Ways That Socialsm Can Be Better Than Capitalism

PoliTalker said:
Socialism would provide face masks to everyone during a pandemic.

Capitalism says you are on your own. Buy one if you can afford it.

The problem there being that masks are not primarily worn to protect the wearer.

Masks are worn to protect others.

We all look out for one another in the coronavirus pandemic.

And that explains why the USA is doing so poorly:

1. There is so much hatred that people on the right don't care if others die, particularly those on the left.

2. Right wing propaganda tells people they don't have to wear a mask.
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You are economically illiterate.
 
Hello Flash,

Flash said:
My only point was to question your claim that said we would be more productive if we had universal health care. There are only 4 nations ahead of us and 30 behind us with universal health care.

I was not basing my conclusion on a correlation between productivity and healthcare from the article. I was basing it on your post:

[Politalker] "If we had a government guaranteed universal health care system then we would have a healthier, more productive, nation."
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It was a shrewd try. Got to give credit for coming up with a seemingly convincing angle. But it doesn't really work.

It is not a fair comparison looking at other countries because there are so many more factors in play.

They are, after all, completely different countries with different societies, resources, customs, etc.

Here is what I am saying:

Our country would be more productive with more healthy people than our country would be with many of them sick because they can't afford health care.

More healthy people = more able workers. It is cut and dried crystal clear logic. It has zero to do with whatever is going on in other nations.

Sick people are not as productive as healthy people.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Flash,



It was a shrewd try. Got to give credit for coming up with a seemingly convincing angle. But it doesn't really work.

It is not a fair comparison looking at other countries because there are so many more factors in play.

They are, after all, completely different countries with different societies, resources, customs, etc.

Here is what I am saying:

Our country would be more productive with more healthy people than our country would be with many of them sick because they can't afford health care.

More healthy people = more able workers. It is cut and dried crystal clear logic. It has zero to do with whatever is going on in other nations.

Sick people are not as productive as healthy people.
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What angle? You are correct about all the differences in the different countries meaning healthcare might not be responsible for productivity differences in any of them. It is also true that health differences in countries are not necessarily due to universal healthcare. Lifestyle differences are also a factor. Countries like Swedish with good health stats also have good stats in the U. S. without universal healthcare.

Notice my post says nothing pro or con against universal healthcare (if you think that is my angle). It is just to question claims like productivity and health stats are due to healthcare. Low income groups in the U. S. with poor health stats have those stats with or without Medicaid.
 
Flash said:
What angle? You are correct about all the differences in the different countries meaning healthcare might not be responsible for productivity differences in any of them. It is also true that health differences in countries are not necessarily due to universal healthcare. Lifestyle differences are also a factor. Countries like Swedish with good health stats also have good stats in the U. S. without universal healthcare.

Notice my post says nothing pro or con against universal healthcare (if you think that is my angle). It is just to question claims like productivity and health stats are due to healthcare. Low income groups in the U. S. with poor health stats have those stats with or without Medicaid.
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People obtaining access to regular healthcare monitoring of their physical problems will elevate our health care results. Americans walkabout with problems they do not know until they are forced to go to Emergency. We are at the bottom of healthcare ratings of all industrial nations. Every other one has universal care.
 
Nordberg said:
People obtaining access to regular healthcare monitoring of their physical problems will elevate our health care results. Americans walkabout with problems they do not know until they are forced to go to Emergency. We are at the bottom of healthcare ratings of all industrial nations. Every other one has universal care.
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And those countries do not have a 42% obesity rate. Medicaid recipients should have good healthcare ratings since they have access to healthcare.
 
Hello Flash,

Flash said:
What angle? You are correct about all the differences in the different countries meaning healthcare might not be responsible for productivity differences in any of them. It is also true that health differences in countries are not necessarily due to universal healthcare. Lifestyle differences are also a factor. Countries like Swedish with good health stats also have good stats in the U. S. without universal healthcare.

Notice my post says nothing pro or con against universal healthcare (if you think that is my angle). It is just to question claims like productivity and health stats are due to healthcare. Low income groups in the U. S. with poor health stats have those stats with or without Medicaid.
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All true but none of it refutes the basic logic that healthy people are capable of being more productive than sick people.

Therefore:

Anything that increases the overall health in a country also must increase productivity.

Unless the only people being made more healthy are all non-workers!
 
A facebiik message
I live in Sweden We have Social Security.
We have affordable healthcare
Srict gun laws
5 weeks paid leave
hospital stays 10 bucks a night
prescriptions max 210 dollars a year
We are democratic and free
 
Hello Nordberg,

Nordberg said:
A facebiik message
I live in Sweden We have Social Security.
We have affordable healthcare
Srict gun laws
5 weeks paid leave
hospital stays 10 bucks a night
prescriptions max 210 dollars a year
We are democratic and free
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Sounds like a country that's got it's act together. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The government cares for the people, uses it's power to improve their lives. That's a good function of a government. Governments that do that are popular with the people.

What kind of nation doesn't care about the future of her own people?

-The USA

Conservatives hate government. And they want everybody else hating government, too. They don't want anything that might cause people to like government.

Conservatives want a disgusting government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Flash,



All true but none of it refutes the basic logic that healthy people are capable of being more productive than sick people.

Therefore:

Anything that increases the overall health in a country also must increase productivity.

Unless the only people being made more healthy are all non-workers!
Click to expand...

not if it's a lockdown.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Nordberg,



Sounds like a country that's got it's act together. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The government cares for the people, uses it's power to improve their lives. That's a good function of a government. Governments that do that are popular with the people.

What kind of nation doesn't care about the future of her own people?

-The USA

Conservatives hate government. And they want everybody else hating government, too. They don't want anything that might cause people to like government.

Conservatives want a disgusting government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
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globalists want the world run by the corrupt designs of multinational corporations.

you should be a real populist, instead of an internationalist fascist.
 
We're going to have private and public sectors no matter what.

Capitalism or socialism is not the binary choice.

They operate concurrently, and if implemented to their best potential, symbiotically.

Educated people have gone beyond simplistic, cold war era definitions of the words, but our underfunded education system in America has left a lot of citizens at a near illiterate level.

And those latter people refer to people who care about explicit language as "elitists."

Without having any clue about political ideology one way or another, they vote for the Donald Trumps of the world as "payback" for some imagined grievance.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
We're going to have private and public sectors no matter what.

Capitalism or socialism is not the binary choice.

They operate concurrently, and if implemented to their best potential, symbiotically.

Educated people have gone beyond simplistic, cold war era definitions of the words, but our underfunded education system in America has left a lot of citizens at a near illiterate level.

And those latter people refer to people who care about explicit language as "elitists."

Without having any clue about political ideology one way or another, they vote for the Donald Trumps of the world as "payback" for some imagined grievance.
Click to expand...

seems to be globalists dance all around the issue, and can't really explain why facilitating chinese mercantilism is good for americans.

can you explain why chinese mercantilism is good for americans? do you need an explicit language facilitator known as a dictionary?
 
PoliTalker said:
Now, before you get all triggered and go off about how capitalism is always better than socialism, just hear me out.

Capitalism is a wonderful engine of ingenuity and there is no way we want to abandon capitalism.

And the old BS about how socialism is a creeping weed that will completely displace capitalism over time is just, well, BS. We've had both for a long time, and that has not happened.

So now that we understand the best economic system is really a mixture of both, let us talk about some of the ways where socialism can be better than capitalism.

I am going to give you two examples of ways you might be getting ripped off by capitalism. There are myriads of ways, but here are two that come to mind.

Charcoal starter fluid and tire wet.

Have you ever purchased either of these two products?

No big deal. Like many of us, you may have bought one or both of these products and used them for the intended purpose. No big deal, right? That's what they are for, right?

Well, they do a good job at what they say they do, but ya got ripped off.

What?

How do I know that?

Well, I hate to spoil the 'ingenuity of capitalism' for ya, but the only ingenuity in both of these products is packaging and taking advantage of an unsuspecting public.

Both of these products are not products at all. They are simply common substances repackaged to appear to be something new, formulated for a specific purpose.

Here's what you are getting when you buy these products:

Charcoal starter is really mineral spirits. If you paid $4 - $7 for a quart of charcoal starter, you could have paid about $7 - $9 and gotten a gallon of mineral spirits and done the same thing. There's more going up in smoke than the charcoal starter. Your money.

How about 'tire wet?' That's really mineral oil. If you spent $7 - $12 or $16 for a bottle of 'tire wet,' you got ripped off. Once again, a greedy corporation took advantage of the fact that you probably didn't know the 'product' is really a common substance that you could have paid far less for.

That's because part of the 'ingenuity of capitalism' is to find a way to exploit an unsuspecting public by getting them to pay more for something than they really have to.

A socialist government department of consumer awareness could alert the public of these and similar scams to keep the worst of capitalism from taking advantage of good people who worked hard for their money.

I'm all for competition and coming up with ingenious new inventions and useful products. Socialism isn't going to do that. What it can do is protect us from shysters and legal 'scams.'

Let's embrace socialism, and stop getting ripped off! This will force capitalism to be at it's true best. Doing what is really beneficial to society, instead of simply (and lazily) looking for easy money, ways to rip people off, and generally just trying extract as many dollars out of the general public as possible, whether true value is delivered or not, to be gathered together for the richest previous holders of vast wealth.

The last thing we really want is a society where wealth inequality grows ever more extreme. But that's what we've got. And that big money doesn't want you to know how you're getting ripped off.

The true measure of a country is not how wealthy the richest are, but how well that country treats the least advantaged members of society.

The richer the richest get, the more taxes they need to be paying to support the least advantaged. And that is just pure logic.

We don't have to abandon capitalism to get smart and stop wasting money.

Remember: Benjamin Franklin was right. A penny saved is a penny earned.

The only difference is these days it is a dollar. LOTS of them.

Capitalism will use all it's power to try to get your money out of your hands. It's time we use all OUR collective power to keep the greedy side of capitalism at bay. We need use socialism to force capitalism to stay focused on creating useful new products and ways to do things that truly help people.

That's a win/win for America.

Because making America greater doesn't always mean making the rich richer.

We all need to consider how socialism can help capitalism provide better healthcare, too.

That's one of the biggest ways we are getting ripped off.
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It's not a rip off if someone is willing to pay the price for it.

Tire Wet is not just mineral spirits. It is a plastic as well. Charcoal starter is not just mineral spirits. It also contains wax. Sometimes the solvent used is alcohol and synthetic is used in place of the wax.

If you want to mix up your own starter fluid, tire wet, paint, etc. Feel free. Most people don't bother.
 
Eagle_Eye said:
Who owns the highways and roads?
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Depends on who built it. Some are privately owned, some are owned by your local city, some by a county, some by a State, and some by the federal government.
Government built roads are built using taxes we vote for. That is not socialism.
Public schools are built and run using taxes we vote for. That is not socialism.

Welfare is something no one voted for. It was simply imposed. That's socialism.
 
Hello NiftyNiblick,

NiftyNiblick said:
We're going to have private and public sectors no matter what.

Capitalism or socialism is not the binary choice.

They operate concurrently, and if implemented to their best potential, symbiotically.

Educated people have gone beyond simplistic, cold war era definitions of the words, but our underfunded education system in America has left a lot of citizens at a near illiterate level.

And those latter people refer to people who care about explicit language as "elitists."

Without having any clue about political ideology one way or another, they vote for the Donald Trumps of the world as "payback" for some imagined grievance.
Click to expand...

Awesome post.

Nailed it.

The USA and the Republican Party in a nutshell.

And all of it at the behest of the great wealth extraction machine operated by the greediest super-rich Americans.

The part of the 99% that votes for everything the 1% wants, and against the best interest of the 99%.

The invisible pyramid.
 
Cypress said:
My favorite short list of American socialism are:

Public libraries
NASA-space program
Public universities
Medicare
Green Bay Packers
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Publicly traded companies like the Green Bay Packers are not an example of socialism. Folks buy stock in their company. Unless you think that Coca-Cola is "socialism" because folks can buy stock in it then you should remove that shining example of capitalism from your list of socialism. And Public Universities... also not socialism. If you pay for an education, even if it is slightly subsidized, you are not participating in socialism, you are paying for an education.
 
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AssHatZombie said:
seems to be globalists dance all around the issue, and can't really explain why facilitating chinese mercantilism is good for americans.

can you explain why chinese mercantilism is good for americans? do you need an explicit language facilitator known as a dictionary?
Click to expand...

The America-China relationship is not anywhere near the foundation of my political ideology, and let me remind you, it was Republican Richard Nixon who thought opening it up was a good idea.
Do you have a caps button on your keyboard?
 
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