I'll get banned if I take this thread too seriously, poor humor and stupidity don't mix.

 

Cuba's voting records, I'm going to attempt to answer this without swearing.  Sucker.  Pretend if you want to, but the status of propaganda is not in doubt.  First, anyone serious about living under anything other than socialism has already left.  Duh?  The massive expatriate population in Florida should have been a clue there.  Second, there aren't people being jailed because they already have them in jail to begin with.

 

If you criticize the government in Cuba, you go to jail.  It's well documented fact, they freely admit to locking protesters and journalists up when asked.  They locked up 29 journalists in 2003, they've only let eight of them out.  The Cubans aren't stupid.  If they didn't come out to vote, someone was going to remind them of their civic duty in an uncivilized manner.

 

Capitalism failing twice in a century.  Ahah, ahahaha.  Capitalism and fractional reserve banking are entirely unrelated.  A very poor education is the only excuse for blaming the collapse of the fractional reserve banking system on capitalism.  It's very simple, an economy has ups and downs no matter what you do.  A fractional reserve system, when things are up, makes loads of money off certain very stupid methods.  When things are down, they can lose loads of money by the same methods.

 

These methods happen to be pushed by socialists, not capitalists.  The great depression came at the height of fascism, socialism and communism, three brands of the same nonsense.  Worldwide production collapsed as demand bottomed out.  Abundant credit is how you allow the disadvantaged become advantaged as easily as possible, so they set up institutions that will purchase debt, and write regulations that allow a bank to lend ten times the capital it actually has.  It's also the perfect way to destroy a healthy economy.  Credit allows people to consume more than they produce, which artificially raises demand beyond the level the economy can sustain.  It's simply a matter of time, when the debt bubble reaches critical mass, the economy goes boom.  They did it with margin buys in the 20's, they did it with low income housing loans this time around.  Debt is bad, capital is good.

So do many of your arguments. I'm not an economist (I'm barely in high school) but I can still see a number of flaws in them:

How? People won't get higher minimum wages if they aren't working.

Government opacity creates corruption. A socialist government is not necissarily opaque. If anything, the corruption is easier to find because the effects of a working government are more obvioyus, as are the effects of one that doesn't work.

And.... how is artificially increasing home ownership a socialist idea? The only way home ownership would be "artificially" increases is if somebody instituted a federal property handout system, and the homes that it gave out would not effect property values because they belong to the government.

I personally wouldn't if I knew the manufacturer used unfair labor practices, but it would be easy for a company without government oversight to keep that information under wraps. Also, a lot of people don't care. In the Victorian era, people were tortured to make stuff, and other people bought it. Now, people in developing countries are tortured to make stuff, and people still buy it. The sad fact is, without government regulation, sweatshops ARE a cost-effective way of doing business.

And who would enforce that transparency if the government did not? Although some corporations aren't evil, some are, and they won't be counted on to do something that exposes that fact to the public.

For Scoutdog:

 Higher minimum wage increases unemployment.

How? People won't get higher minimum wages if they aren't working.

Higher minimum wage requires employers to pay more per employee so they can hire less people overall. Think of it this way, you can buy 10 sticks of gum for $10. But now the government steps in and says gum should be $2.00 since thats only fair to the hard working gum companies. Now you can only buy 5 sticks of gum. By setting a minimum price for the product, you now must settle for less. The same applies to the labor market. Higher price for workers means less workers hired.

It creates the conditions for government corruption


Government opacity creates corruption. A socialist government is not necissarily opaque. If anything, the corruption is easier to find because the effects of a working government are more obvioyus, as are the effects of one that doesn't work.

Socialism creates conditions for government corruption since the government controls more. In socialism, the government has exclusive choice in who thrives or dies in the market place and can pick and choose who will succeed and who will fail. Officials of government regulating bodies can take bribes and profit off of rent-seeking activity whereas they could not if the government was not involved in the economy.

Artificlally increasing home ownership overinflates house prices to unsustainable levels

And.... how is artificially increasing home ownership a socialist idea? The only way home ownership would be "artificially" increases is if somebody instituted a federal property handout system, and the homes that it gave out would not effect property values because they belong to the government.

Artificially increasing home ownership is a socialist idea because it redistributes wealth from those who are able to those who are needy. The government subsidizes loans for low income families who could not normally afford a house. This artificially increases home ownership since people who would not own houses now do because of the government.

 a purely free marketplace would oust wrong-doers by itself without government intervention. To answer this you simply have to ask yourself "Would I buy this product if someone was tortured to make it?"


I personally wouldn't if I knew the manufacturer used unfair labor practices, but it would be easy for a company without government oversight to keep that information under wraps. Also, a lot of people don't care. In the Victorian era, people were tortured to make stuff, and other people bought it. Now, people in developing countries are tortured to make stuff, and people still buy it. The sad fact is, without government regulation, sweatshops ARE a cost-effective way of doing business.

You assume government can produce perfect oversight of companies. You also assume companies somehow can keep torturous working conditions perfectly secret to the public. Why is the government the only solution for you? There are many non-government (i.e. private) organizations that monitor working conditions world-wide. They do their job better because they are interested and self-motivated.

The answer is more transparency in our marketplace, not more government or more socialism.

And who would enforce that transparency if the government did not? Although some corporations aren't evil, some are, and they won't be counted on to do something that exposes that fact to the public.

Once again you assume that the government will perfectly enforce transparency. I will again reiterate that non-government organizations are better at flagging issues to the general public. Amnesty International is a good example of a human rights watchdog group which is not controlled by the government.

Sorry for the long read, but it was the only way I could address all of your points.

First off, capitalism vs socialism is irrelevant if there is only ONE political party that is in control of the government. Whenever there isn't at least 2 equal politicial party, it will eventually led to the MISERY, SUFFERING and slow death of its citizens. These ONE party "socialist" governments (USSR, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, East Germany) are nothing more than totalitarian regimes/gangs that will kill anything in its path to maintain political power (even if it originally had good aspirations). Simply put, complete power corrupts completely. These "cold war" communist countries have pass orders to kill more of their own citizens than any kind of government in mankind's enitre history period. Too bad Hollywood is too busy making anti-Nazi movies every 2 years. Nazis are pale in comparison...think Mao's big leap forward, Stalin's Gulag camps, Hue's Massacre in Vietnam. One party capitalist have their share of corrupt/oppressive powers too, though they may not kill as much or had the chance to. USA installed democracies that turn out to be ONE party exploitation: Iran, Cuba before Castro, and in various latin american countries.

One possible exception: One party or one minded government/decisions are only good during wars, where the threat of the country existance is at stake. (the last thing you need is a civil war or two leaders underminding each other, when their country is at stake)

Now if there are two or more equal politicial parties than we can discuss capitalism vs socialism fairly. Personally, I believe in a mix system.

Here the definition of exploitation must be define and put into context. Because if a person truly/literally only perform just enough labour to produce the goods they consume, than you might as well go back to the 50,000 BC, before tribal peroid when humans are pretty much animals. Because you know that tribal leaders rely on followers to produce more food than they need to feed them.

Exploitation is everywhere, if McDonalds or any fast food place don't exploit their workers, they wouldn't stay in business. So the McDonalds exploit the single mother worker to give you a cheap burger ($8/hr). The single mother later goes to walmart to does her shopping, which exploits foriegn workers (5-10cents/hr).  The single mother, who is busy working, doesn't have time or know how to educate her teenage daughter. So she gets pregnancy, get on drugs, drops out of school. When the teenager turns 18, she moves out and into a government provided housing, food card, health/medical benefits. Here the young 18yr old exploits all those that pay taxes.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P772Eb63qIY

So the moral line would be to allow exploitation where people can have enough to eat, sent their kids to school, and buy some material goods. Unfortunately, many sweatshops overseas pay wages soo low, parents can't even send their kids to school, thus they remain stuck lower lower class.

Capitalism works best certain things where competition drives lower prices (consumer eletronics, restaurants). Socialism works best to provide utilities (electricity, water, sewage, internet). Government regulation are best only to prevent monopolization and keep in check ethnical standards.

The idea of a communist utopia will never exist much like world peace. Why? Because if you as an individual can't even get along with everyone, how do you expect countries to get along? If locally, we can't even solve prevent petty crime, how the heck are we anywhere near stopping human slavery and trafficing? How can even a local community be in a pure state of communism, if we want our own kids to go to the best schools and have the best opportunity even if the neighbor's kid is more talented and deserve it more? Our animal self-fish needs run deep, this is where capitalism can play it part making things somewhat fair and socialism can keep capitalism from running amok with greed (enron, the credit crisis http://vimeo.com/3261363).

China's been moving away from socialism more and more koda.

 

One thing that bothers me about capitalism is that there are several hugely important institutions that provide worse service when it's applied to them.  Look at insurance companies as an example.  In order for them to maximize profit, they reject as many claims as possible.  Providing a quality service is actually antithetical to making a profit for them.  Much of their infrastructure gets built around this.  Also, in order for these companies to even be solvent, society must put more money into them than it gets out.  This makes it inefficient as well as ineffective.  There are services that can be improved by a for profit approach, but the ones that actually get worse with it are completely screwed up in a capitalist system.

 

Another problem I have with capitalism is that money is viewed as having intrinsic value.  Viewing money as having intrinsic value is elevating it to a status where gaining money is the purpose of our economic system.  The purpose should be what I mentioned in my previous post.  Money is a tool, not a god.  The economy is a human convention, not a hurricane.

 

You also have this wacky notion that jobs are more valuable than the products that are created by people with those jobs(ironically, in some ways it's almost marxist).  If I'm a factory owner and I replace all my workers with robots and a few techies for maintenance, the resources available to the world have not changed signficantly(they may even increase if the robots do the job more efficiently) but the workers I laid off are screwed because I've killed their income.  Technological advancement that frees up labor should make the world a better place but a capitalistic environment can actually turn this around so people are worse off because of it.  The corollary to this is that any creation of jobs is considered to be good, no matter what those jobs are.

Poland seem to be pretty good at it.

There is something inherently incorrect in the premise - Capitalism and Communism (Complete individuality and Complete ownership by the state) are the extremes - Socialism is, by definition, any compromise between the two extremes.

So the premise is like asking "White (Or Black) versus Gray" as if there was only one shade of Gray.

That said - I certainly prefer some level of compromise between those extremes:

A: Capitalism has the inherent advantage that working to improve your own life motivates everyone. Some people are also willing to work, in whole or in part, to improve the lives of others, but no one, no matter how charitable, is unhappy to have brightened up his child's birthday with the toy they wanted, or is broken hearted that today they can afford a better meal today than yesterday.

B: Communism has the inherent advantage that Capitalism exists at the intersection of supply and demand. Since that intersection point will never be at $0.00, there is always some portion of the population that cannot afford a good or service without giving up another more important good or service. Unfortunately, there is always a portion for whom that exchange involves that they cannot afford a necessary good or service, because there is an even more necessary good or service they would have to give up in exchange.

Once you've made that simple decision that it is worthwhile to grant a service to anyone, regardless of logic, reason, or self-interest, that they didn't completely pay for themselves, congratulations, you are a Socialist. I don't care if you consider yourself a libertarian that only thinks the Government should enforce Contracts - if they are doing it without you're paying them to do so, however short the line between that and Laissez-faire Capitalism is, there is a line there - and you are a Socialist.

Most people being in favor of the fire department coming out and police stopping muggings even if you didn't pay them personally to do so, what we are arguing about is to what extent we need to balance the proven motivation of using greed to con people into making stuff with the fact that most people realize that, at some point, there are things worth saving money on by doing as a group, and it make our lives better to go to a little extra effort to make sure people aren't in desperate straits, what we are arguing about is what degree of socialism is worthwhile.

Personally? Outside the very basics of a government like the technically 'Socialism' but agreed upon things like court systems and free speech? Well, off the cuff -

I'm a hierarchy of needs kinda guy: I want to cover the two bottom rungs with enough leeway to give people lots of opportunity to take a stab at the rest themselves - and that means a good educational system and access to knowledge. Sure it's Welfare. I really don't care - at the very worst you get a better class of criminal.

I want a common Infrastructure: There are a lot of things like roads, internet, et al that a certain class of idealogue always claims would be done by private industry. Yet, historically, have rarely been attempted by private industry, or in those rare occasions when infrastructure was created by private industry (Railroads being a great example), the monopoly on that infrastructure was leveraged to establish a stranglehold on an area.

I want good Insurance: Insurance is, fundamentally, hedging your bets by betting against yourself . . .and letting another guy take a cut. Now, there are obviously lots of specialized bets that the government has no business getting into, but any insurance system that virtually everyone needs (or needs a basic level on) is a reasonable candidate for the government to create an insurance system where the other guy's 'cut' is the slimmest margin feasible. Additional levels above and beyond that are outside the governments purview.

I want good Crisis Management/Prevention: Obviously, this is related to the Insurance question, but insurance is passive, Crisis Prevention is putting a good regulatory structure in place to handle foreseeable risks. Buildings in earthquake zones should be designed to survive all but the worst earthquakes. Cities in Flood zones should have levees that will hold back all but the worst floods. Management is dealing with the once a century crisis that was either unforeseeable, or foreseen, but considered to be easier to rebuild afterward than to plan against. 

 

Coincidence or not, President Obama has just issued a regulatory monitoring system to examine Corporate fiscal evasions by setting foreign based "laundring" of profits. Instead of paying taxes to state.

2% to business, 35% to population -- is a huge gap in participation to the collective assets like roads, schools & hospitals.

Today's great depression occurs in a matter of months rather than the '29 dark Monday... cuz mechanisms are in place to prevent panic on investment markets. That doesn't mean financial values hasn't been converted into luxury or job losses already & progressively through decades of smart IRS filing by banks and multinational gimmicks, though.

And to be even clearer about different constitutional laws in Canada and/or the world...

Here is what matters to the Socialism vs Capitalism "discussion" we're having;

As stated by the Québec Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms;

A request: please dont throw in false facts! i said it for like 3 times and people keep doing it...
dont mix communism with dictatorship, its 2 different things!
USSR under Stalin (i think) was no longer communist anyways.

Now a big problem i noticed on many replys here is that many people say that communism is USSR
and UUSR is communism, so naturally every communist country is like USSR (?).
This is not true, and the communism USSR had, is not the same as Chinieses or Cuban.
And, dont forget about the possbility of communism coversion from capitalism.

Now to the guy who said that hollywood should make movies about the evil part of USSR
well i think they cant really, because every time they reserch the history of USSR
they just see that even if there were evil parts of it, it wasnt enough to turn communism into hell.
It is true though that USSR killed a whol lot of its own citizens
but i have a theory about why, as someone said here, people are just greedy bustards
who tend to care only about themselfs, and there are criminals, rapists, murderers, thiefs
people who tried to subotage the USSR economics by bringing in illigal goods and are tring to be richer then others
and so on, so i completley agree on the Gulags, in fact its a shame that rapist only get like 5 years
and murderers like 20 years in jail, and then they are free to do as they want, i think they must die
as i beliave that punishment must be equal to the damage it done
murder is life for life, rape is same as murder so its like for life as well
all the rest should spend time in the Gulag camps.
and i also think that gulag camps are much better then the modern jails who suck tax payers mony
to feed the prisioners and to provide them with TVs and Internet and Education
while gulag do the opposite, it forces prisioners to work and contribute to the country as punishment
which is much better punishmet i think then any jail.

And about the voting in cuba, i think we should make it into a topic
because some said that cubas had only yes and yes as options for voting
yet i know that no one was forced to vote, yet 98% of cubas population voted.
the other 2% to the guy who asked, its the disabled people (physicly and mentaly) who cant vote
and some of the goverment workers at the higher places that cant vote.

And to the guy who said that capitalism is better and economic crisis happened only twise
i recommend you to check your facts again as you are missing a whole lot of information
even me who didnt reserched much, i know that on avarage about ever 4 or 5 years there is a crisis
not as big as this one but it dose hits, and the banks swipe it fast under the carpet.

Justed wanted to note that even though you are right, the reallity is somewhate different.
im talking about the fact of how the US Army invades other countrys,
sure every invastion can be covered with propoganda (such as Oil in quwait, and the dictatorship in iraq)
yet from my point of view, as not an american citizen, is that US armyy is VERY hostile
they jump from one country to another, do as they want for their best interest, and leave, thats how i see it...
When USSR tryed to convert other countrys to communism, they were accused of illegal accupation
and forced goverment, while people all over the accupied europe by germany, accepted the Red Army
with open arms, difficult to say the same thing for the US Army, and how they try to convert everyone into capitalist countrys.

Still, it's state intervention against the background of a Law that gives every Americans the right to bare & USE firearms to defend themselves individually while the military *supposedly* has a mandate of protection that can be interpreted as common risks or a security threat to all that do not have the "power of the guns" or deadly force as the army likes to call it, so to speak.

I'd agree on the presumption of *my* context or terminology. But in principles, the Law is quite clear; shoot first, ask the right questions or provide answers later. That's alllllmmmmmoooossst justification for killing before facts.

I'm sure you even have Police in the US, armed as well for very good reasons. But they have a duty to the citizens in ANY situations. Check your criminality ratios and please do compare.

 

Agree, even though some may have the right for financial assistance, it seems to me that its just words
I have few friends over at the US, they are about my age, which is young adults
all of them are in big trubles as their income is very low and the living cost is very high
some of them end up living with thair parents while others in thair cars.
In fact i never met one single american who said me in straight words that his life quality is good
sure i bet some of them are maybe just spiled, but facts are facts and as i said, some of them live in a car.
Im not sure what they or tryied to do to get themselfs some help, but i do know that:
1) they dont know how to because it usually requires a whole lot of knowlage in all the beurocracy
2) the requirments are impossible (for example, to bring them a 8 years old papers that you didnt even
thought that you have to save them for the feauture)
3)I know based on news that those who can afford lawyers do so to get help
but then, if they can affor lawyers that im not sure they need help.
4) Im not sure but looks like its very difficult to get lawyer for free from the state

With all this no wounder many just accept thair faith and end up on the streets

now compared to Communism, everyone have an appt', they dont have to brake thair heads
in a search for a job that will pay them well enough to support themselfs and thair fammilys and children
sure i know todays communism we see around the world is poorly made and with a whole lot of problems
but i must tell you something important, i looked on migration records to and from cuba
about 70% of cubans are former Europeans, out of 11 Mil population only about 1Mil tryied to migrate to the USA
when Cuba opened it borders providing free "escape" route for all who want to leave
and it was the US that closed it borders not long after that.

In addition i want to come back to the 98% vote for Castro, someone in here said thay got only yes or yes vote
but there is a problem with this as you didnt really checked the facts yet again (4th time)
cuba got a spacial voting sistem where one can vote if he want, no one is forced to vote
the vote was not for or against the one and only communist party in Cuba, the vote was for and against Castro
and his way of ruling, so its cant be yes or yes, it can be castro or someone ales from the communist party.
again 98% voted for castro, plus 98% of population voted for him, i wounder, if the people werent happy
with what it is going on in there, why do they vote at all?
a good excample is yet again Russia and Ukraine, people lost hope in the goverment long time ago
so they just dont vote...