• Poll: More Democrats Now Favor Socialism Than Capitalism
    250 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Xystus234;48982469]What the fuck are you doing to pay that much in taxes. I'm an independent contractor and I'm still paying a tenth of what I earn in taxes every year, along with minor things like sales tax, and a $60 tax for my car every month. You're criticism of state facilities is somewhat valid, however, the DMV is ridiculous. Is California that stupid? Cause over here in Virginia it's not like that, but it's still stupidly expensive for everything else, I'm just not paying it to the government is all.[/QUOTE] no he's just too stupid to use deductions right
[QUOTE=Sableye;48982988]no he's just too stupid to use deductions right[/QUOTE] Please, Mr. tax man, tell me a deduction that I'm missing because I don't think you have a single clue. I'll state right off the bat that I don't have any dependants.
[QUOTE=Kentz;48975890]why be skeptical of one financially and power hungry motivated group (bankers, corporations as you call them) but totally naive to the other financially and power hungry motivated group (government)?[/QUOTE] because the corporations (which you refer to as bankers for some reason) are the ones that are providing the outrageous amounts of money to the government in the first place?
[QUOTE=sgman91;48983004]Please, Mr. tax man, tell me a deduction that I'm missing because I don't think you have a single clue. I'll state right off the bat that I don't have any dependants.[/QUOTE] for one, you're going to get a tax return if you diligently pay all your taxes in full like you say you do, other than that, i don't know enough about you to deduce anything anyways you're bitching about taxes when you live in the most expensive place in america, its exactly why we need to do something about run away prices and stagnant wages. san fransisco and its surrounding areas are the cities of the rich anymore, normal people can't afford a bed in SF let alone a house, and not everyone living there can work at facebook, apple, tesla, ect ect, there are thousands of service workers barely making ends meat and the cost of living there is so much they can't even live in the city they work in
[QUOTE=Sableye;48983602]for one, you're going to get a tax return if you diligently pay all your taxes in full like you say you do[/QUOTE] Refunds have literally nothing to do with how much taxes you pay. It just means you paid it during the year instead of at tax time. The time that I choose to pay my taxes has nothing to do with the amount that I pay. [QUOTE]anyways you're bitching about taxes when you live in the most expensive place in america, its exactly why we need to do something about run away prices and stagnant wages[/QUOTE] Yes, I live in a place where I get to both pay a ton of my money to the government AND pay higher prices partly because of the governmental regulatory/taxation burden on the goods that I buy.
[QUOTE=Kentz;48975890]why be skeptical of one financially and power hungry motivated group (bankers, corporations as you call them) but totally naive to the other financially and power hungry motivated group (government)?[/QUOTE] Because one just wants your money and will do absolutely anything to get it and the other has an actual obligation to fucking help you. Kentz, you are the craziest supporter of capitalism I've ever seen. I'm sure there's worse out on the internet but you are the most insane that I know of.
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;48983684]Because one just wants your money and will do absolutely anything to get it and the other has an actual obligation to fucking help you. Kentz, you are the craziest supporter of capitalism I've ever seen. I'm sure there's worse out on the internet but you are the most insane that I know of.[/QUOTE] Businesses have far more of an obligation to "help you" than government does. Think of the ramifications for both. If a business does nothing for you, then it literally dies. On the other hand, the vast majority of bureaucrats aren't effected at all if the government doesn't "help" you. They aren't elected and their positions don't depend on hard results. Why are private schools better than public schools even though they receive less money per student on average? Because they literally have to be. If they weren't, then people would stop sending their kids there.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48983703]Businesses have far more of an obligation to "help you" than government does. Think of the ramifications for both. If a business does nothing for you, then it literally dies. On the other hand, the vast majority of bureaucrats aren't effected at all if the government doesn't "help" you. They aren't elected and their positions don't depend on hard results.[/QUOTE] Ideally they die. They don't always and if they got large enough, couldn't. Let me ask you, do you think the financial industry, banking, insurance, credit unions, should that all be left up to the businesses to decide how best to run their operations? Without any significant government oversight?
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48983711]Ideally they die. They don't always and if they got large enough, couldn't. Let me ask you, do you think the financial industry, banking, insurance, credit unions, should that all be left up to the businesses to decide how best to run their operations? Without any significant government oversight?[/QUOTE] Honestly, it's tough to even understand what an unregulated system would look like because the government is so involved. I just don't the answer, but I do know that since the creation of the fed our economy hasn't been any more stable than it was beforehand. It could even be argued, and is by well educated economists, that the great depression can have a large portion of it attributed to government intervention after the initial crash.
So because of your analogy with private schools, should public schools die so that people have to send their kids there? They only die if they're bad because of the inherit competition of a public system also existing. If they were the only schools available, you can be 100% sure the nation would be in a worse position. Is Canada some kind of desolate burning hole in the ground because we heavily regulate our industries in most cases because we as citizens want that, and we as citizens, have more than a few times, experienced corporations treating us unfairly, and had no economic recourse so we used political recourses. Is that wrong? Is that bad? Should we not do this? Should we just say "yes companies, do whatever you want while we wait for competition to come into the area, lets ignore the reality that you have some ability as a very large organization, to control the market in that region"? Because yes, those things happened. [editline]25th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=sgman91;48983717]Honestly, it's tough to even understand what an unregulated system would look like because the government is so involved. I just don't the answer, but I do know that since the creation of the fed our economy hasn't been any more stable than it was beforehand. It could even be argued, and is by well educated economists, that the great depression can have a large portion of it attributed to government intervention after the initial crash.[/QUOTE] Well I can tell you that as it is now, with the level of regulation that exists in the US as it is, there's multiple insurances companies who took premiums for years, and ran away with the money because no one was really there to watch over their finances and make sure they were doing what they were supposed to. Now, the capitalist answer to that is "you have to educate yourself about these things and be informed of what the companies are doing" but that's strictly not feasible in the modern world. Insurance, finances, these things NEED regulation or else they collapse. You can argue this til you're blue in the face, but some things need to be regulated by governements or overwatch bodies because the companies aren't really operating at a level that an average consumer can understand. I mean, you, and I, and Alan fucking Greenspan, between the 3 of us, we still don't know how "Derivatives" really work, and that's a product of de-regulation of industry. that's clearly something that needs to be regulated. Finances and what not are obvious. Do you think the EPA shouldn't exist? Do you think if we just went off what Exxon Mobile said for the rest of our future, that'd be for the best because of some capitalist nature that will cause competition and remove the strict hold on internal information they have just because "competition"? Like I am all for capitalism, more so than i've ever been in my life, but I can't, for the life of me, understand how you could advocate for total deregulation. We clearly live in different countries and areas because here, what the government has done to help us in our financial sectors, and environment(Failed for 10 years under Harper) has helped us a lot.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48983703]Businesses have far more of an obligation to "help you" than government does. Think of the ramifications for both. If a business does nothing for you, then it literally dies. On the other hand, the vast majority of bureaucrats aren't effected at all if the government doesn't "help" you. They aren't elected and their positions don't depend on hard results. Why are private schools better than public schools even though they receive less money per student on average? Because they literally have to be. If they weren't, then people would stop sending their kids there.[/QUOTE] you're going to have to back that up, because every private school i know of has less than 300 kids and the tuition is at least 15,000 a year or more, they're getting much more money per student than public schools do, plus many states have had voucher programs lobbied in, allowing these schools to siphon money away from the public schools making them even worse charter schools do generally receive less federal funding, but they often do not take students with disabilities, so the cost per student is lower, and the amount of students they have is also much lower than public schools
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48983720]So because of your analogy with private schools, should public schools die so that people have to send their kids there? They only die if they're bad because of the inherit competition of a public system also existing. If they were the only schools available, you can be 100% sure the nation would be in a worse position.[/QUOTE] Saying that public schooling is necessary is a different argument to saying that government is more responsible than business. If we were to collect all the money currently spent on public schools and replaced them with comparable private schools (paid for by a voucher system) we should expect an increase in quality and a decrease in price along with continued competition and drive to get better and better. [QUOTE]Is Canada some kind of desolate burning hole in the ground because we heavily regulate our industries in most cases because we as citizens want that, and we as citizens, have more than a few times, experienced corporations treating us unfairly, and had no economic recourse so we used political recourses. Is that wrong? Is that bad? Should we not do this? Should we just say "yes companies, do whatever you want while we wait for competition to come into the area, lets ignore the reality that you have some ability as a very large organization, to control the market in that region"? Because yes, those things happened.[/QUOTE] Economics isn't in the business of answering "should" questions. That's the job of moral theory. Is your goal economic growth? Then, yes, heavily regulating your industry will hurt that goal. Is your goal social stability with the expense of economic growth? Then more regulation is probably better. Also, as I've said many times, there's no example of a monopoly that wasn't either direction or indirectly helped by the government and/or actually provided the best service available.
[QUOTE=sgman91;48983760]government and/or actually provided the best service available.[/QUOTE] Providing the best service is an excuse for charging whatever you want because you have market dominance? Wow. What...? Like, I'm sorry but I'm speechless to that kind of logic. Yes, many are propped up by governments. That they fucking bought and paid for because in a capitalist society, lobbyism is a requirement for corporations more so than anyone else, to ensure that as times and technology change that things are kept updated. If profits your motive, as corporations and america desires, then clearly, you must do that on the bodies and bones of the lower class as they cannot afford to lobby for efforts that would save them. I want to live in a country with stable social elements and a good industry. Oh shit, I lucked out, this one has that, and is capable of growing and getting stronger as time goes on. I don't want to live in a country where I'm disposable because I'm not a multimillionaire with capital for investments. I don't want to live in a country where the mantra literally is a paradoxically impossible "BOOTSTRAPS BOOTSTRAPS BOOTSTRAPS". Canada works out pretty well, we suffered through a financial crisis better than you did due to our regulation, our oversight of our financial industry.
[QUOTE=Sableye;48983757]you're going to have to back that up, because every private school i know of has less than 300 kids and the tuition is at least 15,000 a year or more, they're getting much more money per student than public schools do, plus many states have had voucher programs lobbied in, allowing these schools to siphon money away from the public schools making them even worse[/QUOTE] Private high schools averaged $10,940/student for elementary and secondary schools in 2011-2012 ([URL]https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_205.50.asp[/URL]) Public high schools averaged $11,153/pupil for elementary and secondary schools in 2010-2011 ([URL]https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_236.15.asp[/URL]) I chose these numbers because they were the newest, non-projected, stats in the official database. [editline]25th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48983802]Providing the best service is an excuse for charging whatever you want because you have market dominance? Wow. What...? Like, I'm sorry but I'm speechless to that kind of logic.[/QUOTE] Well, it's a good thing I didn't say that then! Part of providing the best service is price. I always use Standard Oil as my example since it's so commonly held up as a great use of anti-trust measures. When Standard Oil had it's biggest monopoly it was also selling oil at a higher quality and for a cheaper price than it had ever been sold at before. By the time the government came in to break them up the company had already lost an incredibly large portion of it's market share naturally because they had lost that competitive edge. The trust-busters came in and claimed credit for something that the market was already taking care of. [QUOTE]Yes, many are propped up by governments. That they fucking bought and paid for because in a capitalist society, lobbyism is a requirement for corporations more so than anyone else, to ensure that as times and technology change that things are kept updated. If profits your motive, as corporations and america desires, then clearly, you must do that on the bodies and bones of the lower class as they cannot afford to lobby for efforts that would save them. [/QUOTE] Lobbying is only useful if the government is powerful. The more regulatory power the government has in an industry the more incentive the corporations have in influencing it. [editline]25th October 2015[/editline] As a side note: Canada has been more conservative through the recession than the US in many ways.
[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;48982896]For the life of me I don't understand why you think that anarchism and socialism are similar. How would an anarcho-communist system even function (I know this is an ideology, but it has always seemed absurd to me)? How does a collective system, in which there are humans with their usual vices of greed and so on, function without people stealing or generally breaking down the collective system? In my opinion, all anarchy just tends towards banditry like in the previously mentioned Somalia, which is neither capitalist nor communist.[/QUOTE] The guy you replied to gave a nice reply but I feel like throwing a bit more into this also. I'll at least note before I do this that I'm not an anarchist of any sort, but I'll at least give the ideology a bit of defense against criticism. First of all the two ideas (anarchism and socialism) have a great link throughout their history. Both Marx and Bakunin were part of the First International, along with a number of other people who could be described as socialists, anarchists, or something like that. The two ideologies developed together, with many of the same goals, though certainly do have their differences (A marxist theory of the state v. anarchist one for example). Now as to how this anarcho-communism (or a similar ideology) would function. It would be pretty fair to say one key word to its functioning is decentralization. This would mean decisions made in a direct democratic way in a community and in factories, for example. So yeah, pretty simple there. Not going to really go into the possibility of this working, though many seem to be partial to a sort of system of councils. But how can this work! Did you think about human nature? Well yeah, it just so happens that within the past couple hundred years of theorizing about anarchism and socialism people did actually consider the idea of human nature. Here are two ideas I've seen about that (and I hope I'm not fucking them up too badly) First: If we are to consider that human nature is inherently greedy, why would we allow for the system of capitalism to continue? Capitalism is a system which allows for this greedy nature to move to the forefront with no stops to it, and actively encourages greed. If you are so concerned with greed, you ought to be concerned with capitalism. In an anarchist system, this greed would be ed-emphisized and controlled instead of being promoted. If you are to be greedy and attempt to do something 'wrong', then the community/collective would surely be right in stopping such an action. And either way, the system itself is based upon allowing you to get what you want and greed would therefore be pretty irrelevant. Second (I'm more partial to this one): The idea of human nature itself is poorly conceived. We live within a system that is constructed by mankind and a look at history would show that our 'nature' is relative to that system which is in place. There is not some pre-conceived human nature that rules all social orders. Our 'human nature' is shaped by material conditions and relations, appealing to it as it exists under the current system in order to attack a system which would have a fundamental different 'human nature' isn't a good argument to make. Just to add a little anarchist style to that argument, here's a quote from Emma Goldman [QUOTE]Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?[/QUOTE] Hopefully this post as a whole makes sense though and helps clear anything up.
With no state to perpetuate and enforce a given set of values, all you have left is the will of the people, and if those people choose anything that strays from your particular flavor of anarchy, that's it. You can't go back to the drawing board and do it better. What are you going to do, just try extra hard to make sure everyone knows how important your values are?
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;48983684]Because one just wants your money and will do absolutely anything to get it and the other has an actual obligation to fucking help you. Kentz, you are the craziest supporter of capitalism I've ever seen. I'm sure there's worse out on the internet but you are the most insane that I know of.[/QUOTE] the government also just wants your money thats wht literally everything you do or buy is taxed if government has an obligation to help you explain the worlds majority of governments that doesnt help you and even actively works to undermine you [editline]26th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Kyle902;48982699]How is it parasitic? Is healthcare being affordable to everyone parasitic and "statist"? Is giving opportunities to those born into less fortunate circumstance "statist and parasitic"? Hell I can argue the exact opposite in that the rich tend to leach off the poor on virtue of them getting rich on their labors while a good portion of them can't even afford to go to the hospital without massive debts.[/QUOTE] its parasitic because it can only exist via theft, unlike a business which exists when providing a service people are happy with do i want poor people to die? nope, i want them to prosper which they dont under socialism. [editline]26th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Lord of Ears;48983539]because the corporations (which you refer to as bankers for some reason) are the ones that are providing the outrageous amounts of money to the government in the first place?[/QUOTE] i dont understand this post
[QUOTE=Kentz;48982105]my employer pays ~35% tax on my income before i get it, and afterwards i pay 33% so its ~70% tax on my income if you earn 25 000 swedish crowns, the state steals 17 500 of those [/QUOTE] what the fuck? [editline]26th October 2015[/editline] :suicide:
[QUOTE=Swebonny;48985211]what the fuck? :suicide:[/QUOTE] [url]https://www.swedbank.se/om-swedbank/press/pressmeddelanden/?pressId=708015[/url]
[QUOTE=Octavius;48983999]The guy you replied to gave a nice reply but I feel like throwing a bit more into this also. I'll at least note before I do this that I'm not an anarchist of any sort, but I'll at least give the ideology a bit of defense against criticism. First of all the two ideas (anarchism and socialism) have a great link throughout their history. Both Marx and Bakunin were part of the First International, along with a number of other people who could be described as socialists, anarchists, or something like that. The two ideologies developed together, with many of the same goals, though certainly do have their differences (A marxist theory of the state v. anarchist one for example). Now as to how this anarcho-communism (or a similar ideology) would function. It would be pretty fair to say one key word to its functioning is decentralization. This would mean decisions made in a direct democratic way in a community and in factories, for example. So yeah, pretty simple there. Not going to really go into the possibility of this working, though many seem to be partial to a sort of system of councils. But how can this work! Did you think about human nature? Well yeah, it just so happens that within the past couple hundred years of theorizing about anarchism and socialism people did actually consider the idea of human nature. Here are two ideas I've seen about that (and I hope I'm not fucking them up too badly) First: If we are to consider that human nature is inherently greedy, why would we allow for the system of capitalism to continue? Capitalism is a system which allows for this greedy nature to move to the forefront with no stops to it, and actively encourages greed. If you are so concerned with greed, you ought to be concerned with capitalism. In an anarchist system, this greed would be ed-emphisized and controlled instead of being promoted. If you are to be greedy and attempt to do something 'wrong', then the community/collective would surely be right in stopping such an action. And either way, the system itself is based upon allowing you to get what you want and greed would therefore be pretty irrelevant. Second (I'm more partial to this one): The idea of human nature itself is poorly conceived. We live within a system that is constructed by mankind and a look at history would show that our 'nature' is relative to that system which is in place. There is not some pre-conceived human nature that rules all social orders. Our 'human nature' is shaped by material conditions and relations, appealing to it as it exists under the current system in order to attack a system which would have a fundamental different 'human nature' isn't a good argument to make. Just to add a little anarchist style to that argument, here's a quote from Emma Goldman Hopefully this post as a whole makes sense though and helps clear anything up.[/QUOTE] why on earth would society be compelled to come together and stop greed, violence and all 'bad' things in this world simply because the 'system' was different? there are too many people on this planet for anarchism to ever be a good idea. if it were 7000 and not 7 billion then maybe; but in reality all anarchist literature and theory are a pipe dream. state-driven capitalism and mixed market economies have more answers for the moral needs of a population than anarchism could ever provide, and unless the earth wants to be plunged into a life of agriculture, fear, unfettered violence and sadism, anarchism will never be a reality. look at countries in history that have revolted; those that retained the state have been far more successful than those that haven't. anyone that considers themselves to be educated should be able to see the flaws in anarchy almost instantly, it is incredible that we live in a world where lots of people still favour concepts like the removal of the state.
But you still just pay ~35%, the other 31% is paid by your employer. The article says that out of the 25000 you make, it creates 17500 worth of taxes. You're not left with just 7500 SEK. And no, taxes aren't thefts. [editline]26th October 2015[/editline] Furthermore, the payroll tax goes to all these things. Paid parental leave, paid sick leave, pension funds. [IMG]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3843429/ShareX/2015/10/2015-10-26_13-17-00.png[/IMG] And in the article you linked they break down where your tax money goes to. Is none of that important to you? I live in a private area where a lot if not all of the costs that goes towards our neighborhood comes from our own pockets. It's going to cost each of us 20,000 USD to get fiber internet. We pay from our own pockets to make people cut our grass and rake our leaves. We paid a 12,000 USD to get our road repaired. It's not really appealing at all. Oh sure, we get a tiny bit more freedom and I don't even know if we save any cash. Look at this, our municipality dragged fiber all over the place, they stopped right outside our neighborhood because muh private area. Every shitty apartment around us now has fiber, but we don't cause we wanted to save some tax cash (I assume). Now we gotta hire companies to do all this shit for us for some insane amount of cash. Woho! [IMG]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3843429/ShareX/2015/10/2015-10-26_13-31-37.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Kentz;48985181]the government also just wants your money thats wht literally everything you do or buy is taxed if government has an obligation to help you explain the worlds majority of governments that doesnt help you and even actively works to undermine you [/QUOTE] No, the government wants your money so it can reinvest it back into areas that can help you such a schools, roadways, and keeping corporations from completely fucking a consumer like you. All first world countries have governments that exist to help you. They provide you with so many daily and life long necessities that if taxes were to be completely dropped, you'd be fucked. There's no way any private contracters could swoop in without completely fucking a citizen like you by making you pay outrageous costs for whatever your using. How long is it going to take for people to repeat this over and over until you realize every once and a while you just might just want to swallow your pride and admit your wrong. Of course you could actually believe this shit in which case I think you might be stupid.
[QUOTE=Kentz;48985181] its parasitic because it can only exist via theft[/QUOTE] So universal healthcare, free college, and programs to help those with less then fortunate living circumstances are theft are they? What about other things your taxes go to like roads, electricity, police, and schools? [quote] , unlike a business which exists when providing a service people are happy with[/quote] To those who are fortunate enough to consistently afford them (spoilers, a lot of people can't, and not due to being lazy like you seem to think). Meanwhile everyone else is left exist in comparative squalor due to being unable to advance themselves to a position in which they can afford these services. [quote] do i want poor people to die? nope, i want them to prosper which they dont under socialism.[/quote] Yup because poor people clearly can't prosper with a system that has universal healthcare, free college, and social security. Poor people are totally doing fine nowadays what with being unable to afford basic necessities such as clean water and nutritious food. Poor people sure are doing fine when going to the hospital means that they'll have to sell half their possessions to repay their debts. They're doing fine when they have no means to advance themselves bar random chance. Right guys? Honestly people with your mindset are completely abhorrent and quite frankly a source of a great many of today's problems.
[QUOTE=Octavius;48983999]Second (I'm more partial to this one): The idea of human nature itself is poorly conceived. We live within a system that is constructed by mankind and a look at history would show that our 'nature' is relative to that system which is in place. There is not some pre-conceived human nature that rules all social orders. Our 'human nature' is shaped by material conditions and relations, appealing to it as it exists under the current system in order to attack a system which would have a fundamental different 'human nature' isn't a good argument to make.[/QUOTE] This line of thinking, which assumes that society and people are somehow infinitely malleable, doesn't really work either. Taken to its logical conclusion, it means repeating the fallacies of behavioral psychologists and the social planners who claim that "human nature" doesn't exist and that given enough time and resources one can mold humans into virtually anything. What if instead it is the fundamental concepts of the ideology that are broken because they refuse to submit to the investigations of science and scrutiny of philosophy, rather than the problem being exogenous factors?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48986329]This line of thinking, which assumes that society and people are somehow infinitely malleable, doesn't really work either. Taken to its logical conclusion, it means repeating the fallacies of behavioral psychologists and the social planners who claim that "human nature" doesn't exist and that given enough time and resources one can mold humans into virtually anything. [/QUOTE] How is such reasoning flawed? All of your arguments up to this point are unsubstantiated hot air. [quote] What if instead it is the fundamental concepts of the ideology that are broken because they refuse to submit to the investigations of science and scrutiny of philosophy, rather than the problem being exogenous factors?[/quote] What if instead of redirection and unsubstantiated claims you actually form a substantial argument so this discussion doesn't continue to be a piss fest.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;48986369]How is such reasoning flawed? All of your arguments up to this point are unsubstantiated hot air.[/quote] It's flawed because there's no evidence for it. Humans are not as malleable as some would like them to be. These philosophies have been tried for the best part of two centuries and have shown consistent failure because they try to reform fundamental aspects of human behavior which is virtually impossible to change.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48986408]It's flawed because there's no evidence for it. Humans are not as malleable as some would like them to be. [/quote] (Citation Needed). Yet again another unsubstantiated argument. Its like you have the basis for an argument, but stop at "No, this is wrong because" and then don't offer any substantial explanation to your line of reasoning. [quote] These philosophies have been tried for the best part of two centuries and have shown consistent failure because they try to reform fundamental aspects of human behavior which is virtually impossible to change.[/QUOTE] Again, unless you speak from a position of authority on the subject, I'm going to need something to actually substantiate your claim beyond "because this is how I say it is"
[QUOTE=Kyle902;48986429](Citation Needed). Yet again another unsubstantiated argument. Its like you have the basis for an argument, but stop at "No, this is wrong because" and then don't offer any substantial explanation to your line of reasoning.[/QUOTE] Stop and think about what you're saying. You're asking for someone to substantiate their asking for evidence.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;48986429](Citation Needed). Yet again another unsubstantiated argument. Its like you have the basis for an argument, but stop at "No, this is wrong because" and then don't offer any substantial explanation to your line of reasoning.[/quote] We can start with traits which are common to /every/ humans: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal#List_of_cultural_universals[/url] [url]http://humanuniversals.com/human-universals/[/url] I'd now like to see evidence for the contrary position.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48986408]It's flawed because there's no evidence for it. Humans are not as malleable as some would like them to be. These philosophies have been tried for the best part of two centuries and have shown consistent failure because they try to reform fundamental aspects of human behavior which is virtually impossible to change.[/QUOTE] Well the same could be said for any ideology. Capitalism is based on rational self interest (and some other incorrect assumptions such as Barter preceding money and debt) everyday humans are shown to not act in our own self interest and/or act irrationally. If communism or socialism are destined to fail because they are based on incorrect assumptions about human nature then capitalism is destined to fail likewise. Your argument will be that capitalism will be/can be/has been adapted to address these issues, then so can socialism to address its issues. Socialist/communist/egalitarian systems have been around for 1000s years, the Mesopotamians operated in a similar manner, people paid taxes in grain to a central hub, the government (temple) then distributed the supplies. In remote villages you have similar systems, people don't demand money for the food they bring in, they hand out the food on the understanding that if they come on hard times the village will look after their interests (there are very few/no real life examples of adam smiths "barter land" ancient communities operated through debt). Even most successful businesses internally operate using something similar to communism, from each according to their ability from each according to their need; If I need something to do my job I get it without having to fuss with prices or going to different departments to get the better deal; its the most efficient system for a small community/society. Scaling up is where it encounters problems but hitting a road block doesn't mean it should be abandoned or its name forever tainted by the atrocities of the 20th century. Capitalism has given and continues to give so many people suffering and/or war, we don't blame the system we blame the people/empires involved; why is it different for socialism? (i guess this will take us onto freedom and self determination discussion)
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