Why Socialism is a Good Thing: An Example

ProleUK

There's your problem. You have to assume that society cares about you. It doesn't. Not at all. To the central planners of the socialist state, you are a number who can work to pay taxes, and that's all they care about you.

reply to post by ketsuko

 

Why does it have to be a Socialist State? Why can't people accept the two working together side by side?

Capitalism AND socialism.

In a free market, capitalist society you can and do have both. A group of workers can certainly start a business together to share the fruits of their labor evenly and quite often, in small businesses, you do see this. The problem is that many people want institutionalized socialism, run by the state, to make everything "fair."

ketsuko

loveguy
reply to post by ketsuko

 

Just take one simple product and you can boggle your mind trying to contemplate all the possible decisions and choices and factors that might go into its supply and demand alone.

Franchise locally?

Before I'm labeled a socialist, check out; equalitarian

edit on (1/7/1414 by loveguy because: (no reason given)

Just saying, think about milk. It seems simple enough to try to control milk, but consider that milk comes in different varieties like whole, 2 % and skim. Then you have people who are lactose intolerant and need that special lactose free milk. Then you have people who prefer products like Silk or Almond milk that are like milk without being milk. Then consider that you have the side products of milk like whipping cream, 1/2 and 1/2, buttermilk, etc. Then consider that each of these is sold at various sizes for consumer convenience to meet their needs. Then consider that every consumer buys those products on a different pattern as their needs demand them.

How would you go about centrally planning for that one product alone?

Even though that is above my current pay-grade...

Isn't it obvious? Just the same way it gets done today, just cut-out the middleman who says he values said item to equal an arm or a leg- or a lack of a conscience.

What is value if the sacrifice to gain said value is more than the product itself?

We already know how to supply a demand through logistics, why make it more difficult, other than to deprive inhabitants of their clothing?

ProleUK

There's your problem. You have to assume that society cares about you. It doesn't. Not at all. To the central planners of the socialist state, you are a number who can work to pay taxes, and that's all they care about you.

reply to post by ketsuko

 

Why does it have to be a Socialist State? Why can't people accept the two working together side by side?

Capitalism AND socialism.

Because of various psychological and psychiatric tendencies.

Psychopathic jealousies are a big one.

Happens in the animal world too

Socialism never works, it always ends in fascism. It may sound good on paper but it never, ever works. The capitalist system we have now may be far from "ideal" but there's far more freedom within it than you'll ever have in a socialist system.

reply to post by loveguy


Because you are simply replacing one middle man with another, and this time it's just the government bureaucracy. In a competitive market where you actually have enough entities to really compete. The guy who delivers the best product at the lowest price in the most efficient and effective manner is often the one who wins. Or, maybe he doesn't deliver the lowest price, but his quality of product and service are worth paying the few extra dollars or cents for making him an effective competitor to the cheapest on the shelf.

We've noticed this with our own milk. There are three major brands at our grocery store. They all have slightly different price points. The most expensive usually has the longest expiration date and when it expires, it is sometimes still good for a day or three after. The cheapest has the shortest expiration date and turns the day of. Sometimes, we go with the cheapest because we need to fit our budget and know we'll mow through a gallon in a week. Sometimes, we still have some leftover, so we go with the slightly more expensive to buy that longer expiration date.

However, when the government is the only middle man. No one really cares anymore if the process of supply is cheap or efficient. Have you been to the DMV lately?

ProleUK

There's your problem. You have to assume that society cares about you. It doesn't. Not at all. To the central planners of the socialist state, you are a number who can work to pay taxes, and that's all they care about you.

reply to post by ketsuko

 

Why does it have to be a Socialist State? Why can't people accept the two working together side by side?

Capitalism AND socialism.

Because socialism needs to compel everyone to be part of the system in order for it to do what it needs to. Look at the public school system. It is nearly 100% socialized. Everyone is compelled by taxation to take part in it whether or not they will ever use it. Every child is compelled into it unless their parents have the means to spend money over and beyond to get them out of the system, even with homeschooling.

And every year, we dump more money into the system. Can you honestly say the results are worth it?

Part of the problem, and I say this is as someone who was on the inside, is that students are not considered into the equation much. They are thought of as products or outcomes. Teachers are the lowest human denominator in the process.

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed


Socialism is a Good Thing....(???)

Short answer is: NO IT"S NOT!

I was living under socialism in USSR for more than 20 years and i know what i'm talking about.
I'm not sayin' that corporate capitalism is much better though..

The problem with socialism is tha same as in corporate capitalism - people.
For socialism to really work in a society (at least for some time) you need either Perfect people OR Perfect slaves (like in China). It could take ages to teach perfect, responsible, not lying, not selfish generations and as you may know it's not possible in 10, 20 or even 100 years. With Perfect slaves you could keep socialism going on for some time, IF you have the whole world to sell your cheap cr..p. If the world would ban chinese products from markets, so they can't buy oil and technologies your socialist China will be dead "the day after tomorrow". At that point all they could do is go to war...

reply to post by Krazysh0t


True. The government should have given the workers directly the money to take over Mericorp. Then they would own the company as a community. Since the wages were steady and comfortable they could even run it as a non profit, charging just enough to cover the wages, and upkeep of the facility. With a community motive and not a profit motive, they wouldn't need to make decisions that turned out bad for their community.

I remember the good ol' days....

When a business made a bad business decision, went belly up, closed its doors, and other new businesses cropped up to meet market demands for the much needed blue widgets that the old, poorly managed previous business failed at doing.

AKA: Taking responsibility and sucking up the repercussions of one's actions.



*sigh*

Ah yes, the good ol' days... before politicians lobbyists government taxpayers' wallets were forced to bail out and save the sorry asses of bankrupt corporations.




Post Script:
I racked up my credit card this Christmas season... Can someone bail me out please ?
Thank you for your patronage.

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed


There are many things wrong with this post, but I'll stick to the highlights. First, you are treating "money" as if it has value in and of itself. This is an extremely common mistake, since the most people know about economics is that they can exchange their money for the things that they value. Do you really think that adding a few zeros onto an account statement creates anything of value or any real wealth? All you have really done is use a few more drops of ink or blips of electricity. In other words, money by itself has almost no value. No matter how fancy you make the paper, if you can't trade it for anything else, people won't want it and won't accept it in exchange for what they have worked to produce. Money is just a temporary store of value -- as long as people are willing to accept that "worthless" token (i.e. money) in exchange for their work or products. The paper or the ink or the blips of electricity have little to no value by themselves. So, you are making a huge mistake by thinking that all value exists only in the form of money.

What really has value are the things that we produce or the services we perform, and the amount of value is measured not just by ourselves but also by the others who want to use or consume what we produce. Value is also completely subjective and completely individual. No two people ever have exactly the same values or ranking of those values, so no two people will ever value something exactly the same for exactly the same reasons. This is one of the central flaws in socialism, because socialists believe that you should value everything exactly as everyone else does. They believe that prices can be set "objectively", which is inane.

When a company offers a product or service at a certain price level, they usually set it at or above the level they value those products or services (i.e. at or above the "cost"), and they are hoping that enough other people will value those things more highly than that and will purchase them. If the money supply fluctuates, then the number of dollars (or pesos, euros, etc.) that the item is sold for will adjust accordingly. If they have lots of money but few goods, then the goods will have a higher price, and if they have lots of goods or services but little money, then the goods or services will show a lower price. However, since this will happen across everything in this little economy, the implied value of those goods and services really hasn't changed.

So, if we look at your scenario again, there is only a problem if the people are unable to do anything else that has any value to anyone else. Ironically, your scenario highlights another problem of socialism -- all of the capital (i.e. tools, land, factories, etc.) is owned by just one entity -- the state. In capitalism, the people are allowed to own the means of production, so they would have their own tools, their own land, etc., and they would be able to produce things that they could trade to sustain their own lives. They could grow their own food on their own land, they could produce products with their own tools, and they could produce products inside their own homes. You forget that the people had to have some way to live before the factory was built. And, a monolithic structure like you propose is what happens under socialism, not capitalism. If there weren't other businesses around, the people couldn't buy food, couldn't get housing -- couldn't get anything other than the "blue widgets". And -- most importantly -- if they didn't have "money" to use as a temporary store of value, then they could simply barter the goods and services that they produced. However, whether the "money" was paper, coins, silver, gold, oil, salt, or bread, etc., etc., they would quickly find something that was easily traded in place of the actual work it represented. Every society has done so, and there is no reason to believe that this society wouldn't be able to figure out the same thing.

You have other major problems with what you describe as "socialism", as well as problems with where the money comes from and with where it goes, but this post is long enough, so I'll leave it alone for now.

NoRulesAllowed

The CEOs of MericaCorp however realized how dumb their idea was trying to increase profits by outsourcing work. This was something they never thought-of. The problem was that the big wigs at MericaCorp only looked at their profit and cost cutting - any consequences of what they did was not really their concern as long as it meant less costs and more profit.

The problem here is that maybe it's a mistake to take their actions at face value. These are not stupid people. If you can see the mistake of only looking at short-term profits and cost-cutting and outsourcing, certainly, they can too. Possibly, failure is all part of their diabolical plan?

Again...

Any system that fails to see the IMPORTANCE of employes
will fail..FATALY.

It doesnt matter if the corp is one or many. The drive for
more is rooted to far...

If ALL corps move their bussines or change it, for the reason
of revenue, there will be NO ONE left to purchase the products.

Hunger for control and power, greed for more, fear of loosing
it all is too rooted in us all..

All systems will fail. Eventually

And no, its not offtopic.
The op is failed, because it doesnt matter
if its socialism or capitalism.

ketsuko

ProleUK
I can't understand why people fear socialism. It has it's place in a society that actually cares about every citizen, regardless of wealth, intellect etc.

To me, a balance must be in place to compete against the private sector in terms of cost, service and direction.

Capitalism kept in check by socialism is fair to all.

There's your problem. You have to assume that society cares about you. It doesn't. Not at all.

If "society" doesn't care about you (which, to a certain extent, it does if we assume that in a perfect world tax-money should flow back towards the benefit of all) - who ELSE would care about you?

Please don't tell me that the corporates care about you! When you got hired and have a job it's because your employment at the corp ultimately has a benefit for THEM. The fact you get paid for this is a result of this..but it is not the main intention of the corp. Their profit comes first.

This is the fallacy that in "pure capitalism" some could see corporates like "welfare institutions" where the well-being of people is in the hand of the corporates - while the motivation is an entirely different one, corp profit comes ALWAYS first, naturally.

By the way I don't see anything wrong with the idea that "society" has an obligation to "care" about people. NOT in a society where we already pay taxes. When I pay 30% of my wages in taxes I would expect something in return, be it better roads, free healthcare, welfare etc..why else pay taxes?

Wrabbit2000

The money the Mayor and Co. are able to use to help MericaCorp comes from the same town folk which recieve it back in paychecks. This is a financial scam, if done knowingly.

This is of course correct. The money (ultimately) of course comes out of the pockets of people, ie. tax.

BUT...it's still the best option (as per my simplified example)...when the "financial scam" ultimately leads to the company recovering and the people having employment again? Please have the ultimate goal here in mind.

Even if people would end up working for only 1/3th of what they initially got and would pay 2/3 of what they earn on tax (to fund the aid program)...it would still be a better alternative than having them unemployed for infinite length? In particular since my example implies that the situation will get better within a few months...so the aid would only be required for a rather short period of time, until the company recovers and starts to sell their widgets again.

It would be absurd if people would complain about, say, initially missing a huge chunk out of their paycheck..but not seeing WHY this happens and that ultimately it will benefit them much more than it will hurt them in the beginning.

It would be much more a "scam" if the gvt would just pay aid without any efforts made to correct the root of the problem at the corporate.

It's of course also correct to say that from a certain point of view the people pay for the mistake in the corporate...but the damage is already done and a solution must be found. In my example, this "socialism" serves the purpose to correct a mistake which came about as a result of "unregulated capitalism" (the outsourcing)...and how else would the situation correct itself again?

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed

BUT...it's still the best option (as per my simplified example)...when the "financial scam" ultimately leads to the company recovering and the people having employment again? Please have the ultimate goal here in mind.

Good point there. The OP scenario didn't seem to account for it and I hadn't made a big issue of highlighting it, but short term? The way to save MericaCorp makes sense...*IF* if can be done without debt load (surplus) or that debt load is within realistic payable amounts. It's that long term where the Government support would have to end entirely and not too long into the period where employment is restored ...otherwise, it's been a very successful and exceptionally short term fix, leading to a worse collapse.

Either way though, the Government support of MericaCorp is something I can see being necessary in the scenario because the alternative is basically Detroit in a small version for failed city, failed infrastructure and failed future options. Something has to give, and this is where I suppose even old Capitalists like me have to admit, MY system isn't any more workable in pure form and left to run wild than Socialism has ever been. They both become corrupt from the inside out, in almost all cases in time, and both self destruct in the end ..as we've seen Socialism do over and over ...and now, we're starting to see Capitalist systems do as well.

I don't know another option but to see a balance between the two approaches which, to be honest, BOTH have good points. The problem is, they are so mutually exclusive by nature that finding balance or meshing them is almost more work than forcing one system to work on it's own.

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed


It is quite easy to direct corporations to care for their employees without forcing them to do this. Just up corporate taxes to a very high rate then create tax loopholes for a business to reinvest back into their company, with the highest loopholes going towards their employees. We got rid of these things back in the 80's with Reagenomics, but before then they worked great and were a large reason why we had such great employee benefits from the 50's to the early 80's.

reply to post by Krazysh0t

Well, we already hold the highest corporate tax rate on Earth...So we have the overtaxing side down. I'm not sure we're lacking loopholes to drive rushhour traffic through, either?

Must be all the wrong loopholes which is likely...since they aren't writing them to benefit anyone but individual business and political ambition.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Yea, I'd say that the loopholes are currently favoring outsourcing labor overseas and using tax havens.

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed


And where did the government get the money to hire everyone back and pay their wages?

oh...right....they had to steal it from the very same people that they are trying to give it back to but ....they have to work for it first.

So....I walk into your house and steal your TV. You now need a new one. So you ask me if I have any work so you can buy a new TV. I do need my lawn mowed but I don't have any money to pay you so I sell the TV and make you mow my lawn for a year and then give you the money from the fenced TV.

I got my lawn mowed for free and you got a job and your TV back. You just had to work twice for the same TV.

That is socialism.....work once to pay taxes and then work again to get those taxes back as pay.

Just look at Somalia in many ways it is a true capitalist country no governmental interference plenty of competition and anyone can live the Somali dream it just depends how hard you work at it how many people you kill and how large you can grow your private militia.

The USA on the other hand has many socialist polices in the form of constitutional rights protective laws and tax funded military & law enforcement.

True capitalism takes no prisoners and true socialism makes everyone prisoners if you go to close to either extreme eventually you’ll end up with rebellion from the population.