Re: Capitalism versus Socialism

Wells wrote:

1) You never hear about unemployed labor fleeing capitalist countries and
seeking work in socialist countries.

Possibly because there was no socialist country in the world. Ever.
Socialism require common ownership of ALL the production means
while keeping a full functional democracy. It never happen.

The reason may be because all the attempts was made as a result of
revolutions. And a revolution it is an anarchic process where opportunist
individuals have the ability to hijack the process. This individuals,
without any skills, abilities and morality took advantage of the
revolutionary process to secure their persistence on power.

Destroying the democracy was the only way a junky communist was able to
do that, since into a democratic society where the value is democratically
elected a guy without any skills, IQ and morality does not have any chance
to stay there for long. A first reelection is easy to get, blaming the
enemies for all your failures and promissing to stay on track to fix it.
But the second re-election is rather impossible to democratically win
with lies and tricks. So supression of democracy was mandatory for any
junk leader hungry for power.

Then, in order to avoid any internal competition the valuable
co-revolutionary friends are suppressed too.
Looking at the history in Eastern Europe occupied by USSR after WWII.
The communist party didn't exist or where it did their presence was rather
symbolic, with tens or a couple of hundred of members in most of the
countries :-) They were practically created by the soviet occupation.
Once the communist parties popped up and took the power they gave an
ultimatum to socialists and social-democrat parties to join them.
Many of leaders and members of socialists and social democratic parties were
then sent to jail, gulags or just killed.

The economic and political power are intertwined. In the name of common
ownership and in the absence of any democratic oversight over power (due to
suppression of democracy and former friends) it was breeze for the
communist oligarchy to hijack all the power. In the end, there was no
common ownership left. A small oligarchy owned all the economic power while
everybody else were as mater of fact slaves on the oligarchy monopoly.

Well, this is exactly the economic outcome of a libertarian style free
market. A small capitalist oligarchy will take controll of all the economic
power then by using it will hijack the political power.

The communism and today's "free market" fanatic crowd are exactly the same
thing. They target the same finality, what differ are the paths used to
achieve that finality.


Comming back to socialism. Let assume however that into a way or another a
society is successfull into implementing socialism. It is going to work as
advertised ? Well, I don't think so.

The distribution of created wealth regardless of skills, ability or hardwork
is by itself not fair. If a hardworking individual is compensated as a lazy
guy, the hardworking lose incentives for what he is doing. This is going to
generate an equality at the bottom of hardwork, having as the result a lot
of wasted workforce.

A inequality in income is required to keep a society healthy, but with the
condition that the inequality is always generated by hardwork and skills
and NOT by cronyism or as a result of already owned property.

Capitalism on the other side is also not much better than the socialism.
It provide incentives but also generate a lot of waste of workforce since
in some cases it is more cost effective to fire workers and reduce
production than cut prices and being left without to much proffit.

A sane solution will be somewhere in the middle. A social democracy built on
the capitalist background but with a strong government involvement in
economy to prevent waste of workforce, suffering generated by economic
downturns and to encourage a reward by skill, work and education.





.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Former Russian President Yeltsin Dies
    ... Economic Justice and Democracy, by Robin Hahnel, Routlege 2005, ... the political economy of communism, ... Market Socialism: the Debate Among Socialists, ...
    (alt.smokers.pipes)
  • Re: Capitalism versus Socialism
    ... The rule of thumb is really simple: If the economy works, ... Socialism require common ownership of ALL the production means ... revolutionary process to secure their persistence on power. ... Destroying the democracy was the only way a junky communist was able to ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: The Pope and Islam
    ... >is that the priest knows all the dirt in his parish/congregation... ... >>>matter to Islam's compatibility with democracy and human rights. ... >>>Ali they will logically have to dump Islam. ... >>socialism is a puritanical christianist schism....it has thrown out care ...
    (uk.politics.misc)
  • Re: Wheres bob?
    ... Hungary, the Ukraine, Poland and Czechoslovakia. ... religious freedom and democracy. ... To me this is a little whacky, because democracy and just government do ... You can call it socialism. ...
    (rec.sport.tennis)
  • Re: Capitalism versus Socialism
    ... Socialism require common ownership of ALL the production means ... revolutionary process to secure their persistence on power. ... Destroying the democracy was the only way a junky communist was able to ... economy to prevent waste of workforce, ...
    (sci.econ)