The desire for a more socialist society stems from a failure on the part of capitalism.

This is something I've been mulling over for a while now.

When things have failed to produce success it's only natural for people to want to try something new. After all, the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, yet people seem to get really upset over when that logic is applied to Capitalism.

Whether the reason for a person wanting this change is being in massive debt, or stuck in a minimum wage job and hoping that minimum wage gets raised, or out of the job market so long that people are no longer interested in hiring them because they've been unemployed for as long as they have, etc they feel like it happened to them due to the system (capitalism) that they have lived with their whole lives. Logically these people should want to try something new, but people get really upset at them for wanting to do so.

I've seen aspects of religion creep into the views of people who are all about capitalism and the free market, how it will almost certainly always fix things better than anything else that society has to offer including socialism and charity. Is the system in which people live, be it socialism or capitalism, become something that blinds people to the logic of human nature in the same way religion has been shown to do? I think it has honestly, but am I way off base this?

sounds about right.

I have been shocked at how long it takes people to see failure, suffer pain and STILL not consider alternatives that we know work in other countries

I think you're on some proper threads of thought here, particularly in regards to attibuting the two isms to religious fervor.

I dislike the way the premise is set up though. Has capitalism or socialism failed? One could argue that neither has reached failure point, or that we haven't even tried either to begin with. We need to roughly define "capitalism", "socialism", and"failure" first, at least in relation to this topic.

Eh. It's not so much capitalism as it's unchecked wealth at the expense of the working/middle class. As we saw from the French Revolution this way is folly. What we need are Americans not enamored of trump fanboyism to say enough is enough.

Yes, you are far off base if you think capitalism has failed or if socialism is untested and "new". Both have their flaws and both have their benefits, but neither can stand alone, pure capitalism does not work because it drops a lot of people on the floor, and pure socialism does not work as proven in Cuba and USSR. As to the religious aspects, I think it´s more a case of the upbringing and a leftover from where America began.

America´s system is not a perfect balance but it has proven that humans work best with a carrot at the end of the stick.

Partly yes. That and we are slowly going to the extremes of of capitalism which is just as bad as going to the extremes of socialism.

It about blacking things out not doing with one and replacing it with another.

People want both systems working at once balanced.

@Jacanuk: I'm not saying that capitalism as a system has failed, but that it has failed many people within that system. I think that there is clear evidence of capitalism success but I also think that there's sub-sect of people, mostly at the bottom of the financial Spectrum, that are clear pieces of evidence where capitalism has failed as well. I think that where people get into that religious mindset about capitalism I mentioned is when people who have not been failed by capitalism look at the people who have, and just say that what they really need is more capitalism and the only thing that has really failed is themselves as opposed to it ever being the system the live in.

Wasn't USSR communist?

@Serraph105: socialism generally doesn't work. Actually, the real reason the world and the economy is so messed up is because of socialism. Government socialized risk with patent laws, trade marks, IP, anti free market regulations. Government failed to remove the subsidies on fossil fuels and now the population is addicted to cheap fossil fuels that are slowly killing us. This subsidy is also another form of socialism. When you fail to factor in a cost of something, then you can't call it anything else except subsidy, aka socialism. You have subsidized land, farmers get paid to raise livestock so we can eat cheap meat. Again, another government subsidy that is causing massive dead spots in the gulf. Don't get me started on the so called cheap plastics. Government failure again. There is no real capitalism in the US, or any Western country. Stop fooling yourself.

The only thing that really failed is democracy. We were better off as a species under a monarchy. You can't expect monkeys to act rationally when given the right to vote. I'd say there are more monkeys in the country than humans.

Yes, communism is a form of socialism.

@blaznwiipspman1: we have functioning countries in Europe that are socialist

They're 2 different things.

So this election is going to be Russians vs Russians.

Todays Russians vs yesterdays Russians

Yes, pure capitalism usually ends up failing people who are not by themselves able to succeed in life. And they also are the ones at the bottom scale of life. And yes those people will flock to that hope of a better place, and socialism gives people are hope.

So you mean people who are middle to high income try to feel better by their success by turning to religion, well I don´t disagree there but there is still a correlation between America´s past history with religion, most Americans are raised in communities where religion plays a big role.

Actually, they are not

Socialism is a major part of Marx´s ideology,

Except they're different.

Wow.....no. I'm saying that capitalism becomes sort of like a religion for some people in the sense that capitalism is used as a reason to turn a blind eye to evidence that it fails parts of society. Instead of people looking at the poorest people in society who are trapped in a cycle of poverty and recognize that at least some of them are there because capitalism failed, they will instead say that those people failed capitalism and prescribe more capitalism.

Not that different.

The core is the same, communism adds the political system but the core ideology is still the same in both

If they're different, they're different. Which they are, and which you've admitted.

Ok, I get what you are saying now and I guess some may treat capitalism as a religion, but they are also misguided. Capitalism does not fail people, people fail themselves

Anyone in America can with hard work improve their initial pace in life and it may take hard work and determination but if you start a zero, once you climb that ladder it feels so much better. then someone who was handed their success.

hey if we are controlled by Russia then what kind of economic system does it make us?

I think it's more important to focus on the positive impacts of capitalism more than we do. When it comes to how many people lifted out of poverty, no other economic system compares. That's not to say there have been lots of different ways that governments have taxed people, and created safety nets. Sometimes through democratic consensuses, sometimes not. But the general idea of market economies is a capitalist one, and that's what has made countries better.

@Serraph105: "I'm not saying that capitalism as a system has failed, but that it has failed many people within that system."

Spot on, and this gets to the heart of a lot of what you're touching on. Free trade, as a relevant example, increases gdp and economic growth. But it does not increase the per capita gdp of everyone, and actually harms a lot of people. We could enjoy the benefits of free trade and have literally everyone benefit from the policy, but we can't because... Reasons.

Economics being a complex field, this is just a particularly relevant example given it's recent news coverage, but I think it helps bolster your case.

your measuring it wrong.

having the largest growth ever of a handful of people is not better than a healty growth for the majority of a population.

Capitalism is awesome and is a major driving force in enriching humans and their lives.

The issue is not capitalism and never has been. The issue is entirely about governance, gov't, and the societal choices that are made. Those are things that have failed people, including whether any particular market should be free, heavily regulated, slightly regulated, or fully cost socialized via a single layer aka government.

Many of the most 'socialized' countries are in fact heavily capitalistic where the large majority of the primary and secondary markets are largely free and in private hands. Even socialized healthcare in many countries has significant portions of the money and care flowing through private hands. The difference between them and the US are about societal choices not the primary economic engine.

It is important to not conflate the marketplace, ownership over the means of production, etc. with broader issues like taxation/redistribution of wealth, regulation, gov't spending, etc. which are governance issues. Blame politicians, blame voters, blame yourself.

Agreed, and free trade is a weird one where republicans and democrats are kind of flipped on the issue. Republicans may not say that capitalism failed people in the case of free trade, but they will say Free Trade failed people. Democrats on the other hand I feel would be more likely to defend free trade despite seeing the people who blame it for helping them to fall behind in life.

I'm under the impression that the general trend toward opening markets has lifted more human beings out of poverty worldwide in the last 40 years than any previous period of world history, a fact that vl4d hinted at. Chinese per capita GDP has gone up somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000% since they began opening markets in the late 70's, that is 1 billion humans way, way better off.

That said, I believe investing in socialized medicine, education, justice, and public safety to be moral imperatives. I believe this because I find rationing by wealth (aka capitalism) in these sectors to be both immoral and bad public policy as from any resulting injustice emanates a cratering of faith in governance.

I'm amenable to limited, temporary socialist intervention in other markets to help restore balance when those markets that have been corrupted in some way. Although governments should enter with open eyes, knowing that their well meaning attempts will invariably create inefficiencies, pricing anomalies and unintended consequences, but knowing also that capitalism's ability to self-correct sometimes takes too much time and causes too much suffering to simply let people fall through the cracks. Hence, much like military interventions, government's should have a clear, narrow mission goal, bring overwhelming resources and have an exit strategy in place when entering a market.

I don't have the sanguine, people know what's best for them, the great invisible hand gives to us all attitude toward capitalism. I don't find it to be anything more or less than rationing goods by a combination of wealth and desire, but it does measure desire far, far better than any other system, which allows everyone to attempt to satisfy the public demand with their skills. And in the absence of a moral imperative (health, education, the law, and public safety) I think people should be free to attempt to satisfy their desires, which meets another moral imperative, the pursuit of happiness.

I dont know if that is actually true actually and often what you hear in school and 'conventional wisdom' when it comes to the U.S. is often wrong when its propagated within the U.S.

but I dont know what the facts are but I do know this much.

1. having 10 people have the largest increase in wealth in history

2. having 10000000 people have a modest increase in wealth

are two radically different things.

so it depends on how they are REALLY measuring it.

Check their tax rates.

the net is better.

which is the point.

If I am not employed or self employed for the lowest level of insurance I would pay $750 a month..for one person.

that is JUST for health care

@JimB: and your point? Compare the cost of everything else with out cost of everything else.

They clearly are not losing sleep over having more taxed for programs that benefit them. Mean while we still are going to have more taxes to pay for.the tax cuts, the additional 712 billion dollarsto the millitary, and the 12 billion bail our to farmers because of an unneeded trade war

Yup.

If I recall, communism was sort of the regulated, forced-on-you transition stage and then socialism was the more organic evolution, like when people finally get used to communism, they're ready for socialism.

Socialism did not fail, communism did.

This is why communism is bad, but socialist aspects can work, and also why you don't have to have full-blown socialism. It's also a shame that people confuse the two, because communism is legitimately scary, while socialism is not, and it's not right to have a negative knee-jerk reaction to socialism because you think it's the same as communism.

You got that reversed.

Socialism is the step people need to take to end up with the ultimate society "IE a communist society" You should try to read a bit of Karl Marx.

This is so ironic.

Putin is going to be organizing an election campaign against socialism.

Our true debt is 122 trillion dollars because of social programs. In the countries that have a socialist government epically in Europe your tax rate is about 75% so you are basically working for the government. Socialism never works it always runs out of money.

Where were you when Obama doubled the national debt? One thing about debt at some point in time it has to be paid. In 2009 the government spent 900 billion dollars for shovel ready jobs that were seen all the money went to the states to balance budgets and to the Unions to keep from losing jobs and pension plans.

ok all that randomness is silly so I will just stick to the last claim.

I pay for my Healthcare: $700 a month for insurance alone

I pay for my education: Student loans are around $100,000

those two items ALONE would likely have to make my taxes triple to make up the cost difference to me

I hope you were able good job to pay for your education. In a socialist country you wouldn't be able to afford college with a 75% tax rate.

school is free in such systems which is why I mentioned it.

not sure everywhere but I know Russia has free education, free health care.

and $700 a month for health insurance is nothing to joke about

The goal of socialism, is communism.

I've read my fair share. I'm just saying they are different. No need to split hairs with each other when both agree they're both flawed ways of governing.

Which countries in Europe have a 75% tax rate?

Normally you are pretty decent with the facts Jim, but I think you watched too much Fox news here

Well, kinda

And yes they are different, Communism has a political system

Socialism exists even in America

Socialism and capitalism aren't necessarily exclusionary.

@tryit:If I am not employed or self employed for the lowest level of insurance I would pay $750 a month..for one person.

that is JUST for health care

US healthcare is f*cked up. Can't you just wait till you can sick then pay? That's what I'd do.

@mattbbpl One could argue that neither has reached failure point, or that we haven't even tried either to begin with. We need to roughly define "capitalism", "socialism", and"failure" first, at least in relation to this topic.

There is alway the quality of life index https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp to define something with hard stats but a country's respective policies or successes cannot be measured with statistics. Neither correlated to a ratio of 'socialism/capitalism'. Not without a team of researches and a clear definition of the terms anyway and no-one's done that yet.

No country has ever become totalitarian to either camp as I'm pretty sure private enterprise continued under the Soviet Union and chinese empires but with a significant competetive disadvantage.

But the QLI does not account for the balance between socialism and capitalism within those countries economic structures but there are more important factors which are being ignored...

Modern western life is very demanding. Your life is filled with activity and sensory input from all directions vying for your attention. Jobs are high pressure and cosmopolitan society can be materialistic and competitive.

I think quality of life is peace of mind, plain and simple. In a high octane modern western life you are constantly under pressure to attain and achieve. This is a mindset that breeds narcissism, high blood pressure and shorter life expectancy.

You have to ask yourself what the proportion of your life is lived within moments of stress and frustration or moments of satisfaction and progress.

For the unemployed it is very stressful as you lose position within society which only respects success and attainment.

This may not be some people’s personality or nature and may not even be a healthy goal to aspire to as it abstracts the nature of what success is into simply success itself. Which is akin to a malignant cancer as far as a healthy mindset is concerned and you are likely to fall foul of your folly! Be it drink or drugs or unhealthy obsessions with firearms or knives (see Gabe Newell).

For a healthy life you need to be able to follow a direction which suits you without the pressure to conform to a societal norm. When society restricts you progress or movements in life because you have not managed to thrive within that system frustration can set in.

A better quality of life index is needed which attributes access to green spaces, spare time, ability to travel and available resources in terms of buying power within the economy to facilitate movement within the direction which suits you personally.

So capitalism hasn’t failed but it has failed a lot of people. We have sewers etc. But has the price we put on basic necessities such as water and internet connection superseded the cost of the methods used to acquire them?

I listed the tax rates of the European counties in another post about two weeks ago. I found a the information for each country in different links. England was to difficult to obtain because of the countries that make up Great Britain. I don't have the links readily available. You have to ask for the countries tax rate on Google to find what each tax rate is.

I Found the tax rate for France:

Personal tax 45%

Sales tax 20%

Social Security Tax 14.5%

Total Tax Rate 79.2

This rate doesn't leave much for disposal income.

https://tradingeconomics.com/france/sales-tax-rate

that is a super lame evasive answer.

which country on that list had 75%, surely you recall which one because you remembered the number 75%

I just re-posted Frances tax rate which is 79.5%. With your $ 100,000 education you should have no trouble finding the information.

Thank you..see thats not hard.

I dont have a $100,000 education. You read what I said that time incorrectly....TWICE even

well that took me 5 seconds to look up, not 75%

https://www.french-property.com/guides/france/finance-taxation/taxation/calculation-tax-liability/rates/

by the way, after the great depression out tax rate had a ceiling of 90% and that helped up with all the public works projects that you now enjoy

That was eighty years ago and there were a lot of people not working hence the great depression.

You posted the $100,00 in student loans. That was to pay for college or did you spend the money for something else?

1. the tax rate you posted is the MAX tax rate possible of which I could find within seconds!

2. I dont have a student loan, I do have health insurance. the post was to illustrate how much those things cost NOT that I PERSONALLY have that. Also, in those countries education is FREE! so maybe now you get it.

@JimB: dude...no.

What boosted our debt was military funding. We had a surplus before the Iraq war and we cut taxes. No matter how many budget cuts you do it alone can't fix the debt.

It makes no sense to use this as a talking point because the only way to deal with debt is with raising taxes.

Are you saying you are OK with Obama raising taxes?

Also source which country has that tax rate.