Socialism Vs. Capitalism

[Ken]

Again, just because a society chooses to work corporately, does not mean it is socialism. It means it CHOOSES to do so. It can choose differently.

So Democratic Socialism you are fine with. You just object to the totalitarian kind?

[temporal1]

Socialism is an attempt to destroy top-down, dictatorial order (unsuccessfully) and is a direct response to the growing Individualism that comes out of the Enlightenment.

The concept, maybe, but as soon as humans put it into practice, it becomes a top down authoritarian system. Someone has to decide for others. This moves us away from freedom of choice, of which is the foundational principle of faith in Jesus.

I am not saying that Socialism-in-practice isn't authoritarian or oppressive, rather that it's a logical countervail to Individualism. That is to say, if you don't want Socialism don't promote Individualism. As long as Individualism continues to grow and spread, so too will Socialism.

For a time, this was an interesting discussion.

[Ken]

On average, kids today are better behaved than any generation going back to at least the 1960s. In terms of violence, crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, drop-out rates, etc. Look up any trend you want over the past 40 years. For example:

I have a feeling they have excluded gang violence from that chart. I thin an inner city teacher would have a different experience.

No, they aren't excluding any kind of violence. Those are based on the FBI data for all youth violence. 1994 was the peak year and that is now nearly 30 years ago.

You can see similar trends for teen pregnancy, teen drinking, teen drug use, etc.

The pandemic set some things back, but we are on a long-term trend of improvement in teen behavior over the past 40-50 years using pretty much any metric you want to use. The one exception is mass shootings. But those are exceedingly rare events and not characteristic of normal teen behavior.

[Josh]

LAPD, Chicago, and other large police departments stopped reporting crime to the FBI (hmm, I wonder why), so you can’t really look at recent years on FBI crime statistics to see trends.

[Robert]

Again, just because a society chooses to work corporately, does not mean it is socialism. It means it CHOOSES to do so. It can choose differently.

So Democratic Socialism you are fine with. You just object to the totalitarian kind?

When it is the only way, I am opposed. When it is an alternative way, I am fine.

Individual choice is what I look for.

[Bootstrap]

Read and Discuss

Reading all five articles is a prerequisite for commenting on this thread. No skimming allowed.

Part 1 | https://www.plainnews.org/wp-content/up ... Part-1.pdf

In general I appreciated this very much, but I have some questions about how the definition relates to things said later in the article.

The original definition defines the word socialism as I understand it: social ownership of the means of production.

The foundation
To begin our investigation, we must lay out a solid foundation. This foundation will be the definition of terms. We must “be on the same page” if we are to understand one another in a discussion where misinformation and propaganda flies freely on all sides. Therefore, we will define capitalism
and socialism as:

● Capitalism: “an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.” In other words, the
resources are owned and managed by individuals for their personal benefit.

● Socialism: “an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production.” In other words, the resources are owned and managed by and for the benefit of a group (family, business, local community, country, or possibly for the entire world).

The article doesn't define "means of production". I think of the means of production as land, labor, and capital that can be used to produce products, goods, or services - what you need to create the things that makes up the economy.

But the article then goes on to imply that anything that is owned and managed for the good of all is socialist. I don't think that matches the definition given above. And some of the examples used to illustrate socialism don't seem to fit that definition either:

• National Parks and other public lands
• Laws regulating commerce
• State-owned and operated roads
• Taxes

How do these examples involve "ownership of the means of production"? I suppose roads could meet this definition, sort of, since most infrastructure makes it easier to produce things and distribute them to consumers, but I think infrastructure is generally considered distinct from the means of production. People who are staunchly against socialism generally have no problem with roads and electricity.

I don't know of any country that doesn't have taxes. A whole lot of countries we don't consider even vaguely socialist have taxes. I also don't know of any countries with no laws regulating commerce. I don't know of any modern, prosperous country that does not provide infrastructure. So I don't think these things distinguish socialist countries from other countries.

Later, the definition seems to change to this:

In Part 1 we looked at the definitions for socialism (resources owned and managed for the community) and capitalism (resources owned and managed for the individuals)

But I don't think that's the same thing. And all governments have some resources that are owned and managed for the community and others owned and managed by individuals. It's hard to have any society that does not have a mix of these. The mix does vary significantly from one government to another.

So for me, there's still some vagueness in the definitions here. I agree that definitions are a useful foundation, would it be helpful to tighten these definitions up so we're talking about one, well-defined thing?

[Bootstrap]

Democracy

Democracy, by definition, has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. Democracy is a form of government, or who “owns” the political authority in a country in comparison of who owns/manages the economic resources.

After looking at capitalism vs. socialism, we hope to head over into the topic of democracy vs. other forms of government. If we have been in the habit of saying “democracy is the opposite of socialism”—which I have heard some people say—we need to change our understanding of the terms. Democracy is a form of political management, while socialism and capitalism are forms of economic management.

This is true and important.

In practice, though, if the government owns the "means of production", it often tends to gain a lot of power over individuals and become autocratic. Everyone needs some way to earn a living. National parks and state-owned roads don't tend to lead to that same result.

Similarly, in unrestrained capitalism, a few rich and wealthy people tend to own most of the land and most of the capital, everyone else tends to live in poverty, and there are few effective laws to limit what the rich and wealthy can do to everyone else. Life is often cheap in these countries.

You say something similar here:

I will give you a spoiler on this series of articles about socialism vs. capitalism: We will find that a mixed economy is what works best in an unredeemed society. Hard socialism will usually fail because it takes away the self-centered drive for personal profit, and hard capitalism will usually fail because a self-centered drive for personal profit will always create monopolies and oppression of the poor by a minority rich.

I agree with that. But I think there are good reasons to keep "the means of production" out of the hands of government, at least in general. On the other hand, there are countries like Finland that are prosperous democracies, but the government does own enterprises. And I'm not sure that I see the value of establishing private companies to distribute government benefits like subsidized student loans, they basically skim profits over public goods.

[Bootstrap]

So, was it terrible then?
!!! SNIP !!!
The Incan Empire and the Andean cultures were, relatively speaking, prosperous. When crop failure occurred in one area, a system known as anyi was practiced. Anyimeans “reciprocity” in Quechua; in our culture we would call it mutual aid. The idea was that all things are interconnected, and when one part of the cosmos needs help, the other parts are to kick in and supply the need. The Incas had developed a system of grain storage, and with the network of roads they had developed, any allyu suffering crop failure could expect relatively fast relief from the chuno and grain stored by other
allyus.

This is socialism at work. And, when properly managed, socialism works sufficiently well, as it did in the Inca Empire.

I think many traditional agrarian cultures are communal in this sense.

I don't think any political system can ever be perfect with imperfect people, but I think a bunch of quite different systems have worked "sufficiently well" for their time and place. And this is a good example.

[Bootstrap]

“Worth a Potosi”

This has happened many times in history. A society that gets along well when they are a basic agrarian economy, helping each other, satisfied with having enough ... then silver or oil or gold is discovered, people get greedy, a few people get fabulously rich, the rest are enslaved or taken advantage of, much worse off than they were before the new source of wealth was discovered.

In the days of Karl Marx, that's what it looked like for those who worked in factories.

Karl Marx proposed that:

• Religion is the opium of the people, used to oppress the working classes.
• Capitalism is used by the rich to suppress the common man into being a servant for the rich.
• Force is needed to overthrow the rich upper classes so that the common man can have half a chance at having his share of the world’s resources.

When we lay those three points with the former three points about gringos, Christianity, and capitalism (three paragraphs earlier), we can now easily understand why Marxism would be “gospel” to a cheated people.

Can you see now why Marxism sounded so appealing to the masses?

I think it's hard for us, in modern America, to appreciate just how bad life was for most people in the time of Karl Marx. I think that's relevant. But I think even today, some people are really, really struggling in America.

What would have happened if the true gospel would have been presented:

• God owns the resources and expects men to share them as needed.
• Without true religion—where self is mortified, and Christ lives in the heart—neither capitalism nor socialism will work well. This applies to family, business, local community, church, country, or worldwide.
• By being content with food and raiment, we can cut down drastically on the need for resources. This means if the resources are limited, they can be more easily spread equitably.
• Laziness is sin. We are to work, not for self, but for the good of all.
• It is better to give than to receive.

Well put. I don't expect any government to adopt that platform, but it's a great perspective for the Kingdom of God.

[Bootstrap]

The Disappeared

We read with horror the stories western capitalist governments propagate of Stalin’s millions who disappeared into the Russian Gulag. What those same
western propagandists fail to mention is that capitalists also have a long list of people who have been executed for promoting socialism.

Or in our own country, merely for wanting to escape forced slavery, being literally owned by others. Or standing up against dangerous work conditions.

But back to Bolivia ...

They are called “Los Desaparecidos” (The Disappeared) in South America. Che Guevara is just one of the men who was hunted down
and killed under the guidance of U.S. capitalists. These military dictatorships, such as the Pinochet government in Chile, have made thousands of people simply disappear and used torture on tens of thousands. An estimated 200,000 Chileans were forced to flee their country to avoid capture and/or execution. While the U.S. did not directly kill these people, it was with the urging of the U.S. capitalists that it happened.

This is the other side of the coin to Stalin’s socialist Gulag. You probably did not read about this in your World History class in the U.S.

We also learn, regularly, about people working in actual slavery or near slavery in other parts of the world so that our goods can be really cheap here. I think we are complicit in that. And in some of these countries, gangs or governments do similar things to protect their interests.