Capitalism Vs. Socialism -- we all lose?
What would be an ideal form of society?
Currently we have people arguing between Capitalism and Socialism.
But the reality is both words are just a name to cover the oligarch technocrats controlling everything.
However, lets put reality aside for a bit and discuss the core of Capitalism vs Socialism. Why would anyone support one over the other? If one reads Marx, they would tend to never support Capitalism. And similarly, if one reads Gulag Archipelago the would never support Socialism.
The problem is people are not identical. And so, given any event, the outcome would not be equal.
Given a race, 20% of the people will cream the 80% by a far margin, with the bottom 10% never able to finish.
Given a farm, 20% of the people will grow way more food than then next 80%, with the bottom 10% dying of starvation.
If you are in the top 20% then of course you want a meritocracy. Where you are rewarded for your above average performance. So, this group will always be for capitalism.
But, if you are in the bottom 10% of people, you need other people to support you, or you just die. So of course you support a structure of "... to each according to his need", aka socialism.
And there is nothing you can do that will shift these two groups' opinion.
Socialism fails because you make everyone equally poor.
In any system, the Pareto Principal applies. 80% of the production is done by 20% of the people.
If you reward the top producers, then they produce that excess. But, in a socialist system the top producers are punished, and often killed. So, the entire population has to live on 20%.
20% of the televisions, cars, medical, dental, houses...
20% of the food.
And this is why we see socialism, everywhere it is practiced, ends in starvation.
Capitalism succeeds? where socialism fails.
Rewarding the top producers creates lots and lots of excess. 5x as much as a socialist society. And, if that was all, you would think it was great.
However, capitalism creates an underclass.
Just like the top 20% making just about everything, the bottom 10% gets forgotten. They can never get ahead. The competition is so bad, they may as well give up before they even start.
And this is why we see capitalism crashing when the underclass get left so far behind that burning everything down is better than continuing.
Now, each human wants to feel like they are part of the community and they want to feel like they are helping the community.
In both the socialist paradigm and the capitalist paradigm we have a portion of society that is on the outs.
And this is why neither of them works and they both collapse after a time.
Sad, but true.
Even if we get rid of T.H.E.M., the oligarchical ruling class whom which has basically controlled everything through recorded history, these two systems would fail.
One destroying the best and one destroying the worst.
Of course, if we had to choose one or the other, all thinking people pick the one that doesn't destroy the best.
And, although this is really, really important, as the top 20% provide everything, including growth and innovation, the destruction of the bottom is really saddening.
Currently what we do is impose a bit of socialism in the capitalism through govern-cements. In other words, in the worst way possible; we make everyone more miserable.
Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. In fact, there are people who are not cut out to tie their own shoes. So, a one size fits all solution of the past isn't going to cut it.
Fortunately we are humans, and humans like to think of solutions.
What do you all think? What is a solution where we reward the top performers for performing, and we keep the bottom performers from falling too far behind?
Without much of the sophisticated lingvistics, i have a few simple, down to ground statements.
I have lived half of my personal life under socialism . USSR. Never again.
I am ready to fight to death for my family, my kids
, (and even my old body for that little still left) will have ever to live even one day under socialism.
Never again !
I'm 65
Indeed. Socialism makes everyone poor.
Worse it makes everyone survive on 1/5th of what would normally be produced.
And so, starvation happens, and then the oligarchs make it worse by stealing a big share.
Great post, never heard it explained as succinct as that. I have a controversial solution, that would be to look at some of the economic ideas that were implemented by Hitler and Gaddafi. I have read that they both got rid of central banks and gave all people free / affordable housing, which led to some prosperity for all in both countries, apparently.
It is important to get rid of mortgages. Mortgage (a french word) meaning death note. Where the bank takes 3x as much money from the people as the builder and developer get.
However, it is not ultimately a good solution.
As in, these greed SOBs, "T.H.E.M." will always weasel their way back into power / control of the money supply.
Thus, for this piece, cryptos are a far better solution. Just leave the central banks behind. (of course, this war is only starting to be fought)
I have always advocated for a system where we build a tiny room for every person, and have a cafeteria where any who are hungry can show up to eat. So, providing free minimum housing, food and clothing.
But, this has to be done by someone other than govern-cement. Because the way govern-cement does it, is to put the locks on the outside of your "free" room.
Jordan Peterson brings up this problem of what society is to do with low IQ people (Not that low IQ and the bottom %10 are always the same thing). What do you suggest be done to solve misery(because being part of the underclass isn't all bad, I know from growing up on welfare) of the underclass?
Oh and by the way Capitalism didn't create the underclass every society throughout history has had an underclass.
Yes, Jordan Peterson speaks of this problem in a more generic way. But he doesn't go into the problem of, if the bottom 10% gets left to far behind, they tend to burn everything down. He talks about what to do about them.
Lower than 85 IQ and they don't even make good slaves. So, really, what do we do with them?
What we do right now is let them vote, and thus all the western countries have been inching towards socialism. Because the underclass can't make it on their own, they always vote for more socialism. To ask them to do different is to ask them to go without meals.
Yes, capitalism doesn't create the underclass, but it really exacerbates the distance between the top 20% and the bottom 20%. And that feeling of despair that distance causes, is where the problem comes in.
Another thing I would say that the underclass in a socialist society fare far from felicitously.
What would you do to engage, save, uplift, free, enrich and/or otherwise bother the underclass?
My response to this has been something like, how many people's lives should be wasted?
If a person needs full time care, is someone else giving up their life ok?
I would probably leave people in "school" until they were proficient enough to live on their own.
Some people will learn arithmetic in school, other's will learn how to put their clothes on properly.
But, this is only a luxury that we can afford because we have so much excess.
The way things worked out in olden times was the village idiot did chores like delivering messages and sweeping. Slept in a spare room. The village collectively cared for them.
Or, the idiot did something stupid and ended their lives.
Since we have made life so very very safe, this happens much less today.
Repealing the minimum wage would make these gopher type jobs available again.
No to socialism and if we ALL just lived by the same rule of law, capitalism works fine. However, the elite hate laws. They will have their way in either system.
Of course T.H.E.Y. have really fucked up the system making it worse.
Basically T.H.E.Y. have made monopolies and monopsonies in each sector and defended them.
And so, T.H.E.Y. have made the playing field very unlevel.
However, an unfettered competitive system will always leave a group of people behind.
Look at how THEY favored Amazon, the creation , taxes , etc....capitalism but not. And then of course taking over the WP is just more of THEM telling you how to think or believe.
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