Question

[CubaSocialista]

How do you, as a Socialist, usually respond to the proposition that "socialism is an inferior economic system", and that capitalism "works" because demands provide incentives for needs to be fulfilled?

I know this is a VERY basic question...bear with me.

[RebelDog]

socialism is an inferior economic system

The person who posed that question would surely have to elaborate and explain why "socialism is an inferior system"


capitalism "works" because demands provide incentives for needs to be fulfilled

Needs are only fulfilled in capitalism for those who have enough money. You can demand all you want but if you haven't got the money you will go unfulfilled, ie, the thousands who die from starvation every day on this planet because they are poor.
Capitalism 'works' for the capitalist class because they can exploit labour and sell their products on the market for profit. The incentive is profit alone. If a system's success is measured by its abillity to provide for 'needs' then capitalism is a failure.

[Intelligitimate]

I point out the fact that socialist countries had superior economic growth to the Western capitalist countries, and far superior growth than the vast majority of capitalist countries, which are third-world shit holes.

http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/comsysf/compsys7.gif

Red is communist, blue Western capitalist, purple third-world capitalist, and green Asian Tigers. Here is the page it was taken from, with accompanying commentary (which is pretty free of any sort of bias).

http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/pri...msysf/cs20.html (http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/comsysf/cs20.html)

[Janus]

Moved to Learning.

[CubaSocialista]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 08:29 PM
Moved to Learning.
Err, sorry, didn't know where to put it.

Anyway, the person elaborated that socialism was inferior because..

"eventually the problem of scarcity will be solved, and one day things will be in abundance and available for all, there will be no need for socialism, it's only useful for industrializing nations" this person believing that keynesian capitalism will eventually lead to abundance and infinite prosperity.

[nickdlc]

"eventually the problem of scarcity will be solved, and one day things will be in abundance and available for all, there will be no need for socialism, it's only useful for industrializing nations" If we ever got to that point, then what would be the use of capitalism? If things can be produced so that they are basically free why not have free goods? Anyway this person doesn't realize that a certain point capitalism transends it's own mode of production and capitalism will be a fetter on capitalism! This is what happened in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, basically.

[CheRev]

The point also leaves out so many other factors, such as the environmental issues for example. Producers do not care how they make their money as long as they make it. Capitalism merely looks at the issues from a one-dimensional point of view: how the owners can make the most money out of the workers production.

Also, I have no doubt we could (and probably do) produce enough food etc to feed the world, it's just they won't give it to the poor, or even sell it to them at a price they can afford.

[T Man]

In a nutshell capitalism is only good to those who can afford it pretty much. That's how I feel about it anyway.