Socialism Destroys Everything

[steve99]

On 26/07/2021 at 12:17, Pop321 said:

I agree. Socialism has been vilified in the US and now over here….and they are marching on the Liberals too.

I am a liberal leftie…my ideals lie in socialism and the left but I walk into a public sector establishment (eg the council offices or a hospital) and 5 minutes later I am an extreme capitalist. So reality is I sit in the middle.

My main issue is people accept bank director getting paid £8m when they are not a director but rather an employee. Richard Branson etc at least took risks and set up the business…if he wishes to pay himself an amount that ruins his own business that’s up to him. The bank overpaid employees are the worst example of a boys club and it’s now deemed acceptable…each voting for one another’s salary’s because they control other finance and insurance companies who own the bank shares.   

The elitist Eton and Oxford government and establishment we have now doesn’t represent the average person nor does it want to….many on here moan about high house prices and Gordon Brown being responsible for every issue we see today as though the last decade the current government ‘has its hands tied’.

Reality is for me it’s a toss up between well intentioned incompetence or a boys club where they don’t care.

Where we live now on the left-right measuring scale of economics is       " Corrupt crony capitalism" which was the obvious end point of the neoliberal construct.   Semi monopolistic businesses living it large on government contracts, all given in the Tory/Eton golf courses and sleazy steam rooms. Monitisation of everything and perma-debt for the rest of society. All held together with lies and a massive right wing crony media/propaganda machine.

[Warlord]

23 hours ago, Dorkins said:

This is a silly claim, command economies may not be very efficient but they definitely can produce things in the sense of turning raw materials, labour and capital into useful goods and services. How many factories and how much mechanised agriculture did the USSR inherit from Tsarist Russia? Pretty much none, the USSR did that economic development itself.

Ultimately all economic systems are just different ways of digesting the huge free lunch provided by the big bang in the form of chemical elements, light from the sun, plant and animal species to exploit etc.

Dorkins, if you have time watch the lecture. He gives examples where the managers in these command economies lie about their quotas or you get weird distortions like large clothing to make good use of the materials (most of it totally wasted and unnecessary) ...  

It just doesn't work without prices and yes, they kept it going for 70 years but eventually Mises was proven right and in the 20's that wasn't a popular thing to say. Mises was shunned.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Warlord

[Riedquat]

2 minutes ago, Warlord said:

Dorkins, if you have time watch the lecture. He gives examples where the managers in these command economies lie about their quotas or you get weird distortions like large clothing to make good use of the materials (most of it totally wasted and unnecessary) ...  

It just doesn't work without prices and yes, they kept it going for 70 years but eventually Mises was proven right and in the 20's that wasn't a popular thing to say. Mises was shunned.

No, all that demonstrates is that a command economy is a pretty inefficient system, not that it's 100% negative and produces nothing. It wouldn't have lasted 70 years if that was the case.

As I've said often enough any 100% extreme anything isn't going to work very well, that's not a good argument for saying anything vaguely associated with it is wrong though. Just as that extreme socialism results in inefficiency and waste and so on extreme capitalism (and the way it's worded often sounds little different to anarchy) results in monopolies, power concentrated in the few, cronyism and so on.

Not having an extreme one or the other doesn't mean none of that happens (as we can see  easily enough just by looking around); no idea doesn't have its downsides, so all you can do in reality is to try to find a good balance and constantly, actively work to mitigate the issues.

I think that last part - constantly working to mitigate the issues - is the part many people have a problem with. The idea of a simple system that can be left to its own devices, where we never have to make decisions without an ideology telling us exactly what the right decision should be - where the possibility exists that we might make the wrong one for reasons other than "I didn't follow the rulebook exactly" - people don't like that. It provides no certainty and it requires responsibility and accepting that sh1t happens.

[zugzwang]

19 minutes ago, Warlord said:

Dorkins, if you have time watch the lecture. He gives examples where the managers in these command economies lie about their quotas or you get weird distortions like large clothing to make good use of the materials (most of it totally wasted and unnecessary) ...  

It just doesn't work without prices and yes, they kept it going for 70 years but eventually Mises was proven right and in the 20's that wasn't a popular thing to say. Mises was shunned.

Mises was wrong. The USSR did have a pricing mechanism after 1921. It didn't collapse as he'd forecast but electrified, modernised and went on to defeat Nazism.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 was a political failure not an economic failure. The precipitate economic decline happened in the decade that followed under Yeltsin.

[Warlord]

9 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

Mises was wrong. The USSR did have a pricing mechanism after 1921. It didn't collapse as he'd forecast but electrified, modernised and went on to defeat Nazism.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 was a political failure not an economic failure. The precipitate economic decline happened in the decade that followed under Yeltsin.

You still haven't explained why Cubans are waving US flags and demanding an end to socialism on the island or the looting in South Africa or when Chavez destroyed Venezuela with socialism, or Mugabe with Zimbabwe. 
 

Great system

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Warlord

[winkie]

Anyone read Viktor Shvets book....not done so myself, looks just a bit different, strange times.

[Staffsknot]

30 minutes ago, Warlord said:

You still haven't explained why Cubans are waving US flags and demanding an end to socialism on the island or the looting in South Africa or when Chavez destroyed Venezuela with socialism, or Mugabe with Zimbabwe. 
 

Great system

 

Sanctions maybe just a guess.

Mugabe's Zimbabwe and SA were / are not socialist systems either.

Mugabe just rewarded his friends and ran the country for himself.

SA is western style capitalism - they got involved in several wars to prevent socialist / communist factions taking over in those countries like Angola.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Staffsknot

[Riedquat]

32 minutes ago, Warlord said:

You still haven't explained why Cubans are waving US flags and demanding an end to socialism on the island or the looting in South Africa or when Chavez destroyed Venezuela with socialism, or Mugabe with Zimbabwe. 
 

Great system

Moving the goalposts a bit there, from saying it cannot possibly work to not being a great system.

[zugzwang]

Just now, Warlord said:

You still haven't explained why Cubans are waving US flags and demanding an end to socialism on the island or the looting in South Africa or when Chavez destroyed Venezuela with socialism, or Mugabe with Zimbabwe. 
 

Great system

 

 

Socialism didn't destroy Venezuela. The oil industry and the cult of the strong man destroyed Venezuela.

Cuba has been in an undeclared war with the US for sixty years. The post-apartheid looting in South Africa is nothing when compared with the pre-apartheid looting of South Africa.

None of which has any bearing on the UK's current economic plight.

 

[Warlord]

43 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

 

Socialism didn't destroy Venezuela. The oil industry and the cult of the strong man destroyed Venezuela.

Cuba has been in an undeclared war with the US for sixty years. The post-apartheid looting in South Africa is nothing when compared with the pre-apartheid looting of South Africa.

None of which has any bearing on the UK's current economic plight.

 

Always an excuse.... the root cause is socialism or communism. They all have that in common and as Mises says it destroys everything until citizens are eating out of rubbish bins (literally... as in North Korea another command economy)

 

Wake up

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Warlord

[Staffsknot]

4 minutes ago, Warlord said:

Always an excuse.... the root cause is socialism or communism. They all have that in common and as Mises says it destroys everything until citizens are eating out of rubbish bins (literally... as in North Korea another command economy)

 

Wake up

 

That's utter crap as take Cuba - what we have is US sanctions trying to cripple the country.

Saying Communism killed Cuba is like starving a candle of oxygen and claiming its bad wax.

SA looting is not socialism its opportunism.

Venezuela again US sanctions again and a narcissist.

Do you have an example where the yanks haven't meddled?

[sexton]

34 minutes ago, Staffsknot said:

That's utter crap as take Cuba - what we have is US sanctions trying to cripple the country.

Saying Communism killed Cuba is like starving a candle of oxygen and claiming its bad wax.

SA looting is not socialism its opportunism.

Venezuela again US sanctions again and a narcissist.

Do you have an example where the yanks haven't meddled?

+1

[debtlessmanc]

49 minutes ago, Staffsknot said:

That's utter crap as take Cuba - what we have is US sanctions trying to cripple the country.

Saying Communism killed Cuba is like starving a candle of oxygen and claiming its bad wax.

SA looting is not socialism its opportunism.

Venezuela again US sanctions again and a narcissist.

Do you have an example where the yanks haven't meddled?

The Soviet union?

at least its not obvious who meddled the most with whom.You only need to hang out with the far left for a short time to see how dangerous they are. The Soviet union did not have any Billionaires, but they had people with as many armed guards, Dacha's, vanity projects and private jets as the west did. Incidentally i believe the EU commissioners use personal jets.

meanwhile Boris is nationalising the steel industry

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/28/sheffield-forgemasters-nationalised-after-takeover-ministry-of-defence

edit to add- i was right

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-plans-to-spend-more-on-private-jets-for-top-officials-ursula-von-der-leyen-jean-claude-juncker-european-commission-climate-change/

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by debtlessmanc

[Staffsknot]

16 minutes ago, debtlessmanc said:

The Soviet union?

at least its not obvious who meddled the most with whom.You only need to hang out with the far left for a short time to see how dangerous they are. The Soviet union did not have any Billionaires, but they had people with as many armed guards, Dacha's, vanity projects and private jets as the west did. Incidentally i believe the EU commissioners use personal jets.

meanwhile Boris is nationalising the steel industry

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/28/sheffield-forgemasters-nationalised-after-takeover-ministry-of-defence

edit to add- i was right

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-plans-to-spend-more-on-private-jets-for-top-officials-ursula-von-der-leyen-jean-claude-juncker-european-commission-climate-change/

 

 

 

Jesus that's your I'm right...

Manc the US and USSR were involved in a cold war which involved spending vast fortunes trying to outdo one another and actively meddling and thwarting one another. 

How is that not an example of the US meddling.

More to the point what has that EU post got to do with my point or are we going down another EU = USSR in Europe = Evil rabbithole of nonsense. If so there's a thread for that already.

 

[Riedquat]

1 hour ago, Warlord said:

Always an excuse.... the root cause is socialism or communism. They all have that in common and as Mises says it destroys everything until citizens are eating out of rubbish bins (literally... as in North Korea another command economy)

 

Wake up

Sorry, still no evidence that it "destroys everything" even if you reject all the interfering that goes on with all countries throughout the world. All you can say for sure is that it's less efficient (both with supporting itself and when it comes to ideology clashes).

[tomandlu]

I'll go with Riedquat on this - avoid extremes.

I count myself as both a capitalist and a socialist - it's just a question of recognising which solution is better for a particular problem. Broadly speaking, infrastructure and essential services are better managed by the state. These are required resources, or resources that cannot be truly competitive (roads, rail, water, power, schools, health).

Where genuine competition can exist, I favour the free-market.

The bottom line is that any 'ideal' system is inherently flawed by its own dogmatism, if for no other reason than that such dogmatism assumes perfection, and therefore cannot countenance change or debate.

As an aside, currently, it seems to be the free-marketeers that ere on the side of absurdity - how much more state money must be thrown to the 'free market' running privatised services to make them successful capitalist enterprises?

[nickb1]

If socialism destroys everything it has done so thus far to a far lesser degree than capitalism, which has unleashed concentrations of greenhouse gases not seen for millions of years. Not that "socialism" has a good environmental record, if you look at most COMECON economies. But it seems absurd to go around saying that "socialism destroys everything" when we don't have a socialist global economy, and the capitalist one we do have is clearly ... destroying everything.

[zugzwang]

1 hour ago, Warlord said:

Always an excuse.... the root cause is socialism or communism. They all have that in common and as Mises says it destroys everything until citizens are eating out of rubbish bins (literally... as in North Korea another command economy)

 

Wake up

 

 

The UK hasn't elected a socialist govt in almost half a century!

The US has never had one.

Yet both countries appear to be racing toward bankruptcy at a furious clip. How can this be anything other than a crisis of capitalism?

As for food insecurity? It's never been worse in my lifetime.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/wires/pa/article-9812287/Map-reveals-UK-residents-struggling-access-food.html

 

 

[nickb1]

On 26/07/2021 at 09:16, Warlord said:

Why are Cubans protesting/rioting and waving American flags?
 

They're demanding freedom and capitalism! Had enough!  @zugzwang @Postman

are they? the ones in Miami? what about "selection bias"? 

[debtlessmanc]

41 minutes ago, Staffsknot said:

Jesus that's your I'm right...

Manc the US and USSR were involved in a cold war which involved spending vast fortunes trying to outdo one another and actively meddling and thwarting one another. 

 

 

What was their excuse in the 1920's and 30's ? this is when first Lenin and then Stalin attempted to shoot anyone with any ambitions to create the perfect socialist society.  This lead first to the mass famine on 1921-22 mainly caused by the inability of the socialist state to respond to demand. That killed 5m. Lenin's response was to seize and sell almost any private asset eg the entire contents of russian churches destroying hundreds of years of cultural artifacts. Always the same response from communists, seize any apparent wealth and persecute those that owned it.

Communists seem to have no perception of what makes people tick. A very simple test is to propose that raising taxes on the rich might be counterproductive. It does not seem to compute that wealthier people might make a value judgement about working that extra day or two a week for very little return. Its like they believe that the only reason anyone is wealthy is raw naked greed at the cost of all others.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by debtlessmanc

[Pop321]

13 minutes ago, nickb1 said:

If socialism destroys everything it has done so thus far to a far lesser degree than capitalism, which has unleashed concentrations of greenhouse gases not seen for millions of years. Not that "socialism" has a good environmental record, if you look at most COMECON economies. But it seems absurd to go around saying that "socialism destroys everything" when we don't have a socialist global economy, and the capitalist one we do have is clearly ... destroying everything.

Your ‘wider view’ ie environmental issues may well be the true deciding factor. It may require a third way. 

In 300 years time we may live in a non monetary utopia (neither socialist nor capitalist) and humans have been saved from an environmental disaster….or alternatively Waterworld here we come. 

[MancTom]

2 hours ago, Warlord said:

Always an excuse.... the root cause is socialism or communism. They all have that in common and as Mises says it destroys everything until citizens are eating out of rubbish bins (literally... as in North Korea another command economy)

 

Wake up

 

Venezuela was already a mess before the sanctions. I recall reading how the regime did the usual socialist thing of sacking all the evil capitalist oil experts and putting their own unqualified people in charge  - and ended up with the predictable result.

You can still argue the sanctions are wrong though - they have made Venezuelans citizens lives even worse and have failed to achieve their objective of regime change. So if it can't achieve the latter what exactly is the justification for them?

 

 

[Locke]

2 minutes ago, Pop321 said:

Your ‘wider view’ ie environmental issues may well be the true deciding factor. It may require a third way. 

In 300 years time we may live in a non monetary utopia (neither socialist nor capitalist) and humans have been saved from an environmental disaster….or alternatively Waterworld here we come. 

Lol. 

Even if we do come out of the current ice age, it won't be that dramatic.

[katchytitle]

2 minutes ago, Pop321 said:

Your ‘wider view’ ie environmental issues may well be the true deciding factor. It may require a third way. 

In 300 years time we may live in a non monetary utopia (neither socialist nor capitalist) and humans have been saved from an environmental disaster….or alternatively Waterworld here we come. 

These views have been debated by intellectuals many many times. Such as the points below. Wish there was an answer to human problems like this but history has taught us that humans constantly cycle through power struggles. I'm sure some enterprising person on here has an answer to all these issues with both systems (probably by becoming a dictator) :

1. Socialism doesn't work because other countries are capitalist and aim to destroy anyone who tries e.g withdraw from IMF loans / payments for oil on SWIFT.

2. Capitalism emphasises short term growth and therefore gets adopted easily as people are incentivised to "get something now and forget about the future". But duplication of everything in each country is inefficient and competitive advantage for what each nation is good at is probably a useful thing.

Note: You can see if in environmentalism (even ignoring climate change it was pretty clear you can't endless mine, destroy and build without a consequence). You call this negative externality in economics and government should be there to attribute a long term cost to this within capitalism so it can be paid for i.e. decommissioning costs of a nuclear power plan or replanting trees or habitat after destruction. But government need to get elected and use capitalism to pay the bills and neglect long term decision making.

3. Socialism doesn't work because people are lazy and what something for nothing

4. Capitalism is too harsh on people who have nothing - especially when things happen that aren't their fault e.g financial crisis or health care for terminal illness

5.  Capitalism has captured government as the type of person who becomes a politican today is not connected to the community they are supposed to represent; instead democratic seats are just an endless game between two parties for power rather than for the common good. Rome was a pretty good example of this during Julius Cesar's time.

6. We can't offer everyone a middle class standard of living therefore we need capitalism to create some meritocracy (Even if it is skewed its the best system we have)

7. Capitalism alleviated a huge amount of poverty globally in the last 100 years. Counterpoint with people were actually exploited to provide services to Western people at their own countries expense.

 

 

[nickb1]

10 minutes ago, Locke said:

Lol. 

Even if we do come out of the current ice age, it won't be that dramatic.

I'll take an internet keyboard warrior's view over scientists' any day. Who needs experts, right? Fact is, it's already dramatic.