Can You Be Capitalist and Liberal?

[PureX]

Thanks, PureX. You’ve raised some good points and I agree with you in part. I appreciate the thought-provoking discussion.

I want to respond to your post here and address the very interesting points you have raised.

But before doing that, I just want to confirm, you do acknowledge that it is possible to make money without “taking” it from someone else - so to speak - correct? And that it is possible for a trade to be beneficial to both parties. Is that right?

Yes. There's no point to trading with each other if we aren't both benefiting in some way from the trade.

If you look at your post before last, the one I was responding to, you seemed to say no, that isn’t possible. But based on the first sentence of this post, it seems you are acknowledging this now. Is that fair?

Two points. One is that the increase in value over all is not usually more than a few percent, on average. And if that is being sucked up by excessive profit-taking on one side of the trade field (or by a small percentage of the population) then the value increase you're referring to is negligible, or even non-existent. Because profit (added value) that becomes predatory wealth is NOT an overall value increase. It's actually the opposite.

As an example: Steve trades 10 widgets to Bob for 10 dollars. The widgets are only worth 5 dollars, but Bob has to have them to keep his business going, and Steve knows it, so he exploits Bob's situation for maximum gain to himself. Was there any 'value added' to the economy by this (unfair) "trade"? Steve has increased his wealth by 5 dollars (at Bob's expense) but so far no value was added to the economy. And Steve can use that "extra" 5 dollars to capture more dollars for himself by loaning or investing it for a profit. So now that 5 dollars has become 'predatory wealth'. It may be used to increase overall economic value by enabling production. But it's also capturing value in the process. So is it increasing more value than it's capturing? Hopefully yes, but again, the margins tend not to be very big. And not to be guaranteed. So this idea that we so often hear from the capitalists of added value offsetting the horrible imbalances created by a greed-based commercial system is false. And we know this by watching the collective wealth (in terms of value) of the general population decreasing as the predatory wealth of the capitalists increases exponentially.

This doesn’t address the unseemly used car situation you just raised. I would like to discuss that because your concern is valid. I just want to make sure we are on the same page about the first topic, more or less, before we move on to the next one. This is an interesting discussion and I just don’t want it to spin out of control!

Thank you for your interest.

 

[Colt]

Socialism relies first on the success of Capitalism. Socialism doesn't produce anything itself, rather it confiscates profits and redistributes the fruits to its own supporters and calls that a success.

 

[Revoltingest]

Socialism relies first on the success of Capitalism. Socialism doesn't produce anything itself, rather it confiscates profits and redistributes the fruits to its own supporters and calls that a success.

Using the dictionary definition of "socialsim", it does indeed
produce goods & services. Consider the collective farms in
pre-capitalist China. They did produce food, albeit not quite
enuf to avoid famine.
So it's not that socialism fails to have a "means of production".
It just doesn't function as well as capitalism in achieving goals
of bounty & liberty. Socialists have their hearts in the right
place....only their brains are misplaced.

 

[metis]

Socialism relies first on the success of Capitalism. Socialism doesn't produce anything itself, rather it confiscates profits and redistributes the fruits to its own supporters and calls that a success.

That simply is not even close to being true, and all forms of "socialism" nowadays are mixed in with varying degrees of capitalism. Also, unbridled capitalism is dead as it proved itself to produce immense suffering.

BTW, most tribes historically were heavily socialistic as sharing game and pickings was the norm. If Joe shot a deer, it was the tribe's, not just his.

 

[Revoltingest]

That simply is not even close to being true, and all forms of "socialism" nowadays are mixed in with varying degrees of capitalism. Also, unbridled capitalism is dead as it proved itself to produce immense suffering.

The poster said....
"Socialism relies first on the success of Capitalism..."
This pretty well matches your underlined claim.

 

[Colt]

That simply is not even close to being true, and all forms of "socialism" nowadays are mixed in with varying degrees of capitalism. Also, unbridled capitalism is dead as it proved itself to produce immense suffering.

BTW, most tribes historically were heavily socialistic as sharing game and pickings was the norm. If Joe shot a deer, it was the tribe's, not just his.

Idlers in the tribe soon learn that they can sit at home while industrious “hunters” go hunting.

The successful hunter becomes a slave to the idler because not only does the tribe confiscate the fruits of his efforts but he has to subsidize the “huts” and pay for their health care etc.

The chief of the tribe is forever coming up with new reasons and ways to take away the fruits of the industrious.

Eventually the hunter/herder resents being imposed upon and simply looses interest his efforts. Everything becomes stagnant.

 

[metis]

Idlers in the tribe soon learn that they can sit at home while industrious “hunters” go hunting.

Nope. In all of the societies I've studied over the decades, "idlers" have social pressure put on them until they either conform or are banished, and banishment could amount to their death.

The chief of the tribe is forever coming up with new reasons and ways to take away the fruits of the industrious.

Eventually the hunter/herder resents being imposed upon and simply looses interest his efforts. Everything becomes stagnant.

All you are doing is inventing garbage, and I can say this with certainty since I have a graduate degree in anthropology and taught it for 30 years, which included cultural anthropology. In that course, I covered numerous tribes, and none of them acted in the way you have invented.

 

[Colt]

Nope. In all of the societies I've studied over the decades, "idlers" have social pressure put on them until they either conform or are banished, and banishment could amount to their death.

All you are doing is inventing garbage, and I can say this with certainty since I have a graduate degree in anthropology and taught it for 30 years, which included cultural anthropology. In that course, I covered numerous tribes, and none of them acted in the way you have invented.

Maybe you should study the people living in the dysfunctional communities of Americas inner cities if you don't get robed and shot! Study the 3,000,000+ young people who quit Americas free schools each year. Follow the statistical consequences and predictable outcomes of their lives. Watch how unequal efforts lead to generational inequalities and the scapegoating that ensues.

In America the enabling Left doesn't put "pressure" on idlers, they blame the producers.

 

[metis]

Maybe you should study the people living in the dysfunctional communities of Americas inner cities if you don't get robed and shot!

I have, and you have no clue what you're talking about. Wide disparities of income are more found in societies that have more capitalism than socialism. Why do you think the slave trade become so common and brutal? socialism? Nope-- capitalism, as countries vied for more wealth & power while competing against each other.

Study the 3,000,000+ young people who quit Americas free schools each year.

No schools are "free", thus again you simply don't know what you're talking about again. And children that quit do so for varieties of reasons, but I don't know of any who did so because of "socialism".

Watch how unequal efforts lead to generational inequalities and the scapegoating that ensues.

And there's no "unequal efforts" within capitalism?

Ya know, you're just digging yourself into a deeper hole by spouting even more nonsense.

BTW, maybe do some serious studying of how the Scandinavian countries stack up against countries that have fewer socialistic programs. And while you're at it, do you plan on collecting Medicare, Social Security, enjoy good roads, pay for military protection, pay for scientific research, pay for vaccines, etc.-- all "socialistic" programs.

 

[Revoltingest]

Nope. In all of the societies I've studied over the decades, "idlers" have social pressure put on them until they either conform or are banished, and banishment could amount to their death.

Dang, & you guys say capitalists are cold hearted.

 

[Kooky]

The more pressing question I'd like to ask:
Can you be a liberal, and a socialist?

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The more pressing question I'd like to ask:
Can you be a liberal, and a socialist?

Part of me says no. What do you think?

Liberalism, as I understand it to be defined, entails support for civil liberties and free enterprise. That may be slightly at odds with socialism.

Liberalism is also associated with promoting social welfare. But that is not the same thing as socialism.

 

[Kooky]

Part of me says no. What do you think?

Liberalism, as I understand it to be defined, entails support for civil liberties and free enterprise. That may be slightly at odds with socialism.

Liberalism is also associated with promoting social welfare. But that is not the same thing as socialism.

So where's the difference between liberalism
capitalism
and conservatives?

It seems to me that they all want the same things.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

So where's the difference between liberalism
capitalism
and conservatives?

It seems to me that they all want the same things.

American conservatives seem to me to have gone off the spectrum. Unnecessary war, tax cuts for the wealthy, complete lack of concern / plan to address our health care crisis, psychotic breaks with reality on climate change. They were fully captured by wealthy / corporate interests, as opposed to Democrats who merely catered to those interests from time to time.

Then came Trump, and they went off the spectrum even more - over the cliff. There is no political philosophy to describe it anymore.