US is now more socialist than capitalist

PresidentialScholar

PresidentialScholar

No Bull****
I made this argument days ago, that America, for all of the capitalist rhetoric everyone spews off, has become more socialist than capitalist. There is no true capitalism in America, there are, however, surmounting traits of socialism. This is not bad, as socialism is seen as synonomous with communism, which is synonomous with bad and terrible things.

It means more that, in every aspect of American life, the government plays a role. Even as much as we pretend business exercises their free enterprise, they're still required to adhere to employment laws--providing unemployment compensation for firing workers indiscriminantly, or in some cases discriminantly, or adhering to fair labor standards.

Corporations are prevented from monopolizing--which would also be an exercise in free enterprise.

I agree that many of these advances are good for the country. And I think it helps to show the good that can come from utilizing certain socialist programs, but I'm curious to see if anyone disagrees and will suggest that we are indeed, more capitalist.


Thoughts?
 
Corporations are prevented from Monopolizing ? When in the past 10 years has our gummit seen a merger it did not like ?

Even to buying of the only other satellite radio company in existance by it's only competitition.
 
uscitizen said:
Corporations are prevented from Monopolizing ? When in the past 10 years has our gummit seen a merger it did not like ?

Even to beh buying of the only other satellite radio company in existance by it's only competitition.
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Here's where the politics comes in--the government for 100 year said monopolies were illegal, and they are seen as detrimental to the country--and I agree they are. However, people under the banner of "Free enterprise" have merely changed the definition of what constitutes a monopoly, and/or loosened the regulations of them.

It's how they can get around legalizing monopolies again--Bush has effectively removed restrictions for nearly every part of the country, but I'm sure in the future, it will rebound after a President is elected who is not a poster child for corporate America.

In all due respect of course.



Bill
 
I think most of the large bank and finaincial mergers should not have been permitted.
If one falls it is much smaller and less impact.
We essentially have somewhere around a half dozen or so banks for the USA right now that cover well over 80% of the customers.
A bank trouble is magnified in a situation like that.
Lets break them back up.

Also with fuel costs and such companies should be less centralized and have more distribution centers to lessen distribution costs.
 
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Hey Bill I get your point but we are still capitalist country.

Monopoly laws are there to preserve capitalism as well as to protect the people.

Unfettered capitalism will crush free enterpirze. It will always kill the free market if left to its own devices.
 
PresidentialScholar said:
I made this argument days ago, that America, for all of the capitalist rhetoric everyone spews off, has become more socialist than capitalist. There is no true capitalism in America, there are, however, surmounting traits of socialism. This is not bad, as socialism is seen as synonomous with communism, which is synonomous with bad and terrible things.

It means more that, in every aspect of American life, the government plays a role. Even as much as we pretend business exercises their free enterprise, they're still required to adhere to employment laws--providing unemployment compensation for firing workers indiscriminantly, or in some cases discriminantly, or adhering to fair labor standards.

Corporations are prevented from monopolizing--which would also be an exercise in free enterprise.

I agree that many of these advances are good for the country. And I think it helps to show the good that can come from utilizing certain socialist programs, but I'm curious to see if anyone disagrees and will suggest that we are indeed, more capitalist.


Thoughts?
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The government may have control over some of it, but the vast majority of the money is still in the hands of people able to make free decisions. We're actually probably the least socialist out of ANY developed country, besides Hong Kong (I would say Singapore too, but really I just think they're fascist rather than capitalist). The government taxes about 10% of our GDP and 30% of our income. Which is a lot, but people don't want to give anything up, so hey, what to do...
 
I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Do you know what Socialism is? If you did, you would understand that there are very few aspects of American government or business that bare even the most remote resemblence to socialism.

Unrestrained, unregulated capitalism does not work; that is proven. Even capitalism with the kind of regulations that we have now does not work, and creates vast inequality in wealth, but it is still a system based on the fundamentals of capitalist thought, and still one of the best systems that has been attempted.

We definitely need to keep tweaking it, though.
 
Yepper Onceller, if the darned republicans had just not untweaked it.
and had tweaked it in the areas it needed to be tweekd because of change.
 
PresidentialScholar said:
I made this argument days ago, that America, for all of the capitalist rhetoric everyone spews off, has become more socialist than capitalist. There is no true capitalism in America, there are, however, surmounting traits of socialism. This is not bad, as socialism is seen as synonomous with communism, which is synonomous with bad and terrible things.

It means more that, in every aspect of American life, the government plays a role. Even as much as we pretend business exercises their free enterprise, they're still required to adhere to employment laws--providing unemployment compensation for firing workers indiscriminantly, or in some cases discriminantly, or adhering to fair labor standards.

Corporations are prevented from monopolizing--which would also be an exercise in free enterprise.

I agree that many of these advances are good for the country. And I think it helps to show the good that can come from utilizing certain socialist programs, but I'm curious to see if anyone disagrees and will suggest that we are indeed, more capitalist.

Thoughts?
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America is becoming more socialist and will continue to do so as the resources continue to shrink. I'm a socialist, so I welcome the evolution. I believe in mixed economies and mixed social and philosophical ideologies. Capitialism and socialism can exist together, ie; Social Security, Medicaid, and soon some form of universal healthcare.

Americans are finally awakening to the threat of runaway corporate power .. a lesson we should have learned from the Robber Barons, and a lesson we should have learned from Thomas Jefferson who believed that freedom from corporations is a basic human right.

Americans are responding to the election in unprecedented numbers in an effort to keep this nation from completly slipping into a plutocracy and polls show that 81% think this nation is headed in the wrong direction .. a direction that has been led by the right and the plutocrats.
 
Onceler said:
I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Do you know what Socialism is? If you did, you would understand that there are very few aspects of American government or business that bare even the most remote resemblence to socialism.

Unrestrained, unregulated capitalism does not work; that is proven. Even capitalism with the kind of regulations that we have now does not work, and creates vast inequality in wealth, but it is still a system based on the fundamentals of capitalist thought, and still one of the best systems that has been attempted.

We definitely need to keep tweaking it, though.
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Unrestrained, unregulated capitalism is capitalism. I'm not saying America is operating a socialist country. Nor am I saying it's capitalist. I'm saying it's more socialist than capitalist.

I prefer to use concrete examples:

Capitalism purports private ownership of the means of production, whereas socialism is control of those means by the community or the government. Name me one institution in this country in which the government does not have a hand in regulating and legislating? I fail to see one.

Sure the money is still in the hands of the people, that would completely take us out of capitalism--that's not my point. My point is that the government is so large in America that we have superseded our capitalist tendencies with our socialist protections.

Welfare, social security, unemployment, disability, monopoly laws, copyright laws, drug laws, cigarette tax, gas tax, taxes in general, Taft-Hartley, nationalization of markets (later deemed unconstitutional), medicare, medicaid, economic regulations, environmental regulations, food stamps, anti-monopoly and trust laws, corporate tax, labor standards, motor vehicle laws, emission control, pollution standards, media standards are all socialist actions in our capitalist country. Markets and institutions that are free of government control, which are no more, makes us more capitalist than socialist. That isn't the case.

Unfettered capitalism is capitalism--the right of man to earn his/her profit without interference from the government. The crem de la crem, Horatio Alger and rags to riches, the basis for capitalist ideology. That is no more--the government has leveled the playing field.

And they've done so in all respects, by adopting socialist ideals to preserve fairness and order, which have taken precedence over loyalty to our capitalist foundations.


Bill
 
Name me one institution in this country in which the government does not have a hand in regulating and legislating?
//

congress.
 
Most socialism actually isn't Marxist these days. Marx's Communist theories held socialism as the middle ground where the government controlled everything, and communism as hippy love-ville where everyone held hands and got along. Most modern socialists don't see that as an ends, nor do they see complete government control as an ends. They see a mixed economy as the ends, and are realistic in believing that hippie love-ville will never be realized.

If someone describes themselves as "communist", that usually means they're a Marxist. Although there were many competing movements that identified themselves as communist, these have pretty much died out, leaving only Marxism. Socialists and Marxist sprang out of the same source but they came to vastly different conclusions. It annoys me today whenever someone says they're a socialist and a libertarian spouts out nonsense like "ZOMG why don't you move to the soviet union!" This is stupid. Even though I'm not a socialist and I believe strongly in the market, the dishonesty of it just annoys the fuck out of me. Hell, they even do it to people who don't identify themselves as social liberals or socialists.
 
"Unfettered capitalism is capitalism--the right of man to earn his/her profit without interference from the government. The crem de la crem, Horatio Alger and rags to riches, the basis for capitalist ideology. That is no more--the government has leveled the playing field."

If they have actually done that, they have done a neat trick of hiding it. Not one year has gone by in the past 25 where the gap between rich & poor did not grow. Rags to riches happens every day, and new millionaires are being created at a faster rate than at any time in history.

Really, the paragraph you wrote above is slightly insane, and somewhat out of tune with reality.

As for making an argument for "unfettered capitalism," you'll have very few who understand anything about economics & government who would agree with you that this is the best system. Regulations are needed in a wide variety of areas to prevent abuse, pollution, fraud, infringement on worker rights, unjustified healthcare denial, price gouging and a wide array of other negative consequences. Frankly, it is exceedingly naive to believe -against clear evidence to the contrary - that the free market can address any of those areas in a way that the vast majority of people would find acceptable.
 
Watermark said:
Most socialism actually isn't Marxist these days. Marx's Communist theories held socialism as the middle ground where the government controlled everything, and communism as hippy love-ville where everyone held hands and got along. Most modern socialists don't see that as an ends, nor do they see complete government control as an ends. They see a mixed economy as the ends, and are realistic in believing that hippie love-ville will never be realized.

If someone describes themselves as "communist", that usually means they're a Marxist. Although there were many competing movements that identified themselves as communist, these have pretty much died out, leaving only Marxism. Socialists and Marxist sprang out of the same source but they came to vastly different conclusions. It annoys me today whenever someone says they're a socialist and a libertarian spouts out nonsense like "ZOMG why don't you move to the soviet union!" This is stupid. Even though I'm not a socialist and I believe strongly in the market, the dishonesty of it just annoys the fuck out of me. Hell, they even do it to people who don't identify themselves as social liberals or socialists.
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Well said.
 
If they have actually done that, they have done a neat trick of hiding it. Not one year has gone by in the past 25 where the gap between rich & poor did not grow. Rags to riches happens every day, and new millionaires are being created at a faster rate than at any time in history.

We're mincing words here. I'm talking about opportunity. Rags to riches happens, to maybe one out of a thousand people. I'm talking about the banner that any American, if you work hard, can make a great living and live off the fat of the land--which is total fodder.

The government has leveled the playing field--if I can't afford health insurance, they provide it. If I get old and can't work, they give me money. If I lose my job to downsizing, they provide me unemployment compensation. If I don't make enough money in my job as is, the government can provide me food stamps and welfare. If I apply for a job, I can sue the company if they tell me that they don't hire Christians. If I notify authorities that a corporation I work for is raping the community, they can't take retributory action and if they do, I can sue them. Obviously, the field isn't as even as it could be--but it most certainly is more fair than it was 100 years. Substantially moreso.

Really, the paragraph you wrote above is slightly insane, and somewhat out of tune with reality.

Not really. You're measuring it in one way, I'm measuring it in another. You can't just measure economic fairness by wages vs. salaries. There are too many factors.

As for making an argument for "unfettered capitalism," you'll have very few who understand anything about economics & government who would agree with you that this is the best system. Regulations are needed in a wide variety of areas to prevent abuse, pollution, fraud, infringement on worker rights, unjustified healthcare denial, price gouging and a wide array of other negative consequences. Frankly, it is exceedingly naive to believe -against clear evidence to the contrary - that the free market can address any of those areas in a way that the vast majority of people would find acceptable.

I agree the government should have a role in all of them. That doesn't change the fact that they don't coincide with capitalist principles--wherein there is no government control of this nature.
 
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