Capitalism vs Socialism.

So, no? You can't answer them? Taken individually, maybe this is selective editing, but the sheer volume suggests a clear pattern.

You actually believe research that Fox does? LOL.

 

Yeah, Fox News is almost as far right as Donald Trump.. Just out of curiosity, and to lighten the subject, would you prefer capitalism or socialism.... in minecraft? On one hand, capitalism could offer players the option to monopolize a market(s) on a server like Meepcraft. However, on the other hand, some northern European socialist countries have the highest standards of living on Earth, and are the happiest countries on the planet.. I could see both of these working, but what would reign on Meepcraft?

 

I think we already have a mixed economy, with capitalism and socialism. And that's what's going on in those Northern European countries, too. It's not just socialism.

Meep socialism: tax free or nearly tax free towns, free food, grinders, tree farm and farm plots for residents, etc.
Meep capitalism: everything else

 

This isn't socialism though. A tax free or cheap town is a capitalistic ploy to gain residents. Free food is akin to charity, and farm plots draw in new residents, who probably pay some form of tax (most towns aren't tax free). And anyway, towns are more like a business than an actual town. If it were actually socialist, you'd see some form of institution in the 'government' (staff) that takes meebles from people in the form of a tax (usually not a flat tax, that is, those who make more pay more by percent), and distributes it among those that have virtually no money.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 1, 2016 ---

You actually believe the research that Daily Kos does? LOL

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016 ---

And yet, the sheer volume of liberal journalists suggests a pattern, and it would be far more pervasive than several (hardly a huge number) of incidents, as it affects the underlying message of the report.


Anyway, I'd like to say this: https://mises.org/library/great-thanksgiving-hoax-1 (It's not a conspiracy theory lol)

 

Free public education is a capitalistic ploy to raise the economic output of its citizens, because more output = more tax. Also less criminal activity, which means lower law enforcement/court/incarceration costs, plus increased economic output.

Free health benefits accomplish the same thing. Socialism is a giant scam to help people make more capitalism by making them happier, healthier, better protected, and better able to absorb life's ups and downs. Terrible, innit?

That word "research" does not mean what you think it means.

Still no answer to the question, I see. That in itself is an answer, so thanks.

 

re·search
ˈrēˌsərCH,rəˈsərCH/
noun

1. 1.
   the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.
   "we are fighting meningitis by raising money for medical research"
   synonyms: investigation, experimentation, testing, analysis, fact-finding,fieldwork, examination, scrutiny More
   

verb

1. 1.
   investigate systematically.
   "she has spent the last five years researching her people's history"
   synonyms: investigate, study, inquire into, look into, probe, explore, analyze,examine, scrutinize, review More
   
   

Still no answer to the question, I see. That in itself is an answer, so thanks.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 1, 2016 ---

Going to respond to this? @NuckleMuckle

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016 ---

Hehe, you're funny. Not really. Free public education is a public service provided by the government through the spending of tax money. It's basically as far into socialism as I'm willing to go, and it isn't 100% necessary (I've never attended a public school in my life, and I've turned out fine. More or less xD. Well, I suppose that's not true. I go to a charter school now, and that receives a little bit of state funding, although mandatory donations are what pay for things that the school needs.)

Actually, you're close. Free public education is a governmental ploy to increase the economic output of its citizens, thereby increasing the GDP. And it isn't free. You just don't pay for it up front.

 

I believe that ones country should cover a persons health care and do every effort that they can to make sure that their citizens are in good health, and that they will therefore be loyal to their nation. In contract, in my opinion, competition between industries is the thing that drives the economy to grow, therefore it should be encouraged by the government. On the topic of war, most wars are because of two things, religion/ beliefs or money. Most of the wars that the USA has ever been in involves money, this is a main cause why the US is having such a good economy related to the rest of the world. War should never be encouraged, and I think that the US should get out of the Middle East. This is mostly because the governments there don't want us their and most of the citizens in these countries are peaceful and not radicalism like we are labeling them.

 

I disagree. Whilst the Revolution was, essentially, over a lack of representation, it was taxes that sparked the war. However, the war of 1812 wasn't over money, Mexico started the Mexican American war, WW1 wasn't about money, WW2 wasn't about money, Vietnam and Korea weren't about money, and technically, all involvement in the middle east wasn't about money, though you could argue there were secondary motives.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 1, 2016 ---

Oops, I forgot the Civil War, which wasn't about money either.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016 ---

It's not about 'most', it's about how many. Tell me, if you take a population of, let's say, aliens, and .1% of them wanted to destroy the earth, and there are 1,000,000,000,000 of them, then 1,000,000,000 of them want to destroy the earth. That's a hell of a lot of aliens.
So we look at ISIS, which may have upwards of 200,000 members http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-of-200000-claims-kurdish-leader-9863418.html. That's literally an army of people who would see the U.S. fall. While they lack the ability to achieve that goal, they can still attack us. If you look at casualty ratios from 9/11, you see that 19 hijackers died (presumably), while 2,977 Americans died. That means that for every American who dies, .0064 Radicals die. Keep this in mind.

 

War of 1812- Economic sanctions on the US by France and Britian, money.
Mexican American War- Land, therefore involving money, land was used as a form of money.
WW1- Tension in Europe.
WW2- German retaliation because of the Treaty of Ver. because of the economy at that time, and how Germany was not able to pay war repercussions.
Vietnam/ Korea- Containment of communism, upper class keeping their money. They would lose it if communism had come completely to the US.
Middle East- It's all about money. Oil prices that the US has influenced when the occupation of countries like Syria.
Civil War- Separation of state. Union did not accept that the Confederates were a separate country.
While a lot of the wars that the US has been involved in were not mainly because of money, most of them have a link to the upper class making a buck or two.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 1, 2016 ---

Ok, before you throw out statistics about war, how many people have been killed in the Middle East that are citizens? 150,000- 200,000 people. That number, in the United States, would mean, if you put the population of the Middle East- the US, that every 1 in 300 US citizen would be dead. So, we should rethink our military strategies if this many citizens are being killed. And saying that that many radicals died in 9/11, the attack, look how many have been killed because of the attack.

 

Ok, I'll give you that one.

Um... no. It wasn't. Land was land, and money was money. They were, are, and probably always will be, very different.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 1, 2016 ---

Very different from:

Okay...?

 

So you are denying the US control of the oil industries in Syria? Oh and land = money. Just in case you didn't know, to countries like India and Chine, land is something they have a lot of, therefore controlling the economy like money. Land allows for agriculture which is a one of the main things needed for a country to feed its people. Also, what do you think that upper classes were thinking in countries like Russia when communism was first enforced? I highly doubt it was like okay, sure you can take our money.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 1, 2016 ---

@Ranger0203 No, what I am saying is that we change, or we get the hell out of there.

 

Of course not. It just wasn't the cause of war.

Lol, I can already predict the argument you're going to use, and it's pretty laughable.

People are the ones who create the country, so they are arguably as valuable as the land. Does that make people money?

Wealthy Russians didn't like communism, therefore every U.S. war was inspired by money. Flawless. I mean, it's brilliant!

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 1, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 1, 2016 ---

Okay... so you suggest we leave this army of, well, the Muslim equivalent of Nazis to conquer the middle east, gain control of the oil fields, and collapse the world's economy?

 

Wealthy Russians didn't like communism, wealthy Americans didn't like the idea of communism. Wealthy Americans influence the government more because of money/ politics. Example- Donald Trump. And no I didn't say EVERY U.S. was war inspired by money.

 

Umm lol. So a) assuming this argument were valid (I'll explain why it isn't at the bottom), it only covers like, 2 wars. b) Wars are fought by the common man (who supposedly doesn't gain by fighting a 'rich man's war'), so how does the U.S. have an active military of 1.4 million, with a reserve of 1.1 million without a draft?

See how that doesn't really make sense? Almost everybody in the U.S. hated the idea of communism, regardless of whether they had money or not.

 

Author fails miserably.

1) Mistakes socialism for communism, as so many anti-socialists do.
2) Fails to recognize that proper implementation of "from each according to their ability, TO EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR NEED" would recognize that the larger workers doing the more work have, by definition, higher caloric needs.

So really, there's nothing in that highly-biased, factually-unsupported, dumpster-fire bad analysis of the Plymouth colony that even slightly represents a valid criticism of socialism.

"Free" in this sense means "offered at no cost to the recipients," obviously, because there's no such thing as a free lunch.

 

Well, they still have to pay for it, it just happens when they grow up and start paying taxes.

Yay for Greek philosophers.

Admittedly, although it isn't that much different in principle, only implementation.

I don't think you got the point. The point was: Since they knew that what they were producing would be taken and given to other people, they didn't work hard enough (not enough incentive, since they thought they'd get food from everybody else, I guess) and then they didn't have food. They didn't have enough to give everyone what they needed.

 

No, they're very different in principle. Socialism is a broad umbrella term with many interpretations/implementations, and communism is one of those sub-categories. That's why Finland receives very different results from it than the USSR. They're doing socialism in very different ways.

Most people are unaware that the US golden age of the late 40s-late 60s coincided with the strongest implementations of socialism in the country's history, and their continuous erosion has, not coincidentally, happened alongside the continuous erosion of US global standing in all areas, be it economy, military, debt, education, etc. Because the allegedly liberal media still treats "socialism" like it's a dirty word.

I would suggest that "not starving" would be a pretty good incentive, because if you're responsible for food production and unhappy with your share of it, it's perfectly within your power to address that by growing more, so all you're really telling me is that Puritans were idiots. I was already sold on that notion before this conversation began, seeing as how it was already well established that they were Puritans.

Anyway, an alternative analysis (based as it is on that bad source, any analysis is questionable at best) is that by allocating publicly-owned land to individuals and allowing their produce to be traded in an open market, they weren't practicing capitalism at all, but market socialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 2, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 2, 2016 ---

Oh, hey, look, the Plymouth colony continued practicing socialism as late as 1627, with this division of publicly-owned cattle, so much for the great capitalist revolution of 1623, eh?:

http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/plymouth/cattlediv.html

Updated for ease of readability:

1627.

At a public court held the 22th of May it was concluded by the whole Company that the cattle which were the Company's (to wit, the cows and goats) should be equally divided to all the persons of the same company, and so kept until the expiration of ten years after the date written above, and that every one should well and sufficiently provide for their own part under penalty of forfeiting the same.

That the old stock, with half the increase, should remain for common use to be divided at the end of the said term, or otherwise as occasion falls out, and the other half to be their own forever.

 

You're right, I was unaware of that. Care to give examples of socialist programs we had then, but don't have now?

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 3, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 3, 2016 ---

It is. But that's the problem. Everyone figured that the others would work, and since that would produce enough to live off of, they didn't have to work. And then, when they figured out that nobody was working, they probably figured, "Well, what does it matter if I'm working or not, what I make won't stay with me, and it won't be enough to feed everybody, or anybody."

 

I said "erosion," because we still have just about all the programs, but many have had their benefits significantly reduced. The biggest one I can recall that was gutted completely was when Reagan cut funding for 90% of the mental health institution beds: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/

Back to erosion, here are a few examples off the top of my head:

- Federal minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation and cost of living increases, and any talk of raising it leads to " the sky is falling" responses (many other benefits have this same problem, like food stamps)
- Social Security retirement age has steadily increased
- The role of the labor union has steadily diminished (with little comment from the allegedly liberal media)
- Qualifying for federal benefits has gotten steadily harder, and more and more deserving candidates are being rejected, all under the pretense of cutting fraud.
- Regulations protecting the economy/environment/population from excessive capitalist greed have slowly been rolled back (repeal of Glass-Steagal and the resulting housing bubble being one of the more notable examples).

Etc.

The country is worse off for all of these things.