Capitalism versus Communism Thread.

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That's funny, according to the Index of Economic Freedom, you're more of a free market than the USA is.

[img][800:456]http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/9927/denmarky.png[/img]

Economic freedom is actually quite far removed from the mythical Free Market. If anything there is an inverse relationship. To the extent that free market zealots find success in forcing their agenda down our throats, we lose economic freedom. There are a lot more data points involved, aside from the narrow ideals of the so called free market.

never said we didnt have economic freedom,
which is kinda my point, they arent mutually exclusive at all.
one needs a free market to support the social initiatives of the state.

That made absolutely no sense. You can't 'force' free markets on people.

In fact, under a free market, you can go live in a commune if you want. I'm sure there are plenty of hippie communes out there that you can join.

The reverse is not true though - I can't trade freely and own capital under a communist system.




When a state intervenes in its economy, that is by definition the opposite of free trade. So yes, they are mutually exclusive - The more your government intervenes, the less free your economy is.

how come denmark has a higher economic freedom then?
our state uses heavy market regulation, (dunno how heavy it is in the us)
we also have various forms of redistribution and pretty much anything that can function as a social service instead of a buisness, does.
though in recent years these areas have become more and more open to private contracting as well.

you can easily combine socialism and economic freedom, in fact depending on what variables you look at it can even bring more.

free education being one such example.

Oodain is trying to explain it to you, and doing a better job than I probably could. The problem is that you're equating the freedom of the market with the freedom of the person. They are often in conflict.

You don't have to refute it. It's the truth. I live in the middle of a capitalist country,


Pathetic arguement--and very RUDE by the way. My parents didn't "spend their way into debt" by purchasing unnecessary things that the capitalist, consumer culture insists we need. These bills were necessities, unless we want to live in a cardboard box, not eat, freeze to death in the frigid winters, have no water, etc. He worked to pay for necessities. Communism would have set up a system that would have allowed us to get these things without working to death.


According to capitalism? By privately monopolizing every last resource and taking advantage of as many of those 7 billion people as you possibly can. That is how the free market works. If everything is publicly owned, and people only take what they need without living such over-indulgent, lavish lifestyles that capitalism has produced, then it would be much more simple to keep things under control. If all 7 billion people lived like the average American, the planet would have been dead long ago!


Not if it is done correctly. The current capitalist system also has faults. A select few get most of the resources, while the majority must do without. It is leading to malnutrition and hunger in capitalist societies as well. If you don't see it, you must not be looking hard enough. Seeing as how all the poor people have to live on unhealthy, budget-friendly diets. Food banks do not generally provide fresh things, but processed, boxed junk instead. Yes, it is something, but generations of living on processed rubbish is a capitalist-based food crisis as well. Not to mention that many people also just starve to death here too because the government is under no obligation to provide the necessities of life.


That was communism done wrong, if it is true and not exaggerated. I have already said not all communists do it right, and certainly not all capitalists do it right either. Likewise, around here--a capitalist country, not a communist one--our population is actually shrinking around here because all of our jobs are being sent (via the free market of capitalism) elsewhere. Even so, the private developers do not cease to rip down our forests and build concrete jungles in their place. Apartment buildings and condos are popping up everywhere. Several new ones every week! Why, when our population is DECLINING?? Because they can....and because it is all about the money. People leave their houses to move into these apartment buildings. The developers get money, and the resources are wasted. All in the name of capitalism.


In a correct communist society, this would not happen. Competition is not a good thing, IMO. Take the farmers for example. The big guys crush the little guys. The little guys are forced to find another trade, while the big guys monopolize the industry, producing far fewer crops (variety wise) at less quality. Consumers are forced to pay top dollar for worse quality.


That is not true. I definitely do not hold Mao up to be the role model for communism. In fact, I think a lot of people have corrupted what would be a fantastic thing, and it has yet to be realized as it was meant to be. Famine is all over the world, not just in China. Here in this capitalist country, a lot of people have plenty to eat. A lot of people do not. Because it is all about consumerism and money, the government is under no obligation whatsoever to give the masses of starving people any food. What food they do get is of poor quality because it is all highly processed and boxed for preservation purposes. Some will sometimes get meals through a charity such as a soup kitchen....if they are lucky...if they make it there on time. If they do not, they go to sleep hungry, under a raggedy blanket on the sidewalk, while the politicians and the mass producers sleep in warm mansions (far too big for their tiny families!) with good food filling their bellies. The capitalist system has many flaws, and it is far FAR from perfect!

Democracy =One vote, one value for all regardless of their personal fortune/wealth.
Capitalism buys votes, power and influence with the more money you have the more political power and votes you can obtain through propaganda.

Capitalism != Democracy
Economic freedom != Individual freedom.
Libertarians push the myth that Economic freedom equals Individual freedom. We all know that is not the case.

If I'm understanding what you mean about price signals, then actually I agree with you. Yet I still think of myself as a border-line socialist. It's just that I prefer the ideas of market socialism--where there is still a market economy, but it is run by a mixture of government owned corporations and cooperatives. That way you still have market forces creating incentives to produce and helping to improve the efficiency/cost of production. If non-market socialism is ever developed then I think that market socialism would probably have to be used first, as a transitional stage.

That misconception is so wide-spread. It pained me every time my history teacher said something along those lines. I mean, there is such a thing as democratic socialism (although only a few countries have had the chance to try it) and there are non-democratic capitalist societies. China is increasingly capitalist, without being any more democratic (although I admit people are getting more personal freedoms--just no say over government). Aren't some of the Middle Eastern dictatorships capitalist societies too?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wghs9xJqQoI[/youtube]

Since this is an autistic forum, I'm sure you will understand that it wasn't intentionally rude.

It wasn't an argument, either. I don't know enough about your circumstances and cannot make an actual argument until I know more. I simply need more information, for example, how many siblings did you grow up with?

Your personal anecdote isn't an argument, anyway. When comparing economic systems, you need to compare the statistics of each population on the whole.


No, that isn't how it works, and you're spouting the same fallacious arguments as every other economic illiterate I've debated.


How do you allocate resources correctly? Can you tell me that?


No, you're thinking of corporatism, which is the actual system used in the USA. Only under corporatism can a few become obscenely rich, due to regulatory barriers to entry. A regulatory barrier to entry is a law enforced by a government that hinders free trade in favour of one corporation over others. An example would be this: http://www.easyjet.com/en/news/easyjet_ ... opoly.html
As you can see, the French government (quite blatantly) prevented easyJet from entering the market and competing with AirFrance, granting AirFrance a monopoly. This is how monopolies form, they don't form naturally in a free market.

Why don't they form in a free market? Because as a corporation gets bigger, the cost of buying out the market increases. This concept can be observed in a game of Monopoly - If you own two of the same colour squares, the person that owns the third square knows they can charge you a lot more to buy it. The same principle occurs in a real market, if I try to buy out the market, competitors see this and know they can charge me more.

Not only this, but as I buy out the market I accumulate debt due to the increasing cost. Due to this I must increase the price of my goods/services in order to pay off this debt, which means I am easier to compete with, so my competitors simply steal the market from me.

Competition always trumps monopolization in a free market.


That is patently false, capitalist countries have the highest standards of living in the world.

I took the liberty of finding out which country you live in, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe it's Canada. Canada has the eighth highest HDI, which means it has one of the highest standards of living in the world.

These two images are going to entirely break your false premise regarding capitalist countries.

First, here's a map of countries by HDI. Dark green is high, yellow is medium, red is low, and black is abysmal. Grey indicates no data.

[img][800:652]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/UN_Human_Development_Report_2010_1.PNG[/img]


Next, here's a map of countries by economic freedom that I already posted a few pages back:

[img][800:625]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Index_of_Economic_Freedom_2010.png[/img]


Notice the correlation? Capitalist countries do not suffer from hunger or malnourishment. Want to find a country that does? It's exactly in the countries that adopt a system like communism. The Soviet famine and the breadlines of Soviet Russia, The Great Chinese famine, the 'Special Period' in Cuba, the list goes on. Communism creates famine and lower standards of living. Can you name me one famine that occurred in a free market country?


Tell me how to do communism right, then. If you're so sure that Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and the rest of them were all wrong, tell me what they did wrong and how you would've done it. Proclaiming communism was done incorrectly every time its been tried throughout history is not an argument.


'Capitalists' can't do it right because 'capitalists' don't do anything. And by 'capitalist' I'm assuming you're referring to an advocate of capitalism. A free market is not centrally planned, therefore by definition you can't do it right or wrong. It's only when government interferes in free trade that bad things happen.


If you do live in Canada, then that's another blatant lie, as can been shown from these Canadian population statistics:




When jobs are shipped elsewhere it's because there are people living in third world countries that are working for a few cents a day and want a better life for them and their family, so they will happily do your job for less than you. This is only a problem because third world countries have been kept in repressive socialist regimes for so long that their citizens are living in poverty and will do anything for a better job, so corporations are presented with a huge source of cheap labour.

Products are actually produced far more cheaply because of this, though, so it actually benefits society on the whole. Let's use shoes as an example. If shoes are made by a rich 'westerner' that demands a bucketload of money, then they're going to cost a lot for the person that buys them. If they're made by a poor man in a third world country, they're going to cost many orders of magnitude less. And that poor man is actually making more money than he used to (which is why he would even agree to work for so little in the first place), so he's benefiting too. The only person complaining is the greedy 'westerner' that can't make as much money anymore.


That makes no sense. If there was no demand for apartment buildings, there would be no money in building them, and therefore entrepreneurs would not build them. Either the entrepreneurs are acting irrationally and losing lots of money, or you're wrong about the population decline (as I've already shown).


First, what correct communist society? You keep talking about it, so you need to tell me what it is!

Second, if a farmer gets 'crushed' by competition, it means he wasn't doing a good job. It means the person that crushed them was doing a better job. I don't know about you, but I would rather not have to pay more for my food so the incompetent farmers can be given as much as their more competent rivals.

Third, your statement about quality is completely silly. If I produce poor quality food, it means anyone can easily enter the market and compete with me by producing better quality food. That's exactly what competition does - It prevents poor quality goods from being produced, because consumers will always buy the better quality goods, leaving the producers of poor quality goods without a profit.


There you go again. You can't espouse a 'better' system of communism when you can't even tell me what it is!

As for these starving people, can you give me a source? Or do you consider your personal anecdote a refutation of capitalism?