Socialism vs Capitalism

PB Forum :: Social / Political Issues
Socialism vs Capitalism
  • Previous Page
Author Message
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Sep 11, 2017 at 12:18 Quote
Thread for debating Capitalism and Socialism. Keep it civil, no swearing. Remember that people are entitled to their own opinions, even if you think that they are wrong.
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 12:28 Quote
harriieee wrote:
lol, you went big on this one. I'm game, perhaps. What is your position?
I’m pro Capitalist, you?
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 12:41 Quote
harriieee wrote:
Not so much. I guess that sets us up quite well then.
So why do you think socialism works?
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 12:58 Quote
harriieee wrote:
Well firstly, there are so many different varieties of socialism and capitalism, neither is 'just one thing'. There are huge gulfs between people who support different varieties of capitalism, and there are also big gulfs between different varieties of socialists. For instance, in some ways, Trump represents a real break with recent American capitalism because of his protectionist attitudes and rejection of some aspects of free trade.

I can outline what I support in a socialist system, but before I do that, I might want to outline what I mean by socialism. And I am pretty familiar with the USA. In my view, the following things do not count as socialism:

- The Democratic party
- Liberalism/Liberals
- Centre-left economic policy/Higher taxes on the wealthy
- The welfare state/Healthcare free at the point of service
- Gun control

It might be important, if you disagree with me on this, to tell me now, because otherwise we will probably end up arguing at cross purposes to each other. That's what usually happens in my experience lol
So I think that welfare state and free healthcare are closely related to socialism. Though I do agree with you that most democrats and liberals aren’t necessarily socialists. In my opinion higher taxes on the wealthy doesn’t mean socialism, though socialism can often lead to that. And the only thing gun control has to do with socialism is with bigger government. Let’s leave the gun control debate out.
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 13:01 Quote
So how do you define socialism?
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 13:34 Quote
[Quote="harriieee"]
My view of socialism is as follows: A system where all ownership of productive processes (ie. the way things are made) is collective. People are paid for exactly the amount of work that they do: if you contribute, for example, the work necessary to produce 50,000 calories' worth of food while working on a farm, you should receive twice as much money as someone who contributes the work necessary to produce 25,000 calories' worth. Or if you mend 6 faulty welds, or conduct 6 MRI scans, or whatever, you should receive twice as much as someone who has only done 3 of these things

So I disagree on everyone owning stuff as a collective. I think they should own their own things. And the way you want to pay people is faulty. A big farmer can’t pay his employees on how many calories that they produce for farming. What if they had a drought or bad crop one year? Should the workers not get paid as much? No. The farmer, being a business man knows the risk that he may not produce as much. It is unfair for the employees to get paid on how much food they produce, especially since most of what they do is water lines, fencing, moving livestock, and repairing vehicles. The farmer should pay his employees hourly, starting with a starting wage. As he gets to know what the employee can do and their work ethic he will raise the pay. Same with welders, you can’t pay a welder on how many welds he does. First of, who the fetch is going to keep count. And a lot of welding is not actually welding but preparing and seeing what’s wrong. And doctors should be payed more then just doing simple jobs like MRI scans. Some jobs would be super hard to say “you get payed this much for how much you do.” The best way to pay is by hour our salary.
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 13:38 Quote
harriieee wrote:
The main difference in this system is that people don't work for a boss, because production is collectively owned (owned by the society as a whole, or by the workers who do the work every day), and no-one would be able to pass an unfair advantage on to their children in the form of extreme wealth, which clearly happens in all countries today.
Almost every job needs to have a leader to delegate and give orders. It would be like anarchy if they didn’t. And when you say owned by society it would have to be owned by the state. Which would probably be a democracy. Bad idea their.
flag kylebikesalot
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 16:30 Quote
harriieee wrote:
gunnerMTB wrote:
And the way you want to pay people is faulty. A big farmer can’t pay his employees on how many calories that they produce for farming. What if they had a drought or bad crop one year? Should the workers not get paid as much? No.

Well, if there is a drought or similar under capitalism, many workers get laid off and lose their jobs – through no fault of their own, simply because of the effects of nature. Given that no-one is to blame for a drought, I would rather see the burden that it imposes spread more evenly throughout the workers and consumers until it is over, which is roughly what my concept is proposing, I think.

You are correct that the contribution that most tasks make to an industry are not measured as simply as I have portrayed them. I did so for the sake of simplicity. A system which attempts to decide how much everyone should get paid is the greatest challenge of creating a viable socialism. All I can say is that it would involve large-scale computerisation and cybernetics. It has been tried before in Chile and showed early signs of success before Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973. With the massively greater computing power we now have, it should be possible to assign values for certain areas of the economy.

I understand from your previous posts that you are young, and as a result you don't have much experience of workplaces (I don't have that much myself, being 24). However, it is obvious from virtually all of my friends and my older siblings that promotion and progress in many corporate structures is nothing to do with how good or productive you are at your job, but rather how well you can create the image (rather than the reality) of success, how well you can suck up to your managers, avoid being blamed for mistakes, avoid difficult or demanding tasks which carry greater risk, etc. Corporate bureaucracies are not interested in equitable treatment; rather they are composed of individuals who are most concerned with gaining personal advantage and maximising their own earning potentials, rather than ensuring that the best people get a chance to rise.

gunnerMTB wrote:
Almost every job needs to have a leader to delegate and give orders.

Every job needs to make decisions. There is no reason to my mind why those decisions should be made by individuals, rather than panels of experts, or even computers (or some mixture of these). An individual has a much larger chance of allowing bias or misguided personal opinion to make a bad decision. Hence why democracies generally perform better, and make fewer very bad decisions in governance, than dictatorships. I don't see why this should be any less true of industry than politics.

What you said in your first paragraph about delegating evenly through hard times would just put everyone out of a job. Also when is it fair to pay for quantity instead of quality. Say a doctor performs 20 heart surgeries a day. But 5 out of those 20 die or have to come back because of another problem due to a mistake he made. And another doctor who only performs 12 surgeries a day but does them much better. It is not fair to pay the one more,who just wants to get the work done quicker.

What you said about having government groups run the industry wouldn’t work because the government doesn’t really care about pleasing the customer.
flag gunnerMTB
Posted: Oct 3, 2017 at 18:54 Quote
Workers don’t really get laid off in a drought.
In my opinion, I do not think a computer is good at making decisions. Maybe I put that wrong. Computer aren’t as good as people at adapting to different situations and constantly changing situations. And when I say leader I don’t mean like a monarchy. Simply some one to lead the way in decision making, like a research project leader, or a president.
Workplaces in the UK. Must be quite different then most hear. Granted, some are that way. But from my personal experience, and extended and immediate family’s experience it is usually quite different here.
  • Previous Page

 


Copyright © 2000 - 2024. Pinkbike.com. All rights reserved.
dv56 0.009682
Mobile Version of Website