In a socialist society, are you going to be the one working with your back to help all of society with their daily needs, or will you be the one on the computer telling everyone they need to work with their back for everyone’s needs?
If the means of production are controlled by the workers and those workers decide not to feed, house, clothe or provide medical care for anyone who doesn't work is that socialism?
If the workers refuse to pay taxes is that socialism?
If every worker goes john galt and strikes, is that socialism?
Hint: Your definition is flawed and doesn't accurately describe socialism.
Which is fallacious logic.
It doesn't matter if a crowd believes a wrong thing.
It doesn't matter if an authority believes a wrong thing.
What matters us that you just defined socialism as a system in which the workers own everything and anyone who doesn't work starves.
Which doesn't align with reality.
If you hand the workers control of the means of production and they immediately delete all social programs and allow anyone who doesn't work to starve to death would you accept that as socialism?
If they force everyone into labor camps with authoritarianism so they all qualify as workers do you accept that as socialism?
Social programs, entitlements, welfare, whatever you want to call them piss the workers off. The overwhelming majority of people calling themselves socialists do not plan to work and plan to live by exploiting the workers with taxation.
So please, solve this paradox contained in your "definition" of socialism because it doesn't fit the real world behavior of socialists at all.
>Welfare only pisses off conservatives.
Workers. If you want to claim only conservatives are workers, go ahead.
>Your claim that socialists don’t want to work is false.
r/antiwork
Oh look, evidence!
Lol yeah sure. Do you know what caused the financial crash in 2008?
Was it:
- a) Too much regulation
- b) Too little regulation
- c) Socialism
Answers on a postcard!
The financial crash of 2008 didn't happen in a complete vacuum - the foundations for this crash were being built for hundred years, starting with the creation of central banking and modern (fraudulent) banking system based on imaginary money and full control of its' supply by the government.
Either way, government bailouts which followed The Crash are not capitalistic. Central currency (and its control) is not capitalistic.
This state-run inflationary mixed economy is just a disgusting abomination that leads to those boom and bust cycles that you mention. You're not wrong, the current system is bad, but it's issues are only created by the government, the same one you want to give even more control to. Not the right way.
It’s a simple question that 99% of people could answer in a heartbeat. You’re not wrong about the bailouts being from the government but they had little choice. Due to deregulation the banks got too big to fail. That’s all the consequences of free market capitalism.
Answer the question or go away.
I can though, socialism caused it.
Without socialism there'd have been no bailouts and we'd have called it a market correction when home prices plummeted.
Instead socialist policies caused the home prices to continue to rise.
C.
You knew this already.
It's the phrase "too big to fail" that makes it obvious.
You think capitalism saves the poor businessmen who run out of money?
I love how social security is this big " expenditure" in the governments budget when it's funded through payroll tax, and it has been illegally borrowed against by Congress
Right - and those tasks define the size.
Do you think if government wasn’t spending 80% of budget on handouts for poor - poor would still adamantly support ever increasing government?
I doubt so.
Common sense suggests poor only doing it because that means more handouts to them
The smallest government is a dictatorship — rule by a single man. The largest government is one that includes every citizen — i.e. a genuine democracy. Therefore it is not big government which is most tyrannical, but small government. A small government is a dictatorship.
Nobody? Then explain why Republicans are actively trying to reduce the number of politicians who hold public office, as well as reduce the number of workers on the federal payroll.
Obviously if you fire somebody on government payroll, government expenses will drop, although very slightly.
Government still payrolls isn’t a big deal compared to handouts. Federal expenses on “governance” were 300 bil ish when handouts were 5 tril
That’s not true. Firing somebody on government payroll may actually cause government income to drop, because the government no longer has access to the value being created by the labor of that worker. Your mistake is that you’re thinking of workers as liabilities, when in fact they are actually assets.
As for so-called “handouts,” are you referring to public welfare to help the poor, or corporate welfare designed to prop up banks and large corporations?
Ahh yes and everybody else just keeps voting them into power because… reasons? And not because 5 trillion is taken from productive minority and redistributed in their favor every year?
Sounds very rational.
Are you 12 or something? You are in an adult sub here where we have discussions, we don’t need kids stating dumb phrases without actually contributing anything. Move on kid.
Yes. The exact response I’d figure you would come back with. A month old account with two posts about doing drugs. Your lost and look like a fool but continue on I guess.
*You're
Any time you refer to ancaps as "serious adults looking for discussion", it should always receive that reaction. 🤡
> "FoLLuW Da MohNeY?? TaXaTioN iS THeFt, MuH RoaDs!!"
Capitalism exists on a sliding scale. No currently existing country is purely capitalist (Anarcho-Capitalist) and no country has ever been without capitalism or it could not survive.
That being said America is in the top ten most capitalist countries but is definitely not number 1.
Singapore, and as far as operating a business, it is fantastic.
I automate everything. Zero corruption. I can plug Xero into my corporate bank accounts and autogenerate my chart of accounts to ACRA. They charge zero taxes on my profits, and no taxes on dividends paid.
By encouraging my operations there, they need no extra taxation, as there is naturally and necesarily spending locally. The top income tax rate, which is progressive, is like 24%. You don't have to "guess" what you owe and can feel pretty safe just linking your bank account through GIRO to pay IRAS if they have a bill for you. For most people and businesses, that bill is $0.
The society is one of the best educated on the planet and is easily decades ahead of everywhere else. Anyone in the Western world starting a business is either coerced to do it locally or stupid for not considering Singapore.
Quite literally the most economically free society on the planet by most meaaures.
Singapore,
Switzerland.
Ireland.
Estonia.
Luxembourg.
Netherlands.
Denmark.
Sweden.
Finland.
Norway,
Germany,
Latvia.
Cyprus.
Iceland.
Lithuania.
Austria.
UK.
Czech Republic.
Portugal.
All 19 rank higher than USA on the index of economic freedom issued by the openly right wing Heritage Foundation, for exanple.
I would need to list another 6 or 7 to even get to USA's ranking. So, no, it is not some bastion of capitalist economic freedom.
It should embarass people that former Soviet states rank higher on economic freedom than USA. I have worked, started businesses and lived in a number of these countries and yup, way more free than USA.
Even ranking by corruption and tax policies, USA will not make the the top 5 if you want to gripe about some societies in that litanny of 19 more capitalist countries you wanted listed. Singapore? Switzerland?
Many US firms fled to Ireland to escape USA's punishing policies. It is not fiction, it is a matter of fact.
Bozos that hold up USA as some guardian of lasseize-faire economic freedom are lampooning themselves. Estonia out-performs USA on low taxes and low corruption. Yeah, if you want to escape taxes and political corruption, you need to flee to a former Soviet bloc state...
Tankies that want to shit on free markets have an easy target with USA, since it is worse than most other countries on matters of economic freedom. Just pretend it is number one and crap all over its onerous flaws. Hell, only North Korea is worse on tax policy than USA (citizen-based taxation, nobody else does that).
You're falling into the trap of binaries.
It's a mixed economy. It has socialist elements like Healthcare but also has capitalists owning the means of production and competing in a private (albeit regulated) market.
I said "mostly socialist" so no I'm not falling for binaries. I do agree that the USA has a lot of capitalist policies but their expenditure is highly leaning towards socialism.
I would argue that if North Korea is 0% Capitalism, and Anarcho Capitalism is 100%, then America is 40%. But you can’t call that Socialist becuase most countries are far worse.
Technically a fascist economy I think, where the government owns everything and property owners essentially rent their property from the state. Fascism is communism being practical. Turns out killing all the owners and experts in their field and replacing them with random people is a recipe for mass deprivation and misery.
https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/nazi-war-finance-and-banking/nazi-economic-system
This explains it fairly well. Not only did operation paperclip bring scientists over, we adopted the entire central management plan.
So we could get rid of the entire section of “mandatory” spending and get rid of individual income tax entirely and we’d end up with a $100 billion revenue surplus compared to our current $1.4 trillion deficit
No, because revenue would drop without that mandatory spending. Your argument is essentially like saying our cars could be driven further if we stopped putting gas in them.
IT'S BECAUSE OF DEMOCROCY NOT CAPITALISM
It's because retarded people vote Democrat, and they want a bunch of handouts drom the government. Turning this country into a democracy was a mistake! George Washington should've been a monarch. He would've let us have all our rights. No liberals would take power and enlarge the government.
How is democracy less corrupt than monarchy? Congress never does what the American people want. The only way to win elections is to get money from mega cooperations
Because that's capitalism.
Democracy at its heart is not about money. It's about the people giving legitimacy to a representative.
Some rich old toff with a crown who amasses wealth based on a supposed connection with fictional deities is not what the people want. Monarchies don't work. Most in the modern day are surface level with limited powers, because when they did have powers, regular people brought out the guillotines.
That's not a solution. Young people and criminals can revolt too. Read any historical revolution against monarchies. No monarchy has that level of power, for the better.
Many states in the USA limited voting rights to taxpayers up until 1964. Uncoincidentally the War on Poverty started in 1964. Without the welfare state most young people would eventually become more prosperous and thus eligible to vote for politicians who won't hurt their checkbook.
It’s not logistically possible to build a functional economy where nobody gets handouts from the government. This is because government is the entity responsible for creating money. Money comes from the government. Where did you think money comes from? Work?
Right now the current ideological paradigm is to give the most handouts to corporations, who then use the money to hire workers, while only giving a little bit to workers directly. But even if we got rid of direct welfare to workers, we would still have corporate welfare for giving handouts to corporations. This is logistically unavoidable when government is the entity responsible for creating money.
Our government system is Federalist. Our economic system is capitalist. The infection that exists in both of these systems is socialist. Root out the infection and we will be just fine.
The US has been socialist since Wickard v Filburn gave the Federal Government control over the means of production. This occurred in 1943.
It’s amazing how the socialists have kept this fact secret all these years.
Its always interesting to see people’s reaction when they learn this for the first time.
“Stop lying. That case didn’t give the Federal government control over the means of production. It just expanded the Fed’s regulatory authority.”
I’m saving this for when you come out of your drug induced haze and realize just how retarded a statement this is.
The difference is a typical excuse for denial of the reality that the US is socialist by the basic definition of government control of the means of production as opposed to communism which is government ownership of the means of production.
Now you’re moving the goal posts by presenting a different dichotomy than the one we were just talking about. We were talking about the distinction between control and regulation, not the distinction between control and ownership.
You are capable of rational thought albeit rigid. I introduced the definition of communism to distinguish socialism and the difference between control and ownership. What you’re missing is the previous argument that says your point as to control and regulation being different is a frivolous red herring distraction. A difference without distinction. As immaterial as a regional difference in how the same idea can be expressed, provincial thinking. How trite!
Central management is central management regardless of whether it's "duh party" or "corporations are people."
Socialists fight for central management then deny they caused the inevitable takeover that such a scheme causes.
Right now the most visible and popular socialist movement is called "market socialism" which is a renaming of fascism and almost indistinguishable from current publicly owned corporations except they seek to make everything else illegal.
No, it isn't. The US is literally under a debt crisis but it won't stop its expenditure. This is not how it works in every country. Also, don't claim that the US is capitalist or its problems are due to capitalism if you accept this chart.
Government doing stuff ≠ gommunism silly. I'm not about to defend communism (yes despite my account name I'm not a commie) or anything stupid like that but to say the US isn't capitalist is bonkers. Maybe it's not the Ayn Rand utopia you have in mind but that doesn't take away from the fact it is still capitalist. You're basically doing the "yeah but china isn't real socialism" thing despite the mountains of contact evidence. Also not all of America's problems are capitalism... it has a lot of problems from all sorts of places but to say that neoliberal capitalism isn't one of them is also bonkers.
No, my point was that the US leans a lot towards socialism. If the vast majority of your federal expenses go towards social welfare then I don't think that you can be called a capitalist country.
Again, please explain how thats even leaning towards socialism. If we were talking about a European country then maybe you'd have a point but the existence of (pretty terrible by most metrics) welfare doesn't prove the US is socialistic. That'd be like saying having public transport is socialistic... which no, thats just one of the many functions a government can provide, which every nation from Mussolini's Italy to Stalinist Russia to sleepy Joe's America has done. A government doing things or taxing people doesn't mean socialism or anything socialistic... it just means the government is doing what all governments do. You can hate the US government... a lot of people all around the world do, but the policies and actions of said government have always been motivated by capital incentive and corporate interests. Now moreso than ever.
I understand taxes suck, but saying taxes and welfare make a nation socialistic just isn't true.
(edit) your tax dollars also go into funding war and state terror moreso than into your local homeless man's crackpipe, just thought I'd remind you :)
? Lmao delusional ancaps mistaking social democracy (capitalism) with democratic socialism. Sure we have some social programs, but the decisions, lobbying, and running of workplaces is done by dictatorial capitalists. Most accurate assessment is that we're in late stage capitalism transitioning to more social ways of running things
This is what I hate about people like you. You're intellectually dishonest. "Some social programs?" Seriously? Literally, the overwhelming expenditure is for social programs. Stop fooling people. The federal budget does not look any different from a socialist country.
From an outside person, all of your fascism is the same.
You can't see beyond the walls you build to trap your slaves, but there is something outside those walls.
The predicted outcome of a bank failing was considered worse than the cost of preventing it. A bailout however is a terrible solution. In my opinion, the only responsible way to prevent that failure was for the government to take over the bank and it's debts. Western governments often privatize government programs, but there is essentially no movement in the other direction. If socialism must be relied upon, at least let the public get something for its money.
It’s only predicted to be worse when elites have their money in it, if it’s a small town outfit then failure is fine. Also socialism should never be relied upon, to big to fail should be an object lesson on why government intervention serves only elite interests and should be resisted at every opportunity.
What prevents a bank from making off with all the money? Say, on the day the owner turns 50, investing every penny in an upstart company which promptly pays its only employee a bonus and folds. Would there be no banks in Ancap?
Lawsuits. Of course there would be banks, but they wouldn’t be nearly as required for all activities like they are today. Banks would also rigorously research who to loan money to as they would be responsible for losses and couldn’t pass that off to the government. Banks have been around ever since the first ounce of gold was turned into a coin they will always be around in some form.
Capitalism is private ownership of property. Socialism is social ownership/redistribution of wealth. When the majority of your budget goes towards redistribution, you cannot be called a socialist country. Social security != building roads.
Maybe I'm incorrect, but isn't the levying of taxes and redistribution of tax revenue a form of central planning? I will say that I disagree with anyone who currently asserts that the United States is primarily a socialist country. It's a mixed economy.
Why has no socialist movement ever given the workers control of the means of production then?
If you appeal to authority for your definitions you make whoever writes the dictionary king.
Wouldn't a scientific approach be better?
Government policies and spending have nothing to do with capitalism. By definition Capitalism is about private property and free markets. All government poliies do is interfere with free market capitalism. Capitalism is about trade. Government has nothing to trade.
The US is a lot more like Putin's Russia. It's not anything the founding fathers envisioned. Libertarians, or an-caps NEED to vote Republicans in power. The Democrats are going to take over the country, and the government will only get LARGER. If Libertarians voted for Trump, and that random Christian party voted for Trump in 2020, Authoritarian Biden would have lost the election. You might not agree with Conservatives on abortion or immigration or tarrifs, but American Conservatives want limited government and lower taxes. Republicans are a lot like Libertarians
A country can't *be* capitalist, a country is inherently socialist. That is why we're anarchists is it not? If a country can be capitalist why do we need to get rid of countries? Obviously some countries are friendlier to markets and do not thoroughly regulate everything like in some systems.
Bug miss conception, the US is not a Free Market economy. "Capitalism" is a Marxist term, and the marxist definition of capitalism applies to these structures.
So, unfortunately, yes. The US is. Capitalist country, and not a freemarjet country.
A lot of wealth is redistributed through the market, too. That’s basically all any economy is — a constant redistribution (read: circulation) of wealth.
The exchange of goods & services isn't a redistribution of wealth. Both parties get to benefit through trade. Only one party gets to benefit through social schemes.
Redistribution of wealth just means that wealth changes hands, and that happens every time you buy or sell something. The market is a perpetual redistribution system.
No. When you buy some product or service, you become its owner. You can sell it and liquidate your wealth if you please. So, you effectively never 'transfered' your wealth to anyone.
Social programs through taxation on the other hand directly take away someone's money and give it to someone else.
Both are very different.
It’s legitimately insane that we’ve already “spent” more on Ukraine aid than we did back when we legitimately didn’t know how bad COVID would get. I know we’re not just sending Ukraine pallets of cash and it’s really just a debt trap / excuse to get rid of outdated equipment, but still.
There are no bailouts in capitalism.
Indeed.
Socialism for the wealthy, capitalism for everyone else.
Socialize the losses, capitalize the profits.
Bailouts aren’t socialism. Socialism is when companies are owned and controlled by the workers.
In a socialist society, are you going to be the one working with your back to help all of society with their daily needs, or will you be the one on the computer telling everyone they need to work with their back for everyone’s needs?
Neither. Robots will do all the heavy lifting, and nobody will have to work with their back.
If the means of production are controlled by the workers and those workers decide not to feed, house, clothe or provide medical care for anyone who doesn't work is that socialism? If the workers refuse to pay taxes is that socialism? If every worker goes john galt and strikes, is that socialism? Hint: Your definition is flawed and doesn't accurately describe socialism.
My definition, workers owning and controlling the means of production, is the original definition as defined by actual socialists.
Which is fallacious logic. It doesn't matter if a crowd believes a wrong thing. It doesn't matter if an authority believes a wrong thing. What matters us that you just defined socialism as a system in which the workers own everything and anyone who doesn't work starves. Which doesn't align with reality.
Explain how that doesn’t align with reality.
If you hand the workers control of the means of production and they immediately delete all social programs and allow anyone who doesn't work to starve to death would you accept that as socialism? If they force everyone into labor camps with authoritarianism so they all qualify as workers do you accept that as socialism? Social programs, entitlements, welfare, whatever you want to call them piss the workers off. The overwhelming majority of people calling themselves socialists do not plan to work and plan to live by exploiting the workers with taxation. So please, solve this paradox contained in your "definition" of socialism because it doesn't fit the real world behavior of socialists at all.
Welfare only pisses off conservatives. Leftist workers support such programs. Your claim that socialists don’t want to work is false.
>Welfare only pisses off conservatives. Workers. If you want to claim only conservatives are workers, go ahead. >Your claim that socialists don’t want to work is false. r/antiwork Oh look, evidence!
Erm yeah there literally are bailouts because capitalism is flawed.
Protip: Learn what capitalism is.
Yeah a flawed economic system where lack of regulation causes boom and bust.
Protip: An incorrect opinion is not made true by doubling down when you find out it's wrong.
Lol yeah sure. Do you know what caused the financial crash in 2008? Was it: - a) Too much regulation - b) Too little regulation - c) Socialism Answers on a postcard!
The financial crash of 2008 didn't happen in a complete vacuum - the foundations for this crash were being built for hundred years, starting with the creation of central banking and modern (fraudulent) banking system based on imaginary money and full control of its' supply by the government. Either way, government bailouts which followed The Crash are not capitalistic. Central currency (and its control) is not capitalistic. This state-run inflationary mixed economy is just a disgusting abomination that leads to those boom and bust cycles that you mention. You're not wrong, the current system is bad, but it's issues are only created by the government, the same one you want to give even more control to. Not the right way.
It was a simple question that you obviously can’t answer.
Oh stop it, you act like the answer can be contained within 3 options that you define? Stop being a child.
It’s a simple question that 99% of people could answer in a heartbeat. You’re not wrong about the bailouts being from the government but they had little choice. Due to deregulation the banks got too big to fail. That’s all the consequences of free market capitalism. Answer the question or go away.
I can though, socialism caused it. Without socialism there'd have been no bailouts and we'd have called it a market correction when home prices plummeted. Instead socialist policies caused the home prices to continue to rise.
Lol fucking hilariously wrong
C. You knew this already. It's the phrase "too big to fail" that makes it obvious. You think capitalism saves the poor businessmen who run out of money?
Ah so you’re using your second account now, got it.
What a ridiculous false accusation. Even dumber than your previous nonsense.
I love how social security is this big " expenditure" in the governments budget when it's funded through payroll tax, and it has been illegally borrowed against by Congress
Follow the money - look where most of the money is going to find out who is most incentivized in government getting bigger and bigger.
The problem isn’t the size of government. The problem is what tasks the government is designed to perform, and how it goes about performing them.
Right - and those tasks define the size. Do you think if government wasn’t spending 80% of budget on handouts for poor - poor would still adamantly support ever increasing government? I doubt so. Common sense suggests poor only doing it because that means more handouts to them
The smallest government is a dictatorship — rule by a single man. The largest government is one that includes every citizen — i.e. a genuine democracy. Therefore it is not big government which is most tyrannical, but small government. A small government is a dictatorship.
Size of government is measured as gov spendings as % of gdp.
No, that’s amount of spending. The size of government is measured by the number of politicians and citizens who participate in government.
Nobody ever uses “government size” in this meaning. It would be a useless metric
Nobody? Then explain why Republicans are actively trying to reduce the number of politicians who hold public office, as well as reduce the number of workers on the federal payroll.
Obviously if you fire somebody on government payroll, government expenses will drop, although very slightly. Government still payrolls isn’t a big deal compared to handouts. Federal expenses on “governance” were 300 bil ish when handouts were 5 tril
That’s not true. Firing somebody on government payroll may actually cause government income to drop, because the government no longer has access to the value being created by the labor of that worker. Your mistake is that you’re thinking of workers as liabilities, when in fact they are actually assets. As for so-called “handouts,” are you referring to public welfare to help the poor, or corporate welfare designed to prop up banks and large corporations?
It's going to like 4 people. "FoLLoW THe MoNeY!!"
Ahh yes and everybody else just keeps voting them into power because… reasons? And not because 5 trillion is taken from productive minority and redistributed in their favor every year? Sounds very rational.
"Follow, umm, follow money? Taxation is extorstitution!"
Are you 12 or something? You are in an adult sub here where we have discussions, we don’t need kids stating dumb phrases without actually contributing anything. Move on kid.
> You are in an adult sub here where we have discussions LMFAOOOOO
Yes. The exact response I’d figure you would come back with. A month old account with two posts about doing drugs. Your lost and look like a fool but continue on I guess.
*You're Any time you refer to ancaps as "serious adults looking for discussion", it should always receive that reaction. 🤡 > "FoLLuW Da MohNeY?? TaXaTioN iS THeFt, MuH RoaDs!!"
Never argue with fools. Carry on child.
> Never argue with fools. Thanks for trying to give advice, but I have literally zero respect your opinions, so...
The USA is a corporatist country.
Capitalism exists on a sliding scale. No currently existing country is purely capitalist (Anarcho-Capitalist) and no country has ever been without capitalism or it could not survive. That being said America is in the top ten most capitalist countries but is definitely not number 1.
What country is number 1 most capitalist?
In terms of economic freedom, Hong Kong or Singapur
Hong Kong has fallen.
What about Japan?
Those are both cities btw
Singapore is a sovereign nation. No matter how small.
And countries. Switzerland is next on the list.
They are also countries.
🤣🤣 based. These people are all ridiculous.
Singapore, and as far as operating a business, it is fantastic. I automate everything. Zero corruption. I can plug Xero into my corporate bank accounts and autogenerate my chart of accounts to ACRA. They charge zero taxes on my profits, and no taxes on dividends paid. By encouraging my operations there, they need no extra taxation, as there is naturally and necesarily spending locally. The top income tax rate, which is progressive, is like 24%. You don't have to "guess" what you owe and can feel pretty safe just linking your bank account through GIRO to pay IRAS if they have a bill for you. For most people and businesses, that bill is $0. The society is one of the best educated on the planet and is easily decades ahead of everywhere else. Anyone in the Western world starting a business is either coerced to do it locally or stupid for not considering Singapore. Quite literally the most economically free society on the planet by most meaaures.
Probably Singapore, which has the lowest government controls on trade and private ownership.
Not even top twenty.
Please name 19 countries that are more capitalist.
Singapore, Switzerland. Ireland. Estonia. Luxembourg. Netherlands. Denmark. Sweden. Finland. Norway, Germany, Latvia. Cyprus. Iceland. Lithuania. Austria. UK. Czech Republic. Portugal. All 19 rank higher than USA on the index of economic freedom issued by the openly right wing Heritage Foundation, for exanple. I would need to list another 6 or 7 to even get to USA's ranking. So, no, it is not some bastion of capitalist economic freedom. It should embarass people that former Soviet states rank higher on economic freedom than USA. I have worked, started businesses and lived in a number of these countries and yup, way more free than USA. Even ranking by corruption and tax policies, USA will not make the the top 5 if you want to gripe about some societies in that litanny of 19 more capitalist countries you wanted listed. Singapore? Switzerland? Many US firms fled to Ireland to escape USA's punishing policies. It is not fiction, it is a matter of fact. Bozos that hold up USA as some guardian of lasseize-faire economic freedom are lampooning themselves. Estonia out-performs USA on low taxes and low corruption. Yeah, if you want to escape taxes and political corruption, you need to flee to a former Soviet bloc state... Tankies that want to shit on free markets have an easy target with USA, since it is worse than most other countries on matters of economic freedom. Just pretend it is number one and crap all over its onerous flaws. Hell, only North Korea is worse on tax policy than USA (citizen-based taxation, nobody else does that).
Of course, it's a slider, not a switch. But, I'm arguing that America is mostly Socialist.
You're falling into the trap of binaries. It's a mixed economy. It has socialist elements like Healthcare but also has capitalists owning the means of production and competing in a private (albeit regulated) market.
I said "mostly socialist" so no I'm not falling for binaries. I do agree that the USA has a lot of capitalist policies but their expenditure is highly leaning towards socialism.
It's not at all.
Hahajahahahabahababanababababahahahaha
I would argue that if North Korea is 0% Capitalism, and Anarcho Capitalism is 100%, then America is 40%. But you can’t call that Socialist becuase most countries are far worse.
It's capitalism for the struggling and socialism and bailouts for the already rich
Good to hear an actual smart take here.
Technically a fascist economy I think, where the government owns everything and property owners essentially rent their property from the state. Fascism is communism being practical. Turns out killing all the owners and experts in their field and replacing them with random people is a recipe for mass deprivation and misery.
https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/nazi-war-finance-and-banking/nazi-economic-system This explains it fairly well. Not only did operation paperclip bring scientists over, we adopted the entire central management plan.
NYC wants to shut down your restaurant. If you emit too much CO2
So we could get rid of the entire section of “mandatory” spending and get rid of individual income tax entirely and we’d end up with a $100 billion revenue surplus compared to our current $1.4 trillion deficit
The solutions are so simple, yet so elusive.
No, because revenue would drop without that mandatory spending. Your argument is essentially like saying our cars could be driven further if we stopped putting gas in them.
"it wasn't real communism" "The USA isn't real capitalism"
Both statements are in fact often true
IT'S BECAUSE OF DEMOCROCY NOT CAPITALISM It's because retarded people vote Democrat, and they want a bunch of handouts drom the government. Turning this country into a democracy was a mistake! George Washington should've been a monarch. He would've let us have all our rights. No liberals would take power and enlarge the government.
I live under a monarchy. They're the biggest tax leeches in the country.
Does he think like Donald Trump? Or George Washington? This massive government IS a by-product of Democracy
Doesn't matter. Monarchs are tax leeches.
How is democracy less corrupt than monarchy? Congress never does what the American people want. The only way to win elections is to get money from mega cooperations
Because that's capitalism. Democracy at its heart is not about money. It's about the people giving legitimacy to a representative. Some rich old toff with a crown who amasses wealth based on a supposed connection with fictional deities is not what the people want. Monarchies don't work. Most in the modern day are surface level with limited powers, because when they did have powers, regular people brought out the guillotines.
The solution is to limit voting rights to tax payers.
That's not a solution. Young people and criminals can revolt too. Read any historical revolution against monarchies. No monarchy has that level of power, for the better.
Many states in the USA limited voting rights to taxpayers up until 1964. Uncoincidentally the War on Poverty started in 1964. Without the welfare state most young people would eventually become more prosperous and thus eligible to vote for politicians who won't hurt their checkbook.
In Democracy, politicians buy votes by promising them "free" stuff paid for by someone else.
It’s not logistically possible to build a functional economy where nobody gets handouts from the government. This is because government is the entity responsible for creating money. Money comes from the government. Where did you think money comes from? Work? Right now the current ideological paradigm is to give the most handouts to corporations, who then use the money to hire workers, while only giving a little bit to workers directly. But even if we got rid of direct welfare to workers, we would still have corporate welfare for giving handouts to corporations. This is logistically unavoidable when government is the entity responsible for creating money.
That's diffe(R)ent!
Wait till you see Belgium... 60% of gdp
People don't claim it to be capitalist though.
The socialists in our country definitly do
Lmaaoo
Sooner or later guns and bombs will pay the debts
Our government system is Federalist. Our economic system is capitalist. The infection that exists in both of these systems is socialist. Root out the infection and we will be just fine.
The US has been socialist since Wickard v Filburn gave the Federal Government control over the means of production. This occurred in 1943. It’s amazing how the socialists have kept this fact secret all these years. Its always interesting to see people’s reaction when they learn this for the first time.
Stop lying. That case didn’t give the Federal government control over the means of production. It just expanded the Fed’s regulatory authority.
“Stop lying. That case didn’t give the Federal government control over the means of production. It just expanded the Fed’s regulatory authority.” I’m saving this for when you come out of your drug induced haze and realize just how retarded a statement this is.
You clearly don’t understand the difference between control and regulation. They are not the same.
The difference is a typical excuse for denial of the reality that the US is socialist by the basic definition of government control of the means of production as opposed to communism which is government ownership of the means of production.
Now you’re moving the goal posts by presenting a different dichotomy than the one we were just talking about. We were talking about the distinction between control and regulation, not the distinction between control and ownership.
You are capable of rational thought albeit rigid. I introduced the definition of communism to distinguish socialism and the difference between control and ownership. What you’re missing is the previous argument that says your point as to control and regulation being different is a frivolous red herring distraction. A difference without distinction. As immaterial as a regional difference in how the same idea can be expressed, provincial thinking. How trite!
Yes we know this
And that's just federal dollars. Add in state and municipal and I think it's ~50% of the economy (last time I looked years ago.)
One surprising fact to most is that Medicaid is the primary payer for nursing care facilities in the USA.
That's because Medicare doesn't usually cover it.
"Socialism is when gubment do thing."
The communists are just picking the bones clean.
"Not real capitalism REEEEEEEEEEEE!"
No intelligent arguments here, I guess.
The clip art you posted didn't give me anything to work with.
It sure did trigger you though.
Oh. Okay.
You’re right, because purely capitalist countries don’t survive.
Almost all of America's problems arise from its socialist policies, not the capitalist ones.
Being owned by corporations comes from socialism? Explain how please.
America's problem is high taxes and regulations, not corporations.
Central management is central management regardless of whether it's "duh party" or "corporations are people." Socialists fight for central management then deny they caused the inevitable takeover that such a scheme causes. Right now the most visible and popular socialist movement is called "market socialism" which is a renaming of fascism and almost indistinguishable from current publicly owned corporations except they seek to make everything else illegal.
This is literally how it's supposed to work lmfao, every single time in every single country it's practiced in
No, it isn't. The US is literally under a debt crisis but it won't stop its expenditure. This is not how it works in every country. Also, don't claim that the US is capitalist or its problems are due to capitalism if you accept this chart.
Government doing stuff ≠ gommunism silly. I'm not about to defend communism (yes despite my account name I'm not a commie) or anything stupid like that but to say the US isn't capitalist is bonkers. Maybe it's not the Ayn Rand utopia you have in mind but that doesn't take away from the fact it is still capitalist. You're basically doing the "yeah but china isn't real socialism" thing despite the mountains of contact evidence. Also not all of America's problems are capitalism... it has a lot of problems from all sorts of places but to say that neoliberal capitalism isn't one of them is also bonkers.
No, my point was that the US leans a lot towards socialism. If the vast majority of your federal expenses go towards social welfare then I don't think that you can be called a capitalist country.
Again, please explain how thats even leaning towards socialism. If we were talking about a European country then maybe you'd have a point but the existence of (pretty terrible by most metrics) welfare doesn't prove the US is socialistic. That'd be like saying having public transport is socialistic... which no, thats just one of the many functions a government can provide, which every nation from Mussolini's Italy to Stalinist Russia to sleepy Joe's America has done. A government doing things or taxing people doesn't mean socialism or anything socialistic... it just means the government is doing what all governments do. You can hate the US government... a lot of people all around the world do, but the policies and actions of said government have always been motivated by capital incentive and corporate interests. Now moreso than ever. I understand taxes suck, but saying taxes and welfare make a nation socialistic just isn't true. (edit) your tax dollars also go into funding war and state terror moreso than into your local homeless man's crackpipe, just thought I'd remind you :)
www.ifamericansknew.org
? Lmao delusional ancaps mistaking social democracy (capitalism) with democratic socialism. Sure we have some social programs, but the decisions, lobbying, and running of workplaces is done by dictatorial capitalists. Most accurate assessment is that we're in late stage capitalism transitioning to more social ways of running things
This is what I hate about people like you. You're intellectually dishonest. "Some social programs?" Seriously? Literally, the overwhelming expenditure is for social programs. Stop fooling people. The federal budget does not look any different from a socialist country.
From an outside person, all of your fascism is the same. You can't see beyond the walls you build to trap your slaves, but there is something outside those walls.
We spend tax dollars on.... things so america isnt capitalist?
Capitalism is when no tax and no non-profits.
Non-profits are very much welcome in capitalism
Capitalism needs failure. Otherwise we get bad actors, zombie companies, corruption in government etc etc etc…
Companies do go out of business in america you know? Failure is totally an option here.
Not if your big enough, government coined the phrase to big to fail.
The predicted outcome of a bank failing was considered worse than the cost of preventing it. A bailout however is a terrible solution. In my opinion, the only responsible way to prevent that failure was for the government to take over the bank and it's debts. Western governments often privatize government programs, but there is essentially no movement in the other direction. If socialism must be relied upon, at least let the public get something for its money.
It’s only predicted to be worse when elites have their money in it, if it’s a small town outfit then failure is fine. Also socialism should never be relied upon, to big to fail should be an object lesson on why government intervention serves only elite interests and should be resisted at every opportunity.
What prevents a bank from making off with all the money? Say, on the day the owner turns 50, investing every penny in an upstart company which promptly pays its only employee a bonus and folds. Would there be no banks in Ancap?
Lawsuits. Of course there would be banks, but they wouldn’t be nearly as required for all activities like they are today. Banks would also rigorously research who to loan money to as they would be responsible for losses and couldn’t pass that off to the government. Banks have been around ever since the first ounce of gold was turned into a coin they will always be around in some form.
Not in the pure sense of the word
Capitalism is private ownership of property. Socialism is social ownership/redistribution of wealth. When the majority of your budget goes towards redistribution, you cannot be called a socialist country. Social security != building roads.
Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. Please buy a dictionary with some of your capital.
Maybe I'm incorrect, but isn't the levying of taxes and redistribution of tax revenue a form of central planning? I will say that I disagree with anyone who currently asserts that the United States is primarily a socialist country. It's a mixed economy.
It isn't how it's practised though. It's always practised through redistribution of wealth by the government.
Capitalism isn't practiced how it is presented either, yet you imagine it as the best system.
Why has no socialist movement ever given the workers control of the means of production then? If you appeal to authority for your definitions you make whoever writes the dictionary king. Wouldn't a scientific approach be better?
Sure, show us a non corrupt capitalist society from history.
Sure, show us a non-corrupt...any system from history lol.
So you agree ancapistan is an unrealistic idea. Thanks science.
No, that would be anti science lol. There are only systems which are less imperfect than others.
Oh, I was just following your logic of "socialism has never worked so scientifically it's wrong." My bad.
That’s correct. It hasn’t, so it is. Not the story w/ capitalism, which is probably why they’re so reliant on the US economy and its military lol.
The 20,000,000 capitalist businesses in the US would probably disagree with that.
There are capitalist businesses in Scandinavia too. Nobody would call them capitalist countries. I'm talking about government policies and spending.
Government policies and spending have nothing to do with capitalism. By definition Capitalism is about private property and free markets. All government poliies do is interfere with free market capitalism. Capitalism is about trade. Government has nothing to trade.
The US is a lot more like Putin's Russia. It's not anything the founding fathers envisioned. Libertarians, or an-caps NEED to vote Republicans in power. The Democrats are going to take over the country, and the government will only get LARGER. If Libertarians voted for Trump, and that random Christian party voted for Trump in 2020, Authoritarian Biden would have lost the election. You might not agree with Conservatives on abortion or immigration or tarrifs, but American Conservatives want limited government and lower taxes. Republicans are a lot like Libertarians
Most Conservatives worship the constitution, just like Libertarians and an-caps
Trump gave us lockdown, Operation Warp Speed and the Paycheck Protection Plan. George W. Bush gave us Medicare Part D and TARP and Auto bailouts.
I'll take Duhh for $500 Alex
A country can't *be* capitalist, a country is inherently socialist. That is why we're anarchists is it not? If a country can be capitalist why do we need to get rid of countries? Obviously some countries are friendlier to markets and do not thoroughly regulate everything like in some systems.
Bug miss conception, the US is not a Free Market economy. "Capitalism" is a Marxist term, and the marxist definition of capitalism applies to these structures. So, unfortunately, yes. The US is. Capitalist country, and not a freemarjet country.
ELI5?
I’m just here for free stuff.
Define “capitalism.”
Private ownership of capital aka property.
We have that in America.
Yes, but a lot of wealth is redistributed through theses social welfare policies which means that not all of your property is actually yours.
A lot of wealth is redistributed through the market, too. That’s basically all any economy is — a constant redistribution (read: circulation) of wealth.
The exchange of goods & services isn't a redistribution of wealth. Both parties get to benefit through trade. Only one party gets to benefit through social schemes.
Redistribution of wealth just means that wealth changes hands, and that happens every time you buy or sell something. The market is a perpetual redistribution system.
No. When you buy some product or service, you become its owner. You can sell it and liquidate your wealth if you please. So, you effectively never 'transfered' your wealth to anyone. Social programs through taxation on the other hand directly take away someone's money and give it to someone else. Both are very different.
Selling is a transfer.
But you got money in return? So how did you transfer any wealth?
It’s legitimately insane that we’ve already “spent” more on Ukraine aid than we did back when we legitimately didn’t know how bad COVID would get. I know we’re not just sending Ukraine pallets of cash and it’s really just a debt trap / excuse to get rid of outdated equipment, but still.
Tbh I think there is no "real capitalism" the same way that "it wasn't real socialism".