Socialism

POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Monday, August 26, 2024 16:07
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CANTTAKESKY

Monday, June 29, 2009 7:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So in other words, the answer to economic oppression is government, and the answer to government oppression is democracy (or, failing that, revolution).

Uh, no. That is not what I heard Sarge say.

The answer to force-free economic oppression, that is economic oppression without government collusion, is competition.

The problem is, nowadays, most economic oppression happens with government collusion, which is unchecked by democracy. This sort of economic oppression prevents free market competition from sorting things out, by making it impossible for small guys to compete with the big giants.

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The corporation is a true Frankenstein's monster - an artificial person run amok, responsible only to its own soulless self.
-- William Dugger, management analyst

SIGNYM

Monday, June 29, 2009 7:32 AM

Quote:
is competition

And here we are, back to the issue that capitalism naturally evolves to monopolism through non-governmental processes such as economies of scale. That means that big businesses are naturally more efficient than small businesses. Which means they can produce each individual widget more cheaply than small shops, which are eventually driven out of business. Hence, Walmart wipes out the mom-and-pop stores and Microsoft strangles its competition. Relying on "competition" as the antidote to economic coercion is a pipe dream. Real capitalists (not just pro-capitalists, but the people who actually run businesses) HATE competition. The goal of each and every business is 100% market share. Those who do not share that dream are simply overwhelmed earlier in the process.

There seems to be a lot of genuine wishful thinking about capitalism, and how warm and fuzzy it can be. It's not. Capitalists represent THEIR interests, not yours. They will, and do, trample over everyone - women, men, children- in their rush for maximum profits and market dominance. That is the nature of the beast. Haven't the last two years taught you anything? Capitalists are GREEDY. Short-sighted. Interested ONLY in profit and market-share. Sheesh!

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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy

Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy

CANTTAKESKY

Monday, June 29, 2009 12:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
back to the issue that capitalism naturally evolves to monopolism through non-governmental processes such as economies of scale.

But without governmental intervention, there will always be a new generation of small competitors rising to challenge the big fish. See without government collusion, it's a circular process, not the linear one we know.

I agree that capitalism cannot work well in conjunction with government. Really, you have to have one or the other.

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What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
-- Henry David Thoreau

GEEZER

Monday, June 29, 2009 1:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
...I'm saying that Social Welfare programs are a socialist ideal, coming from Socialism.

And this, I believe, is the crux of your argument.

However, I can't find any reference stating that Social Welfare programs originated with Socialist thought. Given that forms of Social Welfare have existed since the beginning of recorded history, such as the Roman food welfare system - complete with food stamps (tesserae), I'd have to question your assumption that Socialism was the progenitor of Social Welfare.

I'm not sure why some Social Democrats insist on calling themselves Socialists, just like I'm not sure why the Nazi's chose to be called National Socialists. Certainly, neither group hews (hewed) very closely to the original meaning of Socialism - Government/cooperative ownership of... you know the rest.

When you come down to it, just about every country has a mixed economy, but most are weighted heavily in favor of private ownership of TMOP, so they have more of a Capitalist/Free-market rather than Socialist economy.

As for Social Welfare, absent some proof that it originated in classical Socialist thought, and given the fact that it was around in various forms long before Socialism was developed, I'd say any form of government or economy has the right to provide it without having to pay Socialism for the privilege.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SERGEANTX

Monday, June 29, 2009 2:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And here we are, back to the issue that capitalism naturally evolves to monopolism through non-governmental processes such as economies of scale.

Except that it doesn't. Large organizations* come with very real disadvantages that, in a free and unfettered market, smaller independent competitors can take advantage of. What tips the balance is the large organizations ability to impede competition and enhance their own position through the legislative process.

*(I'm referring here to large, non-corporate companies. I think we agree there are issues with the foundations of corporate law that are a problem. But my understanding is that you're convinced that the momentum toward monopolies is independent of the corporate issues)

Quote:
Relying on "competition" as the antidote to economic coercion is a pipe dream.

Right, government intervention is the real answer. Let's sit back and watch the health care reform process currently underway in Washington. I suspect it will be a nice case in point.

You know, what's so frustrating in arguing this point is that those complaining the loudest that "competition doesn't work" are generally the ones supporting all the government policies designed to directly interfere with competition (and so often these are devised by the large business interests they claim to be against).

There seems to be a lot of genuine wishful thinking about government, and how warm and fuzzy it can be. It's not. Politicians represent THEIR interests, not yours. They will, and do, trample over everyone - women, men, children- in their rush for maximum power and dominance. That is the nature of the beast. Haven't the last two years taught you anything? Politicians are GREEDY. Short-sighted. Interested ONLY in power. Sheesh!

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

SIGNYM

Monday, June 29, 2009 2:56 PM

Quote:
But without governmental intervention, there will always be a new generation of small competitors rising to challenge the big fish-Ct

Quote:
Except that it doesn't. Large organizations* come with very real disadvantages that, in a free and unfettered market, smaller independent competitors can take advantage of.-Sarge

Absolutely NOT.

Do you really think that Paramount Petroleum is going to beat out Exxon? Or Ben & Jerry's is going to beat out Unilever? Startups generally...er, start up... in virgin markets: either with new products (eg Genentech) or in isolated geographic areas (Honda in prewar Japan) or with significant government financing (Taiwan). There is a period of ferment, and then the market matures, the technology stabilizes, and the businesses start swallowing each other up until there are only a few... or just one.. dominant players.

The family farms were swallowed up by Cargill and Monsanto.
Most of the chip manufacturers- Texas Instruments, Fairchild, Motorola, National Semiconductor, AT&T, Hewlett Packard, AMD, and IBM - have been swallowed up by Intel.
Mom and pop stores and even large retailers like Target are crumbing before Walmart, which has been the ONLY retailer to see increased sales during this deep recession.
Health insurances are consolidating
As is the media: television combining with radio and internet
Food processing: Unilever, Kellog and Nestle own nearly all of the small names like Ben & Jerry's and Burts' Bees, which people believe to be "independents but which are not
Microsoft strangled Lotus, Corel, Novell, WordPerfect, Borland and literally hundreds of startup competitors

As a close observer of the business world, I can name you prolly dozens of similar examples. Can you find ONE example of an industry which DEconsolidated? Just one?

I agree that big business has disadvantages. It's biggest disadvantage is being wedded to the infrastructure and technology which brought it success in the first place. IBM, for example, killed OS/2, one of the best OSs ever made (and that includes even beating out Linux in some aspects) because it was wedded to the mainframe. Coal and oil interests aren't jumping into solar (except BPArco). Pharma was not interested in genetic engineering (I knew one of Genentech's original startup partners BTW. It took $50,000 back then to buy into the startup.) GM, Chrysler and Plymouth were stuck on gas-guzzlers. So in general, big business isn't very flexible about getting into new areas because their old investments have already been paid off a zillion years ago and have much higher profit margins. So smaller companies tend to get into new areas (snd the cycle of growth and maturation occurs) but big business dominates mature markets.

Quote:
There seems to be a lot of genuine wishful thinking about government, and how warm and fuzzy it can be. It's not. Politicians represent THEIR interests, not yours. They will, and do, trample over everyone - women, men, children- in their rush for maximum power and dominance. That is the nature of the beast. Haven't the last two years taught you anything? Politicians are GREEDY. Short-sighted. Interested ONLY in power. Sheesh!

Of course.

----------------------
We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy

Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy

SIGNYM

Monday, June 29, 2009 3:44 PM

So, just to bump this up: CTS, Sarge, I can show you many governments which are responsive to their people under consistent pressure.

Can you show me any occasion in which a mature industry de-consolidated?

----------------------
We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy

Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy

CANTTAKESKY

Monday, June 29, 2009 3:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Absolutely NOT....Startups generally...er, start up...

Absolutely not--AS LONG AS THERE IS GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.

Quote:
The family farms were swallowed up by Cargill and Monsanto.

And how exactly were they swallowed up by Cargill and Monsanto? With government intervention.

All the examples you provided happened and happens in the corrupt marriage of corporation and government. I don't dispute that it won't work in the current environment.

What you haven't shown is that it won't work if government steps out of the way.

I should point out that all large corporations now were start-ups at one point.

The free market competition cycle has been halted for probably the last 100 years. As an example, one of the most competitive start-ups, as you say, is new technology, and there are myriad of laws (bought for by Big Corp) to prevent the introduction of new, competitive technology out of their control and govt control.

So study the business world all you want--all you'll find is the govt-corporation alliance that we both agree moves linearly towards power and wealth consolidation and does not work.

You'll have to go back into history to the 1800's to find any semblance of the free market I am advocating.

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I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
--Thomas A. Edison

CITIZEN

Monday, June 29, 2009 3:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
No, hang on. The ten commandments are specific to christianity, whereas it hasn't been established yet by you or anyone that social welfare is specific to socialism, or originated as a specifically socialist idea. So my argument is like saying you cannot define commandments as 'christian', because other religions also have them. Because you're defining social welfare as socialist aren't you?

Actually they're not. The Ten Commandments originated in Judaism, and actually probably originated in an even older legend of the Canaanite religion. The two off shoots of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, both include the ten commandments, or versions of.

Here though, your argument is subtly different, here it's more like saying because any one of the Commandments can be found in another place none of them are remotely Christian. So if a pre-Christian society had a law against murder (#6 thou shalt not murder), then that commandment can't be Christian, which means none of them are.

In fact since the Commandments originated in Judaism, your logic definitely dismisses the commandments as Christian.

Quote:
Introduced interestingly by Germany under Otto von Bismarck, a staunch anti-socialist heading a government that certainly wasn't a social democracy, it wasn't even a democracy.

You need to look up some history. Germany had elections and it had a Social Democratic Party, founded in May 23, 1863. Laws were formed by the Parliament, the Lower House, the Reichstag, was elected by universal male suffrage. The SDP was banned until 1890, but was still able to gain seats in elections, which allowed them to get the ban repealed. The pension plan was enacted to appease the labour movement, so I don't see how it's proof of what you claim. Neither was it quite the sort of system we'd recognise today.

Quote:
But anyway, here I've shown you an idea for social welfare dating back to the French Revolution in 1789 - predating social democracy, predating marx and predating socialism.

Not really. Pensions could be the exception that tests the rule, but the fact remains even state pensions of the type we recognise haven't been implemented outside of Social Democracy or Socialism, certainly not to my knowledge, nor have you shown this.

CITIZEN

Monday, June 29, 2009 3:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
However, I can't find any reference stating that Social Welfare programs originated with Socialist thought. Given that forms of Social Welfare have existed since the beginning of recorded history, such as the Roman food welfare system - complete with food stamps (tesserae), I'd have to question your assumption that Socialism was the progenitor of Social Welfare.

I actually knew you were going to mention Roman Bread, but since that's actually rather unlike the concept of Social Welfare, I really can't see where you why it would prove anything.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Geezer:
I'm not sure why some Social Democrats insist on calling themselves Socialists,

Probably because they're a branch of Socialism, as I've already shown.

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
When you come down to it, just about every country has a mixed economy, but most are weighted heavily in favor of private ownership of TMOP, so they have more of a Capitalist/Free-market rather than Socialist economy.

Except of course, using your own logic, they're not Capitalist, regardless of how much private ownership there is, since Private ownership has been a constant in most of the economic systems employed throughout history. It seems to me the crux of your argument depends on only applying it to one side and not the other.

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
As for Social Welfare, absent some proof that it originated in classical Socialist thought, and given the fact that it was around in various forms long before Socialism was developed, I'd say any form of government or economy has the right to provide it without having to pay Socialism for the privilege.

In that case I don't see any reason why any economy can be called capitalist merely because it has private ownership. Yet if it has private ownership, you're ready to tout another triumph of capitalism.

Beyond that, I'm fairly confident I have shown that the modern concept of Social Welfare, at it's maximum the Welfare State, came from Socialism through Social Democracy.

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