Gregory's ServerDepends on what you mean by "worse than capitalism". Capitalism makes luxury goods common; socialism makes common goods into luxuries. If you value economic equality above all else, and don't care if everyone is equally destitute and desperate, socialism is the system for you.
|
27 comments
@Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom "but people are desperate and common goods are luxury to the majority of people under capitalism." Perhaps you could provide a specific example of a common good that is a luxury under capitalism. @AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom I did mention housing, but examples are plentiful. Food is another obvious one. In the USA, the most paradigmatic capitalist country in the world, 13,5% of the people face hunger, which is worse than the global average (9%), but even the majority of people who have access to food would consider it a luxury to purchase organic non-industrialised food. @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom Well, first, let's be clear; there US is FAR from being a totally capitalist system. We have massive amounts of regulation on many sectors; including, relevantly, housing, and food. Both sectors are heavily regulated. I do notice you compare your (unsourced) numbers to a global average, not to an average of non-capitalist nations. @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom "Look, capitalism is certainly the best system to extract wealth from the resources available, I give you that." I never asked for that, nor did I make that claim. @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom "Regulations were introduced to save capitalism after the crash of 1929" That implies regulations did not significantly exist beforehand. Is that an assertion you make? "The same thing happened in 2008." Why didn't the regulations already in place suffice? @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom Capitalism is an economic system, not a god. Asking for it to "end misery" is pointless, as it would be to ask ANY economic system to "end misery". @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom That's not the point. Capitalism simply says that taking a certain approach optimizes the distribution of scarce resources. WE decide what "optimum" means. And one of the great things is that we can come to different answers but still work together to achieve those disparate goals. @AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom but that's not how capitalism work. Resources are not scarce, they are already taken when we're born, and the owners and their heirs are the only ones to decide what to do with it. We only get to decide, through our representatives in government, how much tax to charge and what to do with the taxes collected. Simple as that. @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom Of course resources are scarce. That's an entering premise of an economy even existing. If resources were not scarce, we would need no mechanism by which to allocate them; we would need no economy. @AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom A flawed system can always be built over flawed premises. "There are currently 28 vacant homes for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S." — https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/vacant-homes-vs-homelessness-by-city/ @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom Look, I'm sorry, but this isn't just ECON 101 stuff. This is first day of ECON 101 stuff. Heck, this is basic common sense stuff. Just because you can point to A resource that you regard as plentiful (in a specific area) does not change that resources are scarce. People all have about as much air as they want to breath; that doesn't mean that there is enough of everything for everyone to have as much as they want. @AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom well if by scarce you mean finite, ok, you can't always get what you want, but by not scarce I mean everyone could get what they need, and excuse me if I just quoted The Rolling Stones right now 😂 @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom No, by scare I do not mean finite. By scarce I mean scarce. @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom Look, I'm sorry, but you just don't seem to be grasping the basic idea here. Maybe a specific example will work. Do you understand that titanium is a resource? @AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom yeah, and a finite resource on Earth for that matter @AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom That's an excellent example, thank you. Can we all decide to prioritize the medical use of titanium so that treatments are more affordable, or is it up to the owners of the mines and that's why we get titanium watches and cellphones instead? @Homempovo @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom Okay. Do you understand that it's better than steel for a lot of applications? Let's stay specific; it would be WAY better for most car components that are currently made from steel to be made from titanium. It's lighter, which means better fuel efficiency, and it's far more resistant to corrosion. Does that make sense?  @Homempovo @AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom The messed up thing is the movement never intended to be that unaffordable |
@AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom but people are desperate and common goods are luxury to the majority of people under capitalism. Remember that Africa, South America, and most of Asia is under capitalist regimes, it's not only the poor neighborhood in your town. Housing, for instance, is a very evident problem even in Europe nowadays, and has never been an issue in socialist countries. In fact, it's a fallacy that socialist countries fail to provide people with what they need and much more — fallacy that the US not only propagandise, but also attempt to make true by crippling socialist countries economies via embargoes (siege warfare).
@AlexanderKingsbury @FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom but people are desperate and common goods are luxury to the majority of people under capitalism. Remember that Africa, South America, and most of Asia is under capitalist regimes, it's not only the poor neighborhood in your town. Housing, for instance, is a very evident problem even in Europe nowadays, and has never been an issue in socialist countries. In fact, it's a fallacy that socialist countries fail to provide people with what they need and...