. You say charity would be a more robust net and that may be true for some, but the net would definitely have larger holes in it than the one the government provides. A thin blanket is better than none at all.
I would also point out that terrible people always find a way. If we were to switch to social safety nets based on charity, there would immediately be people taking advantage of both sides of the system. The rich would use their promises of donations to distort the missions of charities to favor the rich and the scammers would set up shop finding ways of getting more than they should. That is inevitable.
In fact, while writing this, it occurred to me that shifting everything over to charity would allow for much less oversight. There would be more grift. What is the purpose of that? The charities that you know may be stellar, but you can't deny there are terrible people out there willing to use the word "charity" to make money. Heck, our president uses his "charity" to pay off his legal fees. It's like we are in a cave of scarcity and you anti-government people want the rest of us to throw away the flashlight. And it really sounds like you just don't want to pay taxes for the programs that you disagree with and to hell with other people.
Also, Medicare alone is 702 billion dollars per year. 402 billion isn't going to cover it.
Also, also, I realized that the system you are suggesting would resemble the scholarship system for colleges. Have you ever applied for scholarships? It is a PITA. It is always not enough, there are always conditions on the money, and you always find the great ones after it is too late to apply. Scholarships are what happen when you leave college tuition funding to charity.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Distribution is a service.
When economists talk about "distribution", then mean the distribution and allocation of goods and services. Economists don't care what logo is on the truck making shipments. They care about how many trucks are going to what places.
Capitalists see subsidies as Lemon Socialism. Liberals see subsides as a form of capitalism. The capitalists have a better claim: The TARP bank bailout, and the auto industry bailout were both passed by Democrats, and opposed by Republicans.
Partisanship somehow changes the merits of an argument? That's an... interesting... approach to debate. Politics aside, it's worth noting that the auto bailout ended up costing the US government about $14 billion, while TARP as a whole (including the auto bailout) actually ended up turning a $86 billion profit overall. All together, the program seems to have done exactly what it was intended to do: reduce the shock of the financial crisis, stabilizing the economy to protect against further snowball effects.
Your partisan analysis of subsidies also doesn't mesh with a socialist perspective. To a socialist, subsidies are a governmental decision that something risky is of such benefit to society that the risk (financial or otherwise) should be offset. In a totalitarian state like the USSR or DPRK, the state-run company in that area would just go order work on that project... and open the door to corruption because the state will ensure the project's success, no matter how poorly it's managed or how wasteful it may be. With private industry, however, the subsidies have to be financial offsets, either ensuring a minimum income or covering some expenses outright.
What's offensive to a socialist is the use of subsidies and financial incentives to support projects that aren't directly in the public interest. For example, I know of a particular company that promised to upgrade their factory in a small town, but only if they got a nice tax cut for a few decades (similar to a more-publicized event). While that made for nice headlines about "creating jobs", it hurt the town in the long run. Since the company's normal taxes were a significant percentage of the town's budget, local projects actually lost funding in order to keep the town's budget balanced. Sure, some folks got a new shiny office building, but the high school roof started collapsing.
Unfortunately, that's been a recurring theme with American government policies lately. A notable example is the coal industry, which is subsidized by about $850 million annually, yet only employs about 77,000 people. That's about an $11,000 cost per person per year, ostensibly to keep those 77,000 jobs. The question is, of course, whether we need those jobs as a society. To a socialist, that $11,000 would likely be better spent funding career education and training to support other industries (or even bringing new skills to the coal industry), with the key benefit being that even if the coal industry collapsed, the society would still have a larger wealth of skills to continue progress.
Again, it's a matter of philosophy. The socialists want societal improvement to be the primary goal of government, with industries benefiting indirectly. Who actually owns the company is relatively insignificant at this point.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Can you name a single instance of capitalism being used as justification to brutalize and murder millions of people?
Just take a look at the mining industry. Or clothes production in sweat shops. Or, you know, all those people at the bottom in the shittiest parts of the worlds paid next to nothing to put together all this cheap shit as cheaply as possible to be shipped half way around the world to be sold at vastly inflated prices to people that have zero clue how it got there while the big bosses pat them selves on the back and sign big bonus checks. Capitalism cares only about profit and the cost of all else. Don't even try to pretend its good for people.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
The system we have isn't Capitalism, it's Cronyism. Brought on because people think that Keynesian economics is somehow a good thing. Sadly this line of thinking is so prevalent on both sides of the isle, that it will never get fixed until the system collapses. Young people today have never seen Capitalism, they have only seen Cronyism and yet everybody calls it Capitalism. It isn't.
You do still see Capitalism at lower levels of society. The farmers markets, the used/antique markets etc. But those in government don't make money on these, they would rather make the big bucks working with large corporations. As a result, the large corporations get the laws passed that they want, usually at the expense of the little guy. Hence Cronyism wins the day.
Now, if we can just get young people to understand the difference...
Cronyism or crony capitalism is capitalism in a pure form... The farmers markets et al. are examples of small market economies which scale out to be mixed economies.
The problem isn't that young people don't understand the difference, it's that you have made up your own definitions.
Successful economies are always mixed economies, combining parts of capitalism, socialism, free market libertarianism and controlled markets. There's plenty of room to argue which mix is best but pure forms of these ideas are and have always been bound for failure.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I am curious about how other age ranges feel about capitalism right now too.
The funny thing is that capitalism is still the best method for managing resources since the inputs and outputs are decentralized; however, once everything gets centralized like it is right now, I would have to ask if it is really capitalism or if it has morphed into something else.
TL;DR, asking today's youth about capitalism is absurd since we do not really have capitalism right now. Maybe a form of corporate fascism since companies seem to be able to buy laws with impunity.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
In essence, any government that collects taxes already has a government-owned means of production.
No, simply no. Your claim is beyond absurd, since "means of production" refer to any tangible way to generate a product or a service. The tax comes AFTER said product or service is being sold.
The government produces tax income.
The government COLLECTS tax income, it does not "produce" it.
Your argument is a total fail.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
You're one of the youngsters.
Look up Keynesian, nothing to do with what is happening in this greedy self indulgent world.
Keynesian type economics helped take Australia through the 2008 GFC quite successfully.
They're in for a harsh lesson of how the oligarchs shut down socialism.
I'm over 60 and left of Gandhi
Go well
Wish I had mod points for you. I'd only like to add that in my opinion, where we've failed to properly deal with the bad part of capitalism is in monopolistic behaviors. Since the break up of AT&T, we haven't busted up monopolies or seriously (except for the failed MS lawsuit) limited companies from dominating markets, nor colluding (pharma...I'm looking at you) screw over the general population and prevent competition.
Just another day in Paradise
.....or maybe there's a generation of people who don't blindly accept what they're told and question things, apply logic/reason, and think objectively
Neither is accurate. What you're seeing is a pendulum swing, and a result of a generation growing up under the great depression, and being hit with oppressive college debt, no wage growth, no pensions, and looking at socialism as the potential answer.
I'd argue that capitalism isn't a failure, but we've failed to deal with it's down side(s) properly. We need to prevent monopolistic behavior (pharma, major ISPs, Amazon, etc.) because without actual competition, you have no improvement, and society takes it up the ass.
I'm a capitalist, but I differ with many of them who believe that businesses "are people too". That line of thinking that allows corporations to dominate the government agenda needs to be corrected.
Just another day in Paradise