Choose Wisely

submitted by useless_aether from imgoat.com

all 22 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]Alduin 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (5 children)

Yeah pretty much. I always assume any socialist is either stupid or evil. 99% of the time they're stupid, but more often than you would expect they're actually both.

Take for example wizzwizz here... "Oh TRUE socialism has never been implemented." Which is really another way of saying "If I were the benevolent dictator everything would have turned out much better." Because no system is ever going to be 100% true to any one economic philosophy, unless it's a tiny tiny group of people on a remote island somewhere.

[–]useless_aether[S] 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

it you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart,
if you are not a conservative at 40, you have no brain

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

BUNK

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

If I say I don't know if I'm stupid or evil, what does that make me, and does that also apply to capitalists, aka exploiters for gains?

No system has ever been 100% capitalist either. "Too big to fail" was socialism to support the banks, also meaning "too small to succeed" for the rest of us. The military is pure socialism, and the US has the biggest, so...

Don't crap on socialism unless you really know what you're talking about. Socialism, like science, is methodology process/tool, and it can be used for good (ie. Sweden, Canada, etc) or evil (ie. Mao, Stalin, etc.). Socialism is as critically necessary as capitalism - in balance. To demonize it is naive and buying the propaganda, almost equivalent to promoting totalitarianism over freedom, or inversely completed lawlessness over totalitarianism.

[–]Alduin 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Nope, we absolutely do not need the two "in balance". They are opposites. One is freedom and prosperity, the other is poverty and oppression. You can't say "oh we need a little bit of poverty and oppression to make the freedom and prosperity work". No. The freedom and prosperity works despite the evil machinations of people who want to control others, because it's a powerful idea that very apparently lifts everyone out of poverty, rich and poor alike. Everyone in the world can see that capitalism feeds the masses, socialism doesn't.

And to the extent they are mixed, socialism is the parasite. Not some complimentary tool in the kit. "Oh we just need a little socialism", is what stupid people who believe their enemies say. It inhibits everything it's supposed to help and more.

Now, I'm not saying there's no role for government. Build infrastructure, settle disputes, etc. But distributing largess from the public treasury and forcing people to pay for it down the road should not be part of their duties.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Bullshit.

NEITHER are freedom and prosperity. And BOTH can be totalitarian.

LOL Capitalism doesn't feed the masses.

Big government is always the problem, everywhere, without exception, regardless of labels and ideologies.

Poverty is not exclusive to capitalists nor socialists and/or their countries.

If you want to get rid of socialism in America, then start with the military and police. Don't take from the many (taxes) under threat of violence and give it to the military and police, whether we like it or not, under the name of "democracy" or the tyranny of the status quo brainwashed many.

Stop funding the military and let the market demands dictate how much money they get. You'd see a MASSIVE change.

Socialism, like capitalism, can be parasitic - and they can also work in combination to be parasitic. "Too big to fail" was capitalists using socialism to bail out the banks parasitically.

[–]magnora7 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

Lol talk about a false dichotomy

[–]wizzwizz4 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

The even funnier thing is, nobody's actually implemented these ideologies (note that they are not all mutually exclusive):

  • True Capitalism: Everybody is a producer and a consumer. Producers produce services (inc. the providing of a product, working for a wage) that consumers wish to purchase. As we have access to more and more resources and more and more efficient ways of providing services, such services become more plentiful and so cheaper. Market effects, such as each consumer being an omniscient rational actor, prevent monopolies, so the system functions properly.
  • True Socialism: Wealth fairly enters a common pot,¹ in such a way that each individual has proportionally the same wealth as if this did not occur,² which funds collectively-owned means of production of services. The means of production are collectively owned in such a way that each individual has a production capacity determined by their actual utility to society (correlated to skills, effort applied to producing services). Since the means of production is collectively owned, any wealth generated is distributed amongst the collective.
    • "Collective", here, just means the group of people.
    • "Wealth" doesn't just refer to money; it also refers to healthcare and access to basic necessities; in fact, pretty much the bottom two levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
    • Note that this is not mutually-exclusive with capitalism; collective ownership of means of production allows for, amongst other things, economies of scale to be accessible by small, independent people and not just by large corporations. In fact, most successful implementations require capitalism. This is another contentious issue, however, so I'll let Wikipedia explain.
  • True Anarchism: The absolute rejection of coercive hierarchical ruling systems and the establishment of many self-governed societies.
    • Opinion: This is good for the internet and the web, because it's impossible to permanently disconnect people from such an internet³ (you could just connect via other people). This is not shown to be good for real life by the same argument, because you can permanently disconnect people from life (killing them).
  • True Communism: Capitalism is bad. It causes a fundamental divide between those who own the means of production and those who work to produce goods. The only way to get rid of this is a revolution. Then we will apply True Socialism to everything.
    • Opinion: This is flawed.
      • Not opinion: It's also not what is / was going on in most "communist" states. Like True Capitalism is not what's going on in most "capitalist" states, and True Socialism is not what's going on in most "socialist" states.

¹: There does not have to be a literal common pot; decentralised systems exist that could function identically.
²: "Socialism" is an extremely broad term, used and abused by many different groups of people. This is a particularly contentious issue, but I stand by this assumption of consensus unless sufficiently contradicted.
³: This system actually exists; one implementation and community-not-organisation is Hyperboria. Most ISPs don't work like this. Complete tangent; I could talk for hours about this so I won't.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Fair breakdown. Communists are authoritarians, therefore bad.

Socialism can result in authoritarianism, depending on how it's implemented.

Same with capitalism.

The obvious good solution is a mixture of capitalism and socialism, like almost every country in the world does in practice. But the difficult part is where to draw the line.

I just think people want to emulate the more successful countries like Norway and The Netherlands. From where the US is, that would probably require more socialism. From where China is, that would probably require more capitalism.

[–]Alduin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Alright. You seem genuine enough. Let's find the truth of this.

The obvious good solution is a mixture of capitalism and socialism, like almost every country in the world does in practice.

If every country in the world does it, then it's not obvious that it's best then is it?

To decide if it's best, we have to compare economic statistics of countries with more and less socialism and roughly the same amount of capitalism, as well as vise versa (more capitalism, same socialism). Would you say that's true?

And, if it is not true, what other solution do you propose that would help us decide if it's best or not?

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The thing is, I don't think the solution is going to look like "70% socialism, 30% capitalism" or "50% socialism and 50% capitalism"

It's going to look like "Socialism obviously works well with roads and healthcare and the water and sewage lines, so let's do that for those. Capitalism obviously works best with food supply and consumer goods, so let's do that for those."

It's just about what functions are best served by a group pooling of funds to solve a problem faced by everyone, and what's best solved by a free competitive market that forces companies to be efficient to turn a profit.

Basically the decision between socialism and capitalism needs to be made on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than one all-encompassing political ideology.

[–]Alduin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It's going to look like "Socialism obviously works well with roads and healthcare and the water and sewage lines, so let's do that for those. Capitalism obviously works best with food supply and consumer goods, so let's do that for those."

So with the exception of healthcare, you think socialism, where the workers control the means of production, works best when production is permanent (infrastructure), and capitalism works best when production needs to be continuous (food). Is that correct?

Also, are there any other exceptions besides healthcare? Maybe schooling? Banking?

Here's what I would do. Decide what's best. For example with healthcare we can look at what people want. Availability (higher is better), quality of care (higher is better), and expense (lower is better). Then we can start comparing countries and decide which does it best. If we can do that, I expect maybe both of us will learn something.

[–]Alduin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

In doing some further research to define best for healthcare, I came across this from the World Health Organization, which is extremely dissappointing for defining quality of care. For example this:

People-centred. Providing care that takes into account the preferences and aspirations of individual service users and the culture of their community.

Really? That's on the same list as actual effectiveness? So if we had two communities - one where the people bathed in pig shit for good luck, and the healthcare tried to provide them the cleanest pig shit possible, that's the same quality of care as one where they tell people not to bathe in pig shit?

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

So if we had two communities - one where the people bathed in pig shit for good luck, and the healthcare tried to provide them the cleanest pig shit possible, that's the same quality of care as one where they tell people not to bathe in pig shit?

Yes. Many studies have shown this. Pigs are actually pretty clean animals, and their poo isn't that disgusting (you should've chosen "dog") and if you get rid of the parasites there's nothing wrong with it from a health point of view – and the psychological benefits of this are very high.

If you consider the polar opposite (healthcare that isn't people-centred) it's not disappointing at all. It's actually a pretty good definition.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree an issue-by-issue comparative analysis of all countries, taken seriously, would yield a lot better system than the way it's done currently.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good stuff. Not how I'd phrase it but good.

[–]useless_aether[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

true, but tis is more about depop, than an ideal system. oh well im glad it made a nice thread . if we want good memes its best to diy. its hard to find stuff thats not a dichotomy in todays world...

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

No I think it's more about authoritarianism than an ideal system. Depop is just a side-effect. The main thing is they want control.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And with a smaller population it's easier to control, and reducing the population traumatizes folks to make them easier to control too.

[–]Tom_Bombadil 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

UA you know better than that. This is an and meme, not an or.

The current Agenda 21 plan is going for capitalism, plus extermination.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Bingo.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Same difference, both are totalitarianism. The left is before and the right is after, though both are mislabeled.

Zero votes. (Only because there's no down vote.)