@TaoQiBao - how can Socialism/Communism be a perfect system "in theory" if they aren't designed to function in the real world? I agree that they don't work, but they sure aren't perfect theories, if humanity was perfect any political structure would be viable.

"The best government possible is true democracy. Where every eligible voter has an equal say in every government action. "

@TMW, if that was true, then that would also be the best way to run a company... and a sports team... and an army...

@dexter morgan - that is how many companies are run, investors vote on their leadership proportional to their stake in the company.

@KaptinKool, indeed. And then you get, naturally, CEOs that are most concerned about next quarter's earning statement (because that's the only thing that the investors are looking at)... and so long term building of the company - making wise decisions for the future, is set aside. ...the CEOs become like politicians are in the U.S. - implementing the opinions of their constituents (investors) rather than what they (as experts) know is actually better for the company... I think you've hit on a truth here.

In terms of the wider economy, the USA is definitely NOT state capitalist, because that would require the US government to directly own and/or control all major companies.

To be honest, I think that the ideal form of government would be Dictorial Socialism. The only problem is that the Dictator always ends up sticking his hands in the socialist fund and it becomes a Totalitarian Communist regime.

Back to America though.

Do we really know enough to be able to say that, just because of a single bill, the USA is making something like a 90 degree turn in it's form of governance? Or, is this simply part of a historical pattern that has existed since the beginning of the world? Basically, are the events of the world governed by patterns (in which case we shouldn't need to worry about anything, really)? Or is the world constantly changing, and there is no recognizable pattern or system in it's events (in which case we might want to be more concerned about the bill)?

@ KaptainKool: "However the important point here is that the U.S. government buying out a large portion of GM is socialism, socialism by definition is state ownership of production... "

Yes, but state ownership of ALL production - not just one firm. The number of large private companies operating in the USA is far higher than the number of state-owned firms. Therefore this is not socialism.

Socialism is NOT by definition state ownership of production. Socialism is where the ownership of the means of production is within the people; whether that is the state or a congealed community of citizens is different, but all the earned value of their labor is divided among them, no one who owns the means of production collects on their labor. But you'd have to read Capital to really understand the argument I'm making here and since all of you are Ludwig von Mises fellating fools, you won't do that. But I digress...

The charge that socialism is a "perfect system" in theory relies on an excellent bit of handwaving and historical ignorance of humanity; capitalism as a system of economic organization is an extraordinarily new kid on the block in terms of the arrangements of human society. By saying socialism is a "perfect system in theory" you're indirectly making the argument that human nature would never allow a socialist system to work, which is dumb as hell because there is absolutely no reason to presume that capitalism is the be-all-end-all of humanity, despite Fukuyama's moronic assertions to the latter. In fact, as environmental conditions continue to degrade, I think socialism or ecological fascism will be the eventual motion of human society.

dexter is making a fallacious argument because a sports team, a company, and an army are all different than a government and have different objectives; it is perfectly possible to arrange a company wherein the workers make collective economic decisions. It exists in the United States today, in fact, where every employees earn an equal share of the labor involved.

I love how y'all love oligarchy so much. It has to be your privilege and the fact that you presume you'd end up running the show if we did have an oligarchy as you imagine it, not this ridiculous "democracy" we have now. (Hint: this is sarcasm. We are run as a plutocracy *right now*. And all of y'all wouldn't have any choice in making decisions in an economy run like a corporate.)

@ BBanner:

Firstly, good stuff - BBanner +1

"despite Fukuyama's moronic assertions to the latter"

And for what it's worth, even Fukuyama himself no longer holds this view - he has retracted his "end of history" position.

@Jamiet99uk - I'm not trying to build a case that the U.S. is a socialist country, I'm just saying that their bailouts have been anti-capitalistic, and that buying shares in GM was a socialist-type move.

@BBanner - you are wrong, socialism is the state ownership of production, unless you mean Libertarian/Anarchic Socialism which is impossible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Also I never said that socialism is a perfect system, quite the opposite I am a huge proponent of free markets. Your continued argument that continued "degrading conditions" (I defy you to back that statement up) will break down into socialism is pure bullsh*t. People want responsible leadership, they don't want control. If after 10000 years of human civilization we haven't seen widespread socialist success yet, I would bet on that trends continuity.

@dexter morgan - I agree, perhaps voting isn't the best method to run companies, but if the investor system is punished by the markets then perhaps people will revert their style of business, if success is continued I see no reason to change it.

The bailouts have been perfectly in line with capitalist economy; the emphasis on them has been to continue the flow of capital as it has gone before.

From the first damn line of the Wikipedia article: "Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization which advocate either public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources." Hmmm, sounds exactly like what I was describing, eh?

Degrading conditions? Where do we begin? Check the exiledonline.com's recent article by Yasha Levine for a discussion about how lax water standards and drainage from industrial farming are poisoning water supplies there. Check out the Rolling Stone article about industrial pig farming in North Carolina. Check out the satellite pictures of decreasing polar ice cap coverage. Check out the release of methane gases from permafrosts. Basically we've unlocked a chain reaction that will radically change the earth; fortunately you and I won't be around to see it, but we're locked in on this roller coaster and there's no stopping it, baby. We've raked the ocean clean for food, industrial farming has been linked to pandemics like swine flu, we're about a few good, well-evolved bugs away from humans being wiped out. As climate change continues, we're looking at huge changes in the way and places that humanity lives.

@BBanner your first statement is the epitome of ignorance. Capitalism relies on the ability of a bad company to die. Recessions are tools to breathe new life into economies, all economic intervention does is prolong economic disparity.

Your second statement ignores the exact words you quoted "advocate either PUBLIC or direct worker ownership", I capitalized public, the meaning of public ownership is just that, state owned. In my previous post I also noted that you were right if you meant "Libertarian/Anarchic Socialism", which I don't believe you did, because neither of those systems are philosophically consistent.

The earth's conditions have "degraded" before, both environmentally and from societal standpoint. People have a remarkable ability to adapt, we have done so in the past and we will continue to do so. My point is that we have never seen a destroyed society turn to socialism and see any kind of widespread success.

Also I don't want to start a climate change debate here, so I have not addressed those points, that is for another thread, which you are welcomed to start.

@ KaptianKool: "@Jamiet99uk - I'm not trying to build a case that the U.S. is a socialist country, I'm just saying that their bailouts have been anti-capitalistic, and that buying shares in GM was a socialist-type move."

Fair enough. My comments were based on the fact that in his initial post, TMW stated that America is now a socialist county, which clearly is not the case.

You "defied" me to prove that, dumbass, I'm just responding to your posts. I love how you can wheedle on about how recessions are ways to breath new life into economies when people are starving and out of work. I don't think they agree with you. I would argue that bourgeoise liberalism isn't philosophically consistent, but that's based on me having read Capital, again.

Your argumentation pattern is like non sequiturs just shat out, one after another. Okay, let's sequentially move through them:
1. The earth's conditions have never degraded to this extent within recorded human history. And I didn't say humanity would be wiped out - we have that possibility, yes, but we are tremendously adaptable thanks to the plasticity of our brains. We've caused (and are contributing to) catastrophic effects on the planet. Will we survive? Probably. But as I said, it will force a radical reorientation of human society, *if you read the words on your computer screen instead of typing out paragraphs from Wikipedia's libertarian fantasy pages*. That reorientation will likely have catastrophic effects on society and mass death for millions upon millions of people. Probably the most poor. Who are predominantly people of color in what has been collectively called the Third World. I'm not such a fan of that, because they're not really responsible.

Tons of things are publicly owned, and they work just fine. Don't be a libertarian baby (I'm going to coin the term, libabyterian, right now, on this board) about the government managing things. It's time to stop talking theory and start talking practice: government management of some resources is GOOD. PUBLIC management of some resources is GOOD. In fact, private management for profit of most things is BAD. Especially water (But hey, I know you're not gonna read that article by Levine because cognitive dissonance is a hallmark of embracing capitalism).

@BBanner - I have no problem reading literature that disagrees with my philosophy, frankly I doubt you have read Atlas Shrugged or Wealth of Nations. In addition I wouldn't say that Objectivism is perfect, but it is definitely consistent.

As for your jab that my arguments don't flow, that would probably be a result of addressing your points from 9:53, you then proceeded to start a list of responses... and left it at one bullet point, after which you transitioned into paragraphs.

Addressing point 1. again I don't really want to debate climate change and economics in the same place, but assuming your premise is correct you still haven't justified a socialist regime to fix all of our resulting problems.

As for your last paragraph I didn't say that public ownership doesn't work, I just think that private ownership is more efficient in practice.

@BBanner, you said: "dexter is making a fallacious argument because a sports team, a company, and an army are all different than a government and have different objectives; it is perfectly possible to arrange a company wherein the workers make collective economic decisions. It exists in the United States today, in fact, where every employees earn an equal share of the labor involved."

You misunderstand my point. I'm not against employee's owning a company... it's certainly preferable to a large group of average stockholders. The point was that making every darn decision a group decision is often not the best way to go. Some people are experts, and some are not. ...and group decisions often take a long time. On the other hand, often (such as in the case of Harley-Davidson in the eighties, I think it was) workers getting included in reorganizing a company's operation is the best thing you can possibly do. The people on the floor of the factory have a perspective that the CEO will never have. That said, I don't want the guy on the floor to have a "vote" on how the negotiations with clients are conducted and I don't want the receptionist to have a "vote" on which ad buy has the best bang for the buck. Similarly the CEO better darn well listen to the people under him/her. My main objection, really, was companies where the "leadership" of the company is placating a bunch of ignorant stock holders... often indeed pulling the wool over their eyes to pump up company value and keep their jobs and get fat bonuses (think Enron), rather than doing what is best for the company.

...the solution is education. I've come to the decision that a capitalistic democracy with an ignorant public is about the worst combination there is. People who are in love with capitalism think the invisible hand of the market will save them from themselves and every crook and incompetent person and decision... Well, capitalism without an informed public and organized labor might as well be fascism. Wall Street sells everyone on the idea that what is good for them is good for you, and off they go to rob you and your children blind... with the full cooperation of the politicians who are cynically in on the deal (since the public doesn't know what's going on, for the most part, the politicians can sell out and not suffer any consequences at the polls). An ignorant public is generally a docile public. And a docile public is job security for politicians. Entertainment and consumerism have become the new opiate of the masses. The beauty of it is that which distracts the public also makes the elite class richer. ...but, should your public get an inkling that something is not right, then turning them on a scapegoat (the other party, usually) is the strategy of choice (rather than the much more personally risky strategy of actually trying to change things for the better).

I've read The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, We The Living, Anthem, and excerpts from Wealth of Nations. I doubt YOU'VE even read through all of Wealth of Nations. Next to no one has, especially libertarians, lol.

dexter: education is key to a point. But you will never have a perfectly reasonable, rational public with all the information required in them to make economic decisions. It just won't happen. We blame politicians but large movers of economic control are just as culpable. A docile public is job security for politicians and social ease for managers and owners who don't have to worry about strikes or union action. The conventional understanding of libertarianism, that it is anti-elitist, is blatantly false. It supports the elites. It codifies their elitism by safeguarding it through the protection of law. Property rights invariably help most the people in power.

And just to say, Marx's Capital has a wealth of information to say on this, in the Penguin Classics edition is note 5 on p. 126, where he says: "in bourgeois society the legal fiction prevails that each person, as a buyer, has an encyclopedic knowledge of commodities." This is a clear sneer against assumptions of perfect rationality and perfect information.

I'd encourage all of you to read along with David Harvey's lectures at davidharvey.org and read Marx's Capital for yourself to see what it says about capitalism and free markets and all of that. I think you'd be surprised what you discover.

@BBanner, I agree with everything you said. I am not libertarian, in case you might have been thinking that. I favor a either a social democracy or democratic socialism... something in that range... but then, no system is perfect. I also favor transparency in both economics and government and strong organized public interest groups, employee unions, and a media that is independent of the corporate class. Unfortunately these unions and citizen interest groups tend to form and get strong only when there is a crisis and then they dissolve when things are going better... rather than keeping on the job.

Just something I noticed from the OP.

"Well, it was a good ~200 years."

You do realize 200 years ago, the US was one of the largest slave-holding nations in the world, right? Are you saying that health care reform opposes democracy more than slavery?

It was all "Much Ado About Nothing". This so-called reform will not go into effect(maybe) untill 2014.

Until that time, around 180 Americans will DIE every day because they cannot afford insurance. Do the math.

Meanwhile they piss away all kinds of $$$ that they cannot afford on illegal wars in Iraq and Afganistan.

The system was broken. Obama should have blown it up completely.

This guy could teach Frank Gifford about Teflon though. Still not a scratch on him......

@mapleleaf

Is that true? I thought it went into effect in January?

BTW, here's a nice summary of the basic features of the new law:

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=2214

some features start in 90 days to six months...

@abgemacht, you said:
"You do realize 200 years ago, the US was one of the largest slave-holding nations in the world, right? Are you saying that health care reform opposes democracy more than slavery?"

Yes indeed. Add to that the fact that women couldn't even vote until 1920 - making the U.S. a democracy for only half of the population prior to then... and we are left with 90 years of democracy. Wait, I forgot Jim Crow... well, the African Americans in the south had slavery-lite until the civil rights era... so now we're left with less than 50 years of democracy.

@ BBanner: [to KaptainKool] "I love how you can wheedle on about how recessions are ways to breath new life into economies when people are starving and out of work."

That's the problem with capitalism, BBanner. The supporters of free market economics genuinely could not care less about ordinary people losing thier jobs and struggling to get by. Socialism is the only approach that attempts to organise the economy on the basis of the question "what do the people need, and how can the economy meet those needs?"


@ dexter morgan: "....My main objection, really, was companies where the "leadership" of the company is placating a bunch of ignorant stock holders... often indeed pulling the wool over their eyes to pump up company value and keep their jobs and get fat bonuses (think Enron), rather than doing what is best for the company."

The problem here, Dexter, is that many pro-capitalists think that "what the shareholders want" and "what is best for the company" are one and the same thing and, furthermore, that a company's ONLY duty is its duty to produce a good return for its shareholders. This is a stomach-turningly hideous attitude, of course, and you are right to object to it - but it's one which a lot of libertarians and pro-capitalists hold.

"...I've come to the decision that a capitalistic democracy with an ignorant public is about the worst combination there is."

Damn straight. And the corporations do their very best to keep the public as stupid as possible. Advertising is pumped into our brains from every angle, almost all of it aimed at misleading us into thinking that product A is better than product B, where 90% of the time we don't actually need either of the stupid products we're being tricked into buying.


"People who are in love with capitalism think the invisible hand of the market will save them"

Ah, so you've met rlumley already.


"Capitalism without an informed public and organized labor might as well be fascism."

Exactly. Corporate fascism. Pretty much how I would describe the actual system currently in operation in the USA.


If the vast majority of the public were intelligent, well educated, well-informed, and motivated, capitalism would be overthrown within weeks. That's why capitalism works so hard to keep the majority poor and stupid, eating TV dinners and watching Jersey Shore instead of getting off their fat asses and taking control.

@dexter

All good points as well. I find that people like to "forget" (or maybe don't know) about America's past when flaunting our wonderful democracy.

@ dexter: "You do realize 200 years ago, the US was one of the largest slave-holding nations in the world, right? Are you saying that health care reform opposes democracy more than slavery?"

Yeah but they were property, not people, and it was all legal under the constitution, so that's fine. As long as the constitution allows it, everything is great.

@Jamiet

LOL