NationStates Jolt Archive

I was just interested in what people think. Not right or left wing or liberal or conservative. And if you have a reason leave one. I say capitalism. As defined by Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Because of supply and demand and lazse faire (free trade, not sure how it is spelled though). Plus Smith was against greediness, and guilds so it all makes sense to me. I'm interested in what others think though. And please no flaming.

Technically my ideology is a socialist one, though we don't respect most other socialist ideologies.

lazse faire (free trade, not sure how it is spelled though).

:p That was cute.

Actually, it's "laissez-faire" (my mother language is French)

Oh! And about that socialism and capitalism thingy, hum...

well, I voted "none", because I think an intelligent nation must be well-balanced, like being either centrist or syncretic (such as anarchy, which is the release of full personal and economical freedoms).

Because a completely free market, due to the laws of supply and demand, ensures that everyone produces as much or more than they consume. If they don't, they starve, which is a great motivator to work. :) No one gets something for nothing (excluding private charity). This system ensures more money for everyone.

There would be disparity in wealth. You would have some very rich, and some very poor. It would be in direct proportion to ability and effort, which cannot be more fair. All men would not be equal, far from it. All men, however, would have the same opportunity to get wealth, if they have the mind and drive to get it.

Far, far, far too simplified and polarised.

I don't know what you're trying to find out tbh. You're trying to get people to support capitalism by artificially reducing their choices?

I believe Smith is frequently misunderstood. Normally because of people's frequently references to this invisible hand which Smith only mentioned once. In addition it is normally quoted entirely out of context.

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he [the businessman] intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

Smith was saying that self-interest would lead businessmen to invest more at home than abroad to protect the platform that his wealth was built on.

Yet you only need to consider today's phenomenons of globalisation and outsourcing to see that this point does not hold true.

It has become ever easier to move capital from one place to another, but at the same time it has become ever harder to move from one country to another and seek work there. The world in which we live is nothing like the world in which Smith lived in. Indeed, the industrial revolution did not even take off until 40 years after Smith's death.

I usually vote socialist in these things, but I always wonder whether "socialism" means the middle of the way mixed economy socialism that I'm a fan of or out and out communism, which I'm not so fond of.

Les deux, combined in a delicious cocktail, with the Jägermeister of the free market economy to the triple shot of vodka of a safety net, which keeps the economy propped up by making sure that everyone can buy themselves food, can keep themselves in a house and perhaps get the odd consumer good now and then, all topped off with the slice of lime of the banning of offshore tax havens, so that everyone has to give their bit back to society.

I usually vote socialist in these things, but I always wonder whether "socialism" means the middle of the way mixed economy socialism that I'm a fan of or out and out communism, which I'm not so fond of.I have the same problem, for the opposite reasons.

well socialism is the only thing that ever saved capitolism's ass.
no form of idological fanatacism is worth a dam though.

so really, very deffinately other, with no hangup about unabashedly borrowing from both, and everything else that has ever been thought of, along with the infinity of other things that have yet to be.

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(my answer to jello biafra and evil turnips is that socialism is NOT, never has been, never will be, marxism, by any other name. not that marxism is inhierently any more evil then capitolism, though the both have real and major problems. socialism is what trying to overcome those problems generally ends up getting labled. in actuall usage i'm not so sure any of those terms have any sort of absolute real meaning. yes there are dictionary deffinicians. but such terms are so much more thrown arround for propiganda and coersion then any sort of intillectually responsible use of them. all we can say for sure, in the context of usage, is that capitolism has something to do with capitol in the sense of currency and all that goes with it, while the others have something to do with giving a sucker an even break. but even that only amonts to a ruel of thumb when it comes to how people actually use any of them.)

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ohh after i voted the polls were all equal 33.3% that's spooky, 11 11 11, nice i'm good at equalising things, urg note to self headbanging hurts neck

Socialism is more complicated a topic than what I'm about to say, but at its core its less an economic system and more an ideology. Capitalism is a system of the economy. You can be socialist and capitalist at the same time. I am, Frank Zappa was too.

If you then head into Communism, well, big trouble. Like that Zappa fellow said: Communism doesn't work 'cause people like to own stuff.

Socialism!

I usually vote socialist in these things, but I always wonder whether "socialism" means the middle of the way mixed economy socialism that I'm a fan of or out and out communism, which I'm not so fond of.
I am simply speaking of socialism. Not communism specifically, just the ideological socialism. So if you like communism you would vote socialism. If you like mixed economy socialism you would vote socialism. Sorry about that. Also, you don't have to be voting based on pure capitalism and pure socialism. Perhaps you like a capitalist government with some socialist policies. In that case you would not vote other unless they were perfectly balanced. Instead you would vote which ever one you preferred more of. Like me. I like some aspects of socialism. Other aspects just don't seem to work for me. I feel the same way about capitalism, but I like more of capitalism than socialism.

capitolism almost works when retailing is mom and pop, infrastructure is unionized, and there are a lot of social programs to make up for what economic incentive doesn't alone and sufficiently motivate. which is rather a lot of things.

it doesn't work worth a dam when corporatocracy usurps the political proccess and is allowed to get away with murder.

i know this is another point of splitting hairs. there are some self styled conservatives who see the corporate mafia as not being their idea of capitolism at all. certainly when government props them up at tax payers expense instead of allowing market forces to determine whether they sink or swim, while not giving a dam about conditions thus created for actual living real people, places and things, i think that's something most of us can pretty much aggree ought not to be on.

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It depends very much on how the two terms are defined.

It depends very much on how the two terms are defined.

Agreed.

I was just interested in what people think. Not right or left wing or liberal or conservative. And if you have a reason leave one. I say capitalism. As defined by Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Because of supply and demand and lazse faire (free trade, not sure how it is spelled though). Plus Smith was against greediness, and guilds so it all makes sense to me. I'm interested in what others think though. And please no flaming.

I'm capitalist, but some people might say I'm also slightly socialist.

Smith had some good ideas in the Wealth of Nations, but he was naive. He thinks that the "self-interest" of others will lead to prosperity of society, but he was wrong. Capitalism only works because it runs on greed, and people starve because of it. Socialism can work, it is just a common misconception that it doesn't because it is identified wrongly with the Soviet Union, which was a communist dictatorship. Socialism wants a fair distribution of wealth. Capitalism leads more to corruption and aristocracy and its ultimate form is fascism. Mussolini had a corporate state. Socialism is lasting in Europe, they have traits of capitalism, but they do not have to worry like in the US, where the top 1 percent owns 70 percent of the wealth.

I went for socialism, but I would go a mild version of socialism, like a Canadian Socialism. I think some European countries go a bit too far such as it's illegal to home-school your kids there.

Basically unless you want an exact balance between Capitalism and Socialism or can't stand either option, don't pick the third option. Capitalism and Socialism should be defined as by their creators, Adam Smith and Karl Marx. If you choose a different definition for one of those, please post the definition you used in your reasoning post. I believe there should be a balance between Capitalism and Socialism, but I think there should be a little more Capitalism than Socialism. For example, in Germany you have to pass a test called the Abitur to go to college. I dislike this socialist policy because it will be difficult for one to get into college if one is a bad test taker. However in a capitalist society, one doesn't have to take a test to get into college, and one can get into college through hard work and determination alone. On the other end of the spectrum, people like Bill Gates are proof that Capitalism works. Bill Gates earned his money by doing something valuable for society and is donating his fortune to charity. But for every Bill Gates there is a "parasite" (kudos if you get the reference) who did little to earn their money and has no intention of benefiting society (Paris Hilton?). These people are where the capitalist policy of variable income tax comes in. It is necessary to have increasing income rates so the rich can effectively contribute to socialist policies such as welfare or health care. So while I wish for a balance of both, I prefer Capitalism.

Post-scarcity.

I went for socialism, but I would go a mild version of socialism, like a Canadian Socialism. I think some European countries go a bit too far such as it's illegal to home-school your kids there.

Huh? afaik it's only not allowed in Germany. And what does that have to do with socialism or capitalism?

Capitalism, with absolutely nothing state-owned.

Capitalism and Socialism should be defined as by their creators, Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
Karl Marx created marxism, not communism. There were plenty of people you would have to call communists or socialists before Marx.

The same is true even moreso for Adam Smith and capitalism. In so far as capitalism is defined by private property ownership and exchange, we've basically had capitalist systems for thousands of years, and plenty of people have researched them and written about them for a long time.

For example, in Germany you have to pass a test called the Abitur to go to college. I dislike this socialist policy because it will be difficult for one to get into college if one is a bad test taker. However in a capitalist society, one doesn't have to take a test to get into college, and one can get into college through hard work and determination alone.
Abitur's got nothing to do with socialism. That system was developed back in Prussian days as a way of standardising education and came out of the various admission tests government departments and universities had for their potential employees and students. Many universities around the world still have their own admission tests - it just happens to be standardised in Germany.

So don't think you can get into a university in the US or Australia if you're a bad test taker. There may be some full fee paying places where they don't look too closely at your results, but you're not gonna get into them unless your parents are ridiculously rich. The hard work and determination must be shown at school by doing well at tests and winning scholarships and the like.

But for every Bill Gates there is a "parasite" (kudos if you get the reference) who did little to earn their money and has no intention of benefiting society (Paris Hilton?).
Fun fact: Paris Hilton earns waaay more money with modelling and being in the society pages than her parents could afford to give her. People don't credit her with much, but she knows how to work Hollywood to earn cash.

As for whether or not that benefits society I'm in no position to judge. I'd say that people are apparently willing to pay for it, so someone must be liking it.

Visit the real world and then reread Adam Smith. Laissez-Faire does thus:

Rich
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. (giant gap)
.
.
.
.
.
.
Poor

You think there are lots of homeless bums now, wait until you see laissez-faire.

Adam Smith is the biggest forger and intellectual thief since 'The protocols of Zion'.

Post-scarcity.

"FT" Nanotechnology won't be a miracle to solve all mankind's problems. In fact, the idea of thousands of would-be dictators having resources to assemble armies through Universal Constructors and other nanotech gadgets means that it could more likely lead the world to a dark age.

About the thread, between more Stalinism with the "socialist dream" being corrupted into totalitarian State Capitalism and an even worser capitalism than what is practiced in today's countries I prefer neither.

Hundreds of years of capitalism and "greed is good" memes can't be magically swooped from a culture, specially when there is a quite capitalistic media to support and reinforce them by "brainwashing" the masses.

Basically unless you want an exact balance between Capitalism and Socialism or can't stand either option, don't pick the third option. Capitalism and Socialism should be defined as by their creators, Adam Smith and Karl Marx. If you choose a different definition for one of those, please post the definition you used in your reasoning post. I believe there should be a balance between Capitalism and Socialism, but I think there should be a little more Capitalism than Socialism. For example, in Germany you have to pass a test called the Abitur to go to college. I dislike this socialist policy because it will be difficult for one to get into college if one is a bad test taker. However in a capitalist society, one doesn't have to take a test to get into college, and one can get into college through hard work and determination alone. On the other end of the spectrum, people like Bill Gates are proof that Capitalism works. Bill Gates earned his money by doing something valuable for society and is donating his fortune to charity. But for every Bill Gates there is a "parasite" (kudos if you get the reference) who did little to earn their money and has no intention of benefiting society (Paris Hilton?). These people are where the capitalist policy of variable income tax comes in. It is necessary to have increasing income rates so the rich can effectively contribute to socialist policies such as welfare or health care. So while I wish for a balance of both, I prefer Capitalism.

close but no see-gar. what marx authored was marxism NOT socialism.

these are still totally seperate and unrelated concepts.

socialism is western europe from 1950 through 1990. NOT soviet russia, or any place based on marxism even remotely.

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No one gets something for nothing

This is, of course, true regardless of the particular "-ism" one wishes to invoke.


You would have some very rich, and some very poor. It would be in direct proportion to ability and effort, which cannot be more fair.


It will be in direct proporation to the "ability" and "effort" that the favored classes will legislate to themselves, anyway.


Smith had some good ideas in the Wealth of Nations, but he was naive. He thinks that the "self-interest" of others will lead to prosperity of society, but he was wrong


"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it." -- Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

From the book by Smith that nobody has ever read (as opposed to The Wealth of Nations which everyone claims to have read, even though they haven't...).


Capitalism and Socialism should be defined as by their creators, Adam Smith and Karl Marx


Karl Marx is the "creator" of Marxism, which is only one ideology placed under the "Socialism" umbrella.


Capitalism, with absolutely nothing state-owned.


Socialism, with absolutely nothing state-owned.

Now, someone make with the inevitable "that's unpossible!!!" response so that I can respond with a long list of left-libertarian, libertarian socialist, mutualist, anarchist, and other links and sources.


"FT" Nanotechnology won't be a miracle to solve all mankind's problems. In fact, the idea of thousands of would-be dictators having resources to assemble armies through Universal Constructors and other nanotech gadgets means that it could more likely lead the world to a dark age.


Says Tracer Tong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex), anyway.

He's probably right.


socialism is western europe from 1950 through 1990


Says Western European politicians, anyway.

They're definitely wrong.


Capitalism or Socialism?


Freedom.

socialism;)

Not mutually exclusive.

I was just interested in what people think. Not right or left wing or liberal or conservative. And if you have a reason leave one. I say capitalism. As defined by Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Because of supply and demand and lazse faire (free trade, not sure how it is spelled though). Plus Smith was against greediness, and guilds so it all makes sense to me. I'm interested in what others think though. And please no flaming.

Both, as history has shown time and again that one doesn't work without the other.

One can trace a line of economic thought from Aristotle to the modern day, with stops along the line at Aquinas and Thomas More, that stands in between and separate from both capitalism and socialism. Chesterton and Belloc had their Distributism in the early-to-mid twentieth century. For a less dogmatically Catholic spin, look to Kropotkin and Proudhon ("Property is theft!" "Property is freedom!") and the Mutualist tradition. Early post-WWII West Germany followed some similar economic policies under Chancellor Adenauer, whom Ordoliberal/social market economy theorist Wilhelm Röpke advised. Henry George offers some interesting insight, too. Even Edmund Burke (who, Adam Smith said, was the only man in England wholly to understand and agree with the theory in the Wealth of Nations) and other early conservatives, believed in a market system more complex than "let no government interfere". It is not collective ownership, but widely distributed ownership, of property that ensures political, economic, and personal liberty. Big government, whether capitalist or socialist, denies these.

Is that my definition of socialism is "together" with "friends" and if you add democratic then you might get something like:

All people are my friends and we share the same basic needs, together we can make a society that cares for all of us.

Politics is for me, the belief of the idea that there is a way to change how things are.
Laissez fair is the opposite of politics!

I regard all people as my friends, even if they try to prove me wrong!

Micael/ Democratic socialist

I was just interested in what people think. Not right or left wing or liberal or conservative. And if you have a reason leave one. I say capitalism. As defined by Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Because of supply and demand and lazse faire (free trade, not sure how it is spelled though). Plus Smith was against greediness, and guilds so it all makes sense to me. I'm interested in what others think though. And please no flaming.

Since it has been proved (in the '70s) that an unregulated market isn't able to regulate itself and will soon decade into the "death" of economy or into the "death" of market (zero production or monopoly), I'd say that Smith's "laissez faire" is quite an obsolete line-of-thought.
Anything ranging from a Swedish social-democracy to FDR's New Deal to Lenin's NEP is quite better - both for people and economy.

close but no see-gar. what marx authored was marxism NOT socialism.

these are still totally seperate and unrelated concepts.

socialism is western europe from 1950 through 1990. NOT soviet russia, or any place based on marxism even remotely.

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What an idiot.

Few people have a clue what socialism/Marxism/communism/anarchism are and you are not one.

Early post-WWII West Germany followed some similar economic policies under Chancellor Adenauer, whom Ordoliberal/social market economy theorist Wilhelm Röpke advised.
1. Kudos for knowing that.

2. A correction - the social market economy as it was actually created wasn't what the ordoliberals had in mind: http://www.mises.org/story/866

2. A correction - the social market economy as it was actually created wasn't what the ordoliberals had in mind: http://www.mises.org/story/866

Wasn't that partly because the Christian Democrats had some christian corporatism, mainly from Catholic social teachings, as part of its ideology?

Wasn't that partly because the Christian Democrats had some christian corporatism, mainly from Catholic social teachings, as part of its ideology?
Partly that, and partly the fact that what people have come to know as "Social Market Economy" or the German model also involves a big welfare state which was never part of the bargain. In the first years after the war, when Röpke and the ordoliberals were in power through Ludwig Erhard, there wasn't much of a welfare state. It wasn't needed - there was plenty of work to do, a huge social stigma attached to being lazy and everyone had a life to build, because no one had anything left. My grandparents used to work 6.5 day weeks, they reckon (Sunday afternoon was off).

But once the economic miracle had taken off, the SPD got into power, and they introduced the welfare state step by step as the growth slowed to more reasonable levels and unemployment started to appear. So that's why I get a bit annoyed when people back in Germany claim they're protecting the social market economy by opposing welfare cuts.