Capitalism and socialism

[Comrade Samuel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT1dT0y8vtk

Wrong? Easily refuted?

Yes and yes anyone care share why?

Rather than getting into yet another YouTube "debate" I want to hear some decent opinions.

[Caj]

The video's entire argument is predicated upon the absurd strawman that socialism is control of the means of production by the government. There is nothing more to be said.

[Comrade Hill]

The video's entire argument is predicated upon the absurd strawman that socialism is control of the means of production by the government. There is nothing more to be said.

An absurd strawman in the eyes of lib-coms.

[RGacky3]

First premis

1: It is commonly known that humans are self-interested etc. etc.

Thats and overly simplistic view and not totally correct, in many aspects yes, but in many not really.

3. Citizens develop trades and buisinesses and all of this is sustained by capital (Money)

Not necessarily, capital does'nt mean money, capital means means of production, in that case money CAN be capital but not always, and money is in many ways just a representation of capital.

Also for most of humant history you did'nt have capital as a seperate entity sustaining anything, work was done to produce goods and services which were distributed in some way or another, accumulation was'nt the purpose of production.

So that statement is not anthropologicall true.

4. Government is established to maintain order and protect citizens

In what world? Thats historically false, the modern nation state developed to protect privilege, and thus pave the way for capitalism. Historically thats always been true.

Unless your using the broad broad term of government meaning "a way to organize society" in which governments arn't really established, they just build naturally.

However government as we know it has always been to protect privilege.

5. When the government allows citizens to operate freely and make their own economic decisions its called a free society.

Thats just word play, thats what you call it, but government never allows citizens to operate freely, what if the citizens want to not recognize the right of a mining company to a mine? What if the citizens want to expropriate the means of production from companies? What if they want to MOVE to a better labor market? What if they want to take over the monetary system?

Also in a democratic society, at least in theory, the government IS the citizenry, its the public manifestation of the citizenry TO MAKE economic decisions.

6.&7 Sometimes the government decides citizens arn't capable of making economic decisions + When politicians think they are smarter than everyone else ...

Well first of all, since government (in theory) IS the citizens, your saying it wrong, the public decides that individual corporations or individual wealth make decisions that harm society.

Also its not "citizens," if your a CEO of a major bank or a CEO of a mining company, your interests and power are significantly different than a plumber or a janitor.

Also your "economic liberty" is restricted by your pocketbook first and formost. So when we talk about economic liberty we should talk about who is restricting who. The top restricter of economic liberty are financial institutions that make their living skimming money off the top of productive industry, or executives that take the surplus of their workers production, thus restricting them.

But anyway, you want to expand "economic liberty" stop state encorporation.

8&9: They want to control you

The cop corporations in America ALREADY control economic life and economic liberty, and guess what, they (unlike the government) are not democratically accountable, and are legally bound to make a profit at all cost and ignore externalitites.


Also this is ONLY attacking state-socialism, which is in the minority today, most people favor workers democratic control over the workplace ad the primary model.


Eitherway, none of these arguments are new, they are the same old discredited arguments from the 50s.

[Comrade Hill]

Also this is ONLY attacking state-socialism, which is in the minority today, most people favor workers democratic control over the workplace ad the primary model.

Eitherway, none of these arguments are new, they are the same old discredited arguments from the 50s.

My fellow "scholar," I am a new reader and I don't know what the difference between state socialism and democratic control over the workplace is. Would you care to explain to me the difference in detail, and pointing out the evidence for your claim that state socialists are in the minority?

Please excuse my interruption Mr. Syndicate, I am just trying to learn.

[RGacky3]

I don't have evidence this is just my observation based on discussions by prominant socialists in the US and different movements.

The cooperative movement, or movement that focuses on democratic control of the workplace, focuses on just that, the micro level socialism, per buisiness, and focuses on replacing the boss/executive/capitalist and worker relationship with a workers democracy.

Whereas the state socialism model focuses on the macro level, trying to change things nationally by either overthrowing a government or electing in a government, and then re-organizing the economy from above.

[Comrade Hill]

I don't have evidence this is just my observation based on discussions by prominant socialists in the US and different movements.


Comrade, how are you supposed to convince the reader that you are worthy of his time when when all you have to offer is your general observation?



The cooperative movement, or movement that focuses on democratic control of the workplace, focuses on just that, the micro level socialism, per buisiness, and focuses on replacing the boss/executive/capitalist and worker relationship with a workers democracy.


I fully support that. But, what I have to ask is what is your way of going about this? What revolutionary tactics and more specifically, how will you organize this democracy?



Whereas the state socialism model focuses on the macro level, trying to change things nationally by either overthrowing a government or electing in a government, and then re-organizing the economy from above.
[/quote]

I don't understand what your point is.

"Society as a whole?" Whatever happened to that concept?

How can you do it on the micro level without doing it on a macro level?

Here is how the local Soviets operated in the Soviet economy, from the "Bolshevist Economic model"

"We are not dwelling upon a description of the smaller mechanisms for stimulating production, such as the system of payment for labour, bonuses, nor are we touching upon the question of planning either. Two factors are significant: firstly, the described system automatically rids itself of its shortcomings, the commodity-money relationship dies off, and, secondly, profit as an economic category is absent in this system, therefore David Ricardo's law does not function here. This is the reason for the growth of the gross national product in the USSR up to 1953."

"The formation of a Deputy body of Soviets for labour services leads to legislative work being carried out by workers in the interest of the development of the whole society. This is expressed for example in the proportion of expenditure in the national income. In the period when the Bolshevist model of society was in force this proportion was higher than in the developed capitalist countries. Here one factor is also important: the candidate put up by the collective of the industry for the post of Deputy has to be elected by all the citizens living in the territory of that particular electoral area. This eliminates the danger of the Deputy looking only after the interests of his particular collective."

http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n1/mironyuk.htm

[RGacky3]

Comrade, how are you supposed to convince the reader that you are worthy of his time when when all you have to offer is your general observation?


Then don't read my posts. As far as I know there arn't any statistics on that, but the socialists economists, leaders, writers and so on that I see that are prominant now are ones that support the workers democracy model.


I fully support that. But, what I have to ask is what is your way of going about this? What revolutionary tactics and more specifically, how will you organize this democracy?


Me personally? I can only speak for myself, revolutionary tactics you could get from my syndicalism tendancy :P, as for as how to organize the democracy, there are plenty of ways.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not gonna switch this to a USSR argument,

[capitalism is good]

Capitalism works. Socialism does not. It's to do with human nature. According to scientific theory, all organisms want to propogate its genes. This means we fight for our own survivial and that of our kin.

Socialism calls for collective behavior where we are expected to work and sacrifice for others who do not share our genes. Thus Socialism can work within small groups of family members. We do not mind sacrificing for our children or for our siblings but not for strangers.

The only animals that are capable of large scale Socialism are eusocial insects like ants, bees and wasps. That is because the Queen can law millions of eggs and each insect in the hive are brothers or at least half brothers. Altruistic behavior towards a brother is expected but very rare with strangers. That is why you do not get a medal when you risk your life to save your brother but will get a medal if you save a stranger.

Large scale Socialism is not possible for mammals because our females cannot have millions of offsprings. Thus all attempts of creating Socialism/Communism have failed. In the Law of Nature, each organism competes with the others to survive. Those fittest will survive and those less fit will die. Is that not what capitalism is about? So capitalism is in line with nature but Marxism is not.

[RGacky3]

Capitalism works. Socialism does not. It's to do with human nature. According to scientific theory, all organisms want to propogate its genes. This means we fight for our own survivial and that of our kin.


According to scienfitic theory SPECIES propegate their survival.

Also Human nature is not clear, it evolves and shifts with time, material conditions, societal pressures and so on.

Human nature is not stagnent and it exists in a dialectic with societal structures.



Socialism calls for collective behavior where we are expected to work and sacrifice for others who do not share our genes. Thus Socialism can work within small groups of family members. We do not mind sacrificing for our children or for our siblings but not for strangers.


It does'nt call for work and sacrifice for others, ALL economic systems call for that, thats what a community IS.

What it calls for is a democratic structure rather than an authoritarian one.


The only animals that are capable of large scale Socialism are eusocial insects like ants, bees and wasps. That is because the Queen can law millions of eggs and each insect in the hive are brothers or at least half brothers. Altruistic behavior towards a brother is expected but very rare with strangers. That is why you do not get a medal when you risk your life to save your brother but will get a medal if you save a stranger.


Altruistic behavior is actually very common, infact dispite not being rewarded in modern society as much as past societies, infact scientific studies show that humans tend to have a basic empathy and act on it.

DISPITE THAT, socialism is'nt based on altruism at all, it just shifts the decision making from the individual capitalist to a democratic structure.


Large scale Socialism is not possible for mammals because our females cannot have millions of offsprings. Thus all attempts of creating Socialism/Communism have failed. In the Law of Nature, each organism competes with the others to survive. Those fittest will survive and those less fit will die. Is that not what capitalism is about? So capitalism is in line with nature but Marxism is not.

Marxism is an economic analysis of capitalism.

But a nice attempt at trying to use evolutionary biology to dissprove socialism, all it showed is that you have a deep missunderstanding of both evolutionary biology and socialism.

[Revolution starts with U]

Capitalism works.
Does it? For who?

Socialism does not.
Define socialism

It's to do with human nature.
lulz.


According to scientific theory, all organisms want to propogate its genes. This means we fight for our own survivial and that of our kin.

One time my friends came out of a bar to see 12 guys kicking some stranger on the ground. So they got in the 12 guys face and stopped it. (Your) Hypothesis is disproven.


Socialism calls for collective behavior where we are expected to work and sacrifice for others who do not share our genes.
No, it doesn't. It calls for the removal of state granted monopolist privelage over property. 90% of people would fare far better under real socialism than capitalism.


Thus Socialism can work within small groups of family members. We do not mind sacrificing for our children or for our siblings but not for strangers.

Democratic control of the economy can work in small groups of family? I don't understand what you're defining capitalism and socialism as...


The only animals that are capable of large scale Socialism are eusocial insects like ants, bees and wasps. That is because the Queen can law millions of eggs and each insect in the hive are brothers or at least half brothers. Altruistic behavior towards a brother is expected but very rare with strangers. That is why you do not get a medal when you risk your life to save your brother but will get a medal if you save a stranger.
Ant colonies are not socialism. Notice they have "a queen."
The Federation was communist, not the borg.

Large scale Socialism is not possible for mammals because our females cannot have millions of offsprings. Thus all attempts of creating Socialism/Communism have failed.
Have they? Someone should tell all those co-ops out there.


In the Law of Nature, each organism competes with the others to survive. Those fittest will survive and those less fit will die. Is that not what capitalism is about? So capitalism is in line with nature but Marxism is not.
Do you understand what "fit" means in a biological sense? Marxism basically says that capitalism is not fit for survival.

[Brosip Tito]

My fellow "scholar," I am a new reader and I don't know what the difference between state socialism and democratic control over the workplace is. Would you care to explain to me the difference in detail, and pointing out the evidence for your claim that state socialists are in the minority?

Please excuse my interruption Mr. Syndicate, I am just trying to learn.
Duplicate, please delete!

[Brosip Tito]

An absurd strawman in the eyes of lib-coms.
No, a straw-man in the eyes of all Marxists.

The argument presented is that the current government structure (the bourgeois government) being in control of the means of production is socialism. This is a straw-man.

What would be correct is saying that a proletarian government in control of the means of production is socialism, because the worker's essentially would be in control of it.

This is a frequently used argument by those who believe communists want to control the current government and power structure.