Elemmire said:
Nice try at a smoke screen. Government budget deficiet is unrelated to the concepts of capitalism vs socialism vs communism economics. All governments can run a budget deficit, that isn't a problem isolated to us. The concept of a budget deficit started back during the Great Depression as a way to drag us out of economic collapse. I'm not going into details as they aren't too important to the current discussion, but deficits serve a purpose. On a scale of percentage of GDP, the US budget deficit is actually much smaller than most countries of the world. Yet, I digress further.evanos said:
Rones said:
Even socialism has to select leaders. Do you have a better method for leadership selection than elections? Direct democratic votes are not only impratical due to the size of modern nations, but illogical. The decisions governemnt representatives must make require research and a great deal of knowledge to make the proper decision. Do you want to research and study every bill that passes through congress so you can vote or even worse...vote without knowing what you are voting for? Pure democracies are not possible with a population larger than a few thousands. Larger than that and you get one of two results: A) Everyone spends all their time researching what is being voted on so they can make a smart decision for society or B) Everyone just votes randomly because they don't know what is being voted on and causes chaos. Electing representatives is the closest we can get to a democracy.
That's self defeating, especially considering socialism involves many businesses being owned by the government. If they aren't looking to grow and earn profit, they will collapse. If not to foreign competition, then overcome by simple inflation and stagnation.
And that right there is why socialism fails. When you move a large corporation such as Microsoft from a publicly owned business (closer to claimed socialistic goals) to a government owned and operated business, you shoot yourself in the foot. Government run businesses are not competive. Competition causes efficieny, advancement, and innovations. That is why capitalism beats socialism every time.
They do not live up to the ideals, because the closer they get, the more they fail. Its like a moth attracted to a fire. The closer it gets, the worse it will get burned. Every step a socialist government takes toward the ideals, the more they fail because the system is flawed.
Rones said:
And people are largely too lazy to even put foward that much effort. Imagine if we had people voting on everything? People either wouldn't research it and vote poorly (sadly do that in elections already) or not vote at all. Its a sociological/psychology phenomenon called 'group loughing'. The larger the group, the more responsbility is devided and the more people slack, until you reach the point where nothing gets done.
Also known as an unrestricted democracy which is better described as a tyranny of the majority. Again, why I support minarchism. Maximum individual rights with minimum ability to inflict power over others.
The justification is that in the end people are people, and the natural instinct of humans is to help each other, if not out of goodness, then out of selfishness and preservation of the species.Shaidalyn said:
Superior by what measure? GDP? Sure, however, not everyone views superiority that way. Socialst economies are superior in terms of providing essential services to all members of society, which is something that doesn't fit into the capitalist mindset, because there is no profit to be made.Rones said:
In the short-term yes. In the long term, a capitalist society will. I'll explain though.
evanos said:
jobs are there, people are just unwilling, or unable(education, skills, qualifications) to take them. And especialy since many of the immigrants work undesireable jobs, and are paid less than minimum wage on aevrage. You think it'll be easy to find someone to clean your house at 3 dollars an hour? And if you had to pay 10$ an hour, would you even see the service as worth it?Strid said:
Actually, I addressed that same argument four times already. It just keeps getting repeated though...Strid said:
Not really. Unemployment is already at 4.7%. That's not going to improve much if. There are forms of unemployment that are unpreventable and must be accepted. Minimized, those come to about 4-5% unemployment, thus we are at full employment.
Not turned on its end. Its just a small left shift in the labor supply line as I displayed on a graph earlier in this thread. I then listed all effects from that. Really, it would do little harm.
Maximilium said:
Marajade said:
I feel this is overly simplified, and often not applicable in "by the book" capitalist economies. Capitalism, essentially by definition, dictates that people ought to only get as many services as they can possibly get by on to keep them working. (Not enough to live on, but too much to just die.)Rones said:
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Incorrect. The rise in price isn't going to hit everything. It will rise for low education required services that the illegeals did, such as lawn mowing, roofing, cleaning, etc. Very little manufacturing is done in the US still that requires uneducated labor, and that which is typically has legal workers because manufacturing is a big business and harder to slip illegeals under the rug. Thus, just the cost of using those service jobs go up, and the primary users of those services are middle and upper class. Thus, lower class will get the benefit of small wage increase without an equivalent price increase in all their goods they buy.Maximillion said:
I don't see the problem with that. Not only does it keep the society strong and efficient, it creates motivation. When your survival depends on making yourself useful to society, you are motivated and society benefits from your effort. This is where social loafing comes in that I linked to earlier. As soon as people see their survival depedent on the efforts of a group rather than the individual, they slack and stop working as hard. In the long run, this leaves that society far behind in development.Sculli said:
While that is a correct definition, its not what I was trying to claim. Yes, there will be less services in a capitalist society. However, the services that are provided in a capitalist society will be 'superior' in that they will be more advanced, efficient, and effective. This stems from the greater research and development of new technology that improves our standard of living. Additionaly, the net result on society as a whole will be reapiong greater benefits than the services provided in a socialist setting. Why have state funded health care when you can motivate people to earn it themselves through the economy. Solves two problems with one design. People work to improve the economy and people get healthcare if its of enough importance to them. It has the added benefit of providing choice to the person.
This would be an example of what I called a short term superiority for the socialist. While the senior citizen is eating cat food now, in the future the capitalist economy would have outgrown the socialist by a large margin. Now the poorest of the poorest senior citizens in the capitalist society is eating food of equivalent or better quality to that provided by the socialist economy. As the standard of living improves, everyone in the society goes up with it. The standard goes up faster in a capitalist society with a steadily growing economy.
Sculli said:I feel this is overly simplified, and often not applicable in "by the book" capitalist economies. Capitalism, essentially by definition, dictates that people ought to only get as many services as they can possibly get by on to keep them working. (Not enough to live on, but too much to just die.)
I mean I don't believe any of us would argue that capitalism is focussed on people, it's focussed on profit, and people are considered a renewable resource. If you are not able to produce profit, then capitalists do not want you, as you are a burden on the system, you are a cost without to ever be able to return any of that money that is spent on you, this is undesirable.
Socialists economies on the other hand recognize that there are circumstaces under which you will not be able to be a profitable human, and they choose to be ok with that by charging every profitable human a certain fee to account for the expenses incurred by humans who are not generating profit.
In either way, go ahead and compare the standard of living between the United Staates and Germany, or the U.S. and Sweden, or heck, even Italy which is as screwed up of an industrial nation as one can possibly get.
My point is that those who create the profits in capitalist economies, as a whole, do not reap as many rewards as those who generate the profits in socialist economies. My proof is everyday life in the United Staates: homeless, illiterate, fee based higher education, people without medical coverage, senior citizens buying cat food because that is the only thing they can afford. This type of things are extremely rare in social economies, which leads me to believe that in the long run social economies are better for the people who live in them.
[Edit: Oops, flaw in presentation of historic events removed.
So would it be fair to say that you believe that the some 45 million Americans who do not have health care coverage just don't consider it important enough?Rones said:
I think we must be talking about two different things. When I say socialist economy, I am talking economy as currently practiced in Germany or Sweden. With that in mind, the above quote doesn't ring true.Rones said:
I fully agree. However, reality teaches us that "can" and "will" are two entirely different things, and that a capitalist economy has no incentive to provide any more services than absolutely necessary to keep things running.Rones said: