Next time you hear someone criticizing socialism...

[Blues Man]

That's an oxymoron

When the government owns all means of production and distribution there can be no democracy

You're damn straight, twice a day I suppose. That's why everyone in the real world calls that communism and it is a total failure and always totalitarian, while since the early 20th century socialism has been defined more and more as always Democratic Fair capitalism with a good safety net.. people discovered the Karl Marx was fos and always wrong except for the plight of the proletariat at the time. Then people discovered that the USSR was a scam with no democracy. Wake up and smell the coffee for crying out loud, the Socialist parties in every modern country that has one is always my definition.Only You brainwashed functional morons of the GOP, and there are Democrats and conservatives in other countries that continue this scam definition of communism as socialism. Ask Bernie Sanders or AOC what socialism is dipstick. It is democratic socialism always democratic... Except for you Chumps who still believe every phony Scandal about Hillary Obama the FBI, still believe that the rich pay too much in taxes LOL. Change the channel and read something from actual journalists and law enforcement, brainwashed functional morons...

And yet the dictionary defines it as socialism

you know what you want

So who is correct you or the people who publish the OED?

I know who I'll put my money on

I've said it before, but this is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the definition of socialism, to in turn neutralize opposition to socialism. Don't let them get away with it.

There is no consensus as to what capitalism means. Why would socialism be any different?

nobody takes the right wing seriously when they resort to special pleading with a dictionary definition understanding of socialism. The left has an encyclopedic understanding of socialism.

No one takes you seriously

 

[Blues Man]

Capitalism creates wealth. Socialism redistributes wealth.

Without capitalism, socialism wouldn't exist as a concept.

Ergo, capitalism > socialism.

Without a strong, vibrant, healthy society, capitalism is a failure.

and all those are impossible under socialism

 

[Blues Man]

Just think of all the middle class, and upper middle class people who have employment making those ships.

And quite frankly, you are an idiot when it comes to job creation.

Do you have any idea how much yacht crews make?

An experienced deck hand can make $42,000 a year. That's for the smallest of yachts. By the way, that salary, doesn't include free room and board. You typically have a fairly nice place to live, and the food is provided.

The more yachts on the water, the more middle class jobs are created, both in building those ships, and working on them. Idiot.

Good business people don't talk like that.
You're a total fraud with your 250% portfolio.

So I looked it up, just to double check. You are right. Right now I'm about 210%. Little more than double I put in.

I'm not a "good business" person. I'm just a low-wage $25K a year working man. I don't know where you got that idea.

Why should the top 10% not own as much as the bottom 90%? Why? Who says? If they work hard, and invest wisely, should they not own more than others?

Most of the people my age, have a negative networth. They have student loans. I don't, paid my way through college by working. Most have a car payment. I don't, I paid for my car with cash. Most of a mortgage on a house. I don't, I own my little condo, free and clear.

Why should I not have a high networth, over those my age who owe more money than have in assets?

And if I can do that, why shouldn't Warren Buffet who has done what I do to a much larger degree, have a ton more in assets than those who didn't?

Why? And what do you plan to do about it? Are you going to just steal everything other people earned, and give it to people who did not rightfully earn it? Isn't that immoral?

You think wealth is a zero sum game?

If one guy makes a dollar more then you make a dollar less?

There is no pie what one person owns has nothing to do with your ability to increase your net worth

And I would like you to give me your definition of wealth and then tell me how a few people can own it because you people here seem to be using a different dictionary than the one I use

 

[danielpalos]

Ask them how well capitalism was doing in 1929.
View attachment 245504 View attachment 245506 View attachment 245505

To the extent that capitalism’s problems – inequality, instability (cycles/crises), etc. – stem in part from its production relationships, reforms focused exclusively on regulating or supplanting markets will not succeed in solving them. For example, Keynesian monetary policies (focused on raising or lowering the quantity of money in circulation and, correspondingly, interest rates) do not touch the employer-employee relationship, however much their variations redistribute wealth, regulate markets, or displace markets in favor of state-administered investment decisions. Likewise, Keynesian fiscal policies (raising or lowering taxes and government spending) do not address the employer-employee relationship.

Keynesian policies also never ended the cyclical instability of capitalism. The New Deal and European social democracy left capitalism in place in both state and private units (enterprises) of production notwithstanding their massive reform agendas and programs. They thereby left capitalist employers facing the incentives and receiving the resources (profits) to evade, weaken and eventually dissolve most of those programs.

It is far better not to distribute wealth unequally in the first place than to re-distribute it after to undo the inequality. For example, FDR proposed in 1944 that the government establish a maximum income alongside a minimum wage; that is one among the various ways inequality could be limited and thereby redistribution avoided. Efforts to redistribute encounter evasions, oppositions, and failures that compound the effects of unequal distribution itself. Social peace and cohesion are the victims of redistribution sooner or later. Reforming markets while leaving the relations/organization of capitalist production unchanged is like redistribution. Just as redistribution schemes fail to solve the problems rooted in distribution, market-focused reforms fail to solve the problems rooted in production.

Since 2008, capitalism has showed us all yet again its deep and unsolved problems of cyclical instability, deepening inequality and the injustices they both entail. Their persistence mirrors that of the capitalist organization of production. To successfully confront and solve the problems of economic cycles, income and wealth inequality, and so on, we need to go beyond the capitalist employer-employee system of production. The democratization of enterprises – transitioning from employer-employee hierarchies to worker cooperatives – is a key way available here and now to realize the change we need.

Worker coops democratically decide the distribution of income (wages, bonuses, benefits, profit shares, etc.) among their members. No small group of owners and the boards of directors they choose would, as in capitalist corporations, make such decisions. Thus, for example, it would be far less likely that a few individuals in a worker coop would earn millions while most others could not afford to send children to college. A democratic worker coop decision on the distribution of enterprise income would be far less unequal than what typifies capitalist enterprises. A socialism for the 21st century could and should include the transition from a capitalist to a worker-coop-based economic system as central to its commitments to less inequality and less social conflict over redistribution.

Capitalism Is Not the “Market System”

Strangely all the Socialist ideas that the racist KKK, Progressive Marxist Socialists and FDR came up with the New Deal to bring America out of the Depression did not work. What did bring the U.S. out of the Great Depression was World War II. The slogan was "A Chicken In Every Pot And A Car In The Garage". What's the slogan for the "Green New Deal"?

#37 – If FDR's New Deal Didn't End the Depression, Then It ...
https://fee.org/articles/37-if-fdrs-new-deal-didnt-end-the...
In April 1939, almost ten years after the crisis began, more than one in five Americans still could not find work. On the surface, World War II seems to mark the end of the Great Depression. During the war more than 12 million Americans were sent into the military, and a similar number toiled in defense-related jobs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~​

The Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945 | Gilder ...
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-now/great-depression-and...
And between 1929 and 1945 the Great Depression and World War II utterly redefined the role of government in American society and catapulted the United States from an isolated, peripheral state into the world’s hegemonic superpower.

Everything he posted is dead on accurate. Why do people ignore this?

And in fact, it wasn't even world war 2 that ended the depression. There is only one economic measure that suggests the depression ended at world war 2, and that is the unemployment rate.

But the unemployment rate declining, was largely due to the US drafting everyone into the military. Unemployed people went into the military, or employed people were drafted, and had to be replaced by unemployed people. The real number of jobs, in the private sector really didn't increase much. What increased was the number of people in the military.

If we simply made it a prison sentence to be unemployed, and put all the unemployed into labor gangs, would you conclude that dramatically lower unemployment was due to economic growth? NO, of course not. That would be ridiculous. But that is exactly what happened in WW2.

And by any economic measure, the standard of living declined during world war 2. Rationing of meat, and eggs, and automobiles. Everything was reduced. In what economic growth situation, does everyone become worse off?

In reality, the real end of the depression was in the late 40s, when tariffs on trade were removed, regulations were reduced, and taxes were cut.

A lot of people fail to remember that in 1945, when the war was over, and all the men started returning home, tons of problems came up. Unemployment went up, there was a housing crisis, and shortages of food.

So all the problems that existed before the war, returned after the war. It was the repeal of the taxes, and the regulations, and tariffs, that resulted in all those problems going away.

~~~~~~
The Wartime Economy | US History II (American Yawp)
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/.../chapter/the-wartime-economy-2
The Wartime Economy. Economies win wars no less than militaries. ... as the War Production Board and the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion managed economic production for the war effort and economic output exploded. ... southward, to Mexico, to fill its labor force. Between 1942 and 1964, the United States contracted thousands of ...

Right.... but when you look at the standard of living, it declined. People could not get a car, for example, because factories were making jeeps and tanks.

People couldn't buy all new clothes, because factories were making military clothing and boots.

And yes, I of course we had to get employees from Mexico.... because our people were all in the military over seas.

Lastly, the production numbers are skewed. This might be too hard of an economic concept for you, but try and follow me.

How does the government know how much value (gross domestic product) is produced by a factory? If you look at 10 cars, you don't know how much value those cars have. So how does the government determine how much value is produced? By looking at how much they sell for.

Those cars go to market. They sell for $40,000 per car. Now the government can look at those numbers. They sold for $400,000. Thus $400,000 of economic value was created by the factory.

Now, translate that into a tank factory. How does the government know who much value the factory produce? It doesn't. Tanks do not go to market, and end up sold. So the government has no idea how much a tank is worth. They just arbitrarily gave it a price, and used that price to claim GDP went up.

But not only were those numbers made up... but building a tank provides no economic value to the economy. The tank rolled onto a boot, shipped across the planet, and got blown up.

No one in the US, had a better life, because they built a tank. You can't use it to go to the store, you can't transport goods with it, you can't use it to go on vacation.

Which brings me back to the point.... by every measure, the standard of living in the US declined during world war 2. Rationing of everything, limited supplies, food tickets. It was not an economic boom time.

And by the way, wage controls held down wages for the working people. It's always funny how everyone tries to claim FDR was this great socialists, and if we actually put in place those policies today, you'd be freaking out.

It is all about management when command economics are involved. There is no reason why any command economy cannot command economize its way to prosperity.

 

[danielpalos]

So your argument is to ignore data in favor of a bunch of pictures

From my OP....

Your “OP” was idiotic, sweetie. Socialism has a failure rate of 100% world wide. It has never worked. It doesn’t work. It never will work. And only a parasite looking for a free ride chooses to ignore the catastrophic failure of socialism.

There are no true AnCaps and work even less well than the socialism of mixed market economies.

 

[danielpalos]

Why should we take the right wing seriously?

Why should I take you seriously?

i was quoting Aristotle?

I didn't say that

seems you don't know how to use the quote function either

it still applies. you are Only always right, in right wing fantasy.

So you misquote me and still try to tell me you're right?

you ignored Aristotle.

 

[danielpalos]

You're damn straight, twice a day I suppose. That's why everyone in the real world calls that communism and it is a total failure and always totalitarian, while since the early 20th century socialism has been defined more and more as always Democratic Fair capitalism with a good safety net.. people discovered the Karl Marx was fos and always wrong except for the plight of the proletariat at the time. Then people discovered that the USSR was a scam with no democracy. Wake up and smell the coffee for crying out loud, the Socialist parties in every modern country that has one is always my definition.Only You brainwashed functional morons of the GOP, and there are Democrats and conservatives in other countries that continue this scam definition of communism as socialism. Ask Bernie Sanders or AOC what socialism is dipstick. It is democratic socialism always democratic... Except for you Chumps who still believe every phony Scandal about Hillary Obama the FBI, still believe that the rich pay too much in taxes LOL. Change the channel and read something from actual journalists and law enforcement, brainwashed functional morons...

And yet the dictionary defines it as socialism

you know what you want

So who is correct you or the people who publish the OED?

I know who I'll put my money on

I've said it before, but this is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the definition of socialism, to in turn neutralize opposition to socialism. Don't let them get away with it.

There is no consensus as to what capitalism means. Why would socialism be any different?

nobody takes the right wing seriously when they resort to special pleading with a dictionary definition understanding of socialism. The left has an encyclopedic understanding of socialism.

No one takes you seriously

no one on the right? they are full of fallacy, and I can Prove it.

 

[badger2]

This is the better of two current USMB socialist threads, in our opinion. In the continuance of post #773 (we say that so that the reader can go back to Hardt and Negri's excerpt) without being lazy and clicking the quote buttons. Now two socialist threads are in trouble for not linking to a third, the thread about smuggled CIA arms to Venezuela, wherein we were already on it for the Iranian connection and Chinese economic hitmen.

18 Feb 2019 New York Times Hacking of U.S. Networks Traced to China and Iran: Renewed Assaults on Banks and Agencies Seen as Reaction to Trump's Policies

If we can't post the URL, we can at least excerpt from the report. Trump's policies also include keeping Asian drugs out of the U.S.

 

[P@triot]

Socialism has a failure rate of 100% world wide. It has never worked. It doesn’t work. It never will work. And only a parasite looking for a free ride chooses to ignore the catastrophic failure of socialism.

Christianity has a murder rate of 100% but they get to run a tax- exempt propaganda operation nationwide.

Uh...not it doesn’t. In fact, I’d be willing to be that less than 1% of christians throughout history have committed a murder. Would you like to try again?

 

[P@triot]

Socialism has a failure rate of 100% world wide. It has never worked. It doesn’t work. It never will work. And only a parasite looking for a free ride chooses to ignore the catastrophic failure of socialism.

Christianity has a murder rate of 100% but they get to run a tax- exempt propaganda operation nationwide.

And not for nothing...but what kind of asshole libtard “logic” is that?!? Because A has resulted in horrors we should support B because it too results in horrors?

Even if your lie was true, it’s still an astoundingly idiotic premise.

 

[P@triot]

It is a failed and idiotic ideology. And the entire world knows it.

"The inheritors of the socialist ideal were totalitarian states on one hand and stagnant social democracies on the other. By the end of the twentieth century, these too had passed. China (and later Vietnam) decided that to get rich is glorious, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact states collapsed into squabbling nationalities and kleptocracies, the socialist autocracies that had depended on Moscow for support receded into irrelevance. What Kristol called "a dwindling band of socialist fideists" remained behind, the last remnant of a dwindling faith. "People who persist in calling themselves socialist, while decrying the three quarters of the world that has proclaimed itself socialist, and who can find a socialist country nowhere but in their imaginings-such people are anachronisms."

The only people left calling for it are the miserable lazy parasites who want to mooch off of others.

What to Do About the Rebirth of Socialism

 

[Crixus]

Ask them how well capitalism was doing in 1929.
View attachment 245504 View attachment 245506 View attachment 245505

To the extent that capitalism’s problems – inequality, instability (cycles/crises), etc. – stem in part from its production relationships, reforms focused exclusively on regulating or supplanting markets will not succeed in solving them. For example, Keynesian monetary policies (focused on raising or lowering the quantity of money in circulation and, correspondingly, interest rates) do not touch the employer-employee relationship, however much their variations redistribute wealth, regulate markets, or displace markets in favor of state-administered investment decisions. Likewise, Keynesian fiscal policies (raising or lowering taxes and government spending) do not address the employer-employee relationship.

Keynesian policies also never ended the cyclical instability of capitalism. The New Deal and European social democracy left capitalism in place in both state and private units (enterprises) of production notwithstanding their massive reform agendas and programs. They thereby left capitalist employers facing the incentives and receiving the resources (profits) to evade, weaken and eventually dissolve most of those programs.

It is far better not to distribute wealth unequally in the first place than to re-distribute it after to undo the inequality. For example, FDR proposed in 1944 that the government establish a maximum income alongside a minimum wage; that is one among the various ways inequality could be limited and thereby redistribution avoided. Efforts to redistribute encounter evasions, oppositions, and failures that compound the effects of unequal distribution itself. Social peace and cohesion are the victims of redistribution sooner or later. Reforming markets while leaving the relations/organization of capitalist production unchanged is like redistribution. Just as redistribution schemes fail to solve the problems rooted in distribution, market-focused reforms fail to solve the problems rooted in production.

Since 2008, capitalism has showed us all yet again its deep and unsolved problems of cyclical instability, deepening inequality and the injustices they both entail. Their persistence mirrors that of the capitalist organization of production. To successfully confront and solve the problems of economic cycles, income and wealth inequality, and so on, we need to go beyond the capitalist employer-employee system of production. The democratization of enterprises – transitioning from employer-employee hierarchies to worker cooperatives – is a key way available here and now to realize the change we need.

Worker coops democratically decide the distribution of income (wages, bonuses, benefits, profit shares, etc.) among their members. No small group of owners and the boards of directors they choose would, as in capitalist corporations, make such decisions. Thus, for example, it would be far less likely that a few individuals in a worker coop would earn millions while most others could not afford to send children to college. A democratic worker coop decision on the distribution of enterprise income would be far less unequal than what typifies capitalist enterprises. A socialism for the 21st century could and should include the transition from a capitalist to a worker-coop-based economic system as central to its commitments to less inequality and less social conflict over redistribution.

Capitalism Is Not the “Market System”

Then leave if it’s so good. Better yet, run Bernie/AOC 2020.

 

[badger2]

Yes, OP, xian protection rackets can be profitable, though many prefer real estate over money.

Perlroth's New York Times hacking report is duplicated here:

(site not secure) Hacking of U.S. Networks Traced to China and Iran
topindinews.com/hacking-of-us-networks-traced-to-china-and-iran/

 

[badger2]

xian murders come in various forms and no single xian can be blamed for the Crusades. Nice cop-out.

 

[jc456]

People who get to keep more of their own money

"In the conservative mind, socialism means getting something for doing nothing. That pretty much describes the $21bn saved by the nation’s largest banks last year thanks to Trump’s tax cuts, some of which went into massive bonuses for bank executives. On the other hand, more than 4,000 lower-level bank employees got a big dose of harsh capitalism. They lost their jobs."

We get to pay for that, now that our tax refund is 8 percent less.

socialism for the wealthy, capitalism for the rest of us.

Why is it you think huge tax refunds are a good thing?

If people paid less in taxes then there refunds will be less because they overpaid less.

I haven't gotten a tax refund in 20 years so I guess you think that'd a bad thing right?

I agree tax refunds arent good, or especially bad either. The point is that middle class is paying more to subsidize the ultra wealthy.

How? Explain precisely how that happens.

The top 1 percent pay 3.2 percent of their total wealth in taxes.
The rest of us pay 7.2 percent of our total wealth in taxes.

On top of that, when services are cut, its effectively a tax increase because we're paying for nothing.

 

[danielpalos]

Government is socialism; we have a First Amendment; go ahead and criticize socialism all you want.

 

[the other mike]

Then leave if it’s so good. Better yet, run Bernie/AOC 2020.

America has lot's of potential to be the democracy everyone wants, like it used to be. So I'll stay for now. You think Bernie can fuck the country up worse than Clinton, Bush and Obama already have ?

 

[Crixus]

Then leave if it’s so good. Better yet, run Bernie/AOC 2020.

America has lot's of potential to be the democracy everyone wants, like it used to be. So I'll stay for now. You think Bernie can fuck the country up worse than Clinton, Bush and Obama already have ?

No, it’s dead. There is no “USA” anymore. And there never will be again. Get warm to that idea.

 

[the other mike]

No, it’s dead. There is no “USA” anymore. And there never will be again. Get warm to that idea.

I disagree. We are the awakening giant that they can't
keep tied down much longer.
Times Square- 2004 Iraq War protest that was not televised.

 

[Crixus]

No, it’s dead. There is no “USA” anymore. And there never will be again. Get warm to that idea.

I disagree. We are the awakening giant that they can't
keep tied down much longer.
Times Square- 2004 Iraq War protest that was not televised.
View attachment 246534

They are the reason America is dead. They are the cancer eating it alive. A bunch of stupid sit at homes who march when ordered by the propaganda masters.