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 Cheesecat wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
So.... Anyone feel like seizing the means of production?

No, every socialist country has had a lower standard of living and worse economy than capitalist democracies so why would anyone consider that a good idea? There's been dozens of attempts (some working a little better than others), but on average socialism stinks so just give it up

Scandinavian countries regularly come at the top of quality of life rankings, and they're pretty socialist.

You didn't read my full post, did you. Also social democracy is not the same thing as socialism.

I did read it all, and you didn't explain what you meant by "socialism" very well.

 Just Tony wrote:

That worked out well for you guys, didn't it?

I mean, it did end tsar rule, industrialise a peasant nation, teach everyone to read and smashed one of the most powerful war machines on the planet that would otherwise have exterminated millions more than it already did. I would say it worked out better than the alternative.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

That worked out well for you guys, didn't it?

I mean, it did end tsar rule, industrialise a peasant nation, teach everyone to read and smashed one of the most powerful war machines on the planet that would otherwise have exterminated millions more than it already did. I would say it worked out better than the alternative.

To be fair, they might have also achieved that without murdering millions. A lot of the brutality was quite senseless in the bigger picture.

Same for capitalism though. US backed regimes in Central America racked up body counts in the same percentage of their populations as some of the worst communist excesses, it just tends to get glossed over more easily because the absolute number is smaller.

But as those ideologies in the 20th century sense are dead and burried they won't really help us make society better today. There is a happy middle that Western governments for the most part are trending away from to serve business interests.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

That worked out well for you guys, didn't it?

I mean, it did end tsar rule, industrialise a peasant nation, teach everyone to read and smashed one of the most powerful war machines on the planet that would otherwise have exterminated millions more than it already did. I would say it worked out better than the alternative.

Yet created a whole NEW ruling class that was only mildly better as far as worker abuses, and TONS worse as far as human rights issues. I wouldn't call it a win.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
So.... Anyone feel like seizing the means of production?

No, every socialist country has had a lower standard of living and worse economy than capitalist democracies so why would anyone consider that a good idea? There's been dozens of attempts (some working a little better than others), but on average socialism stinks so just give it up

already it's not going to work out. Part of the reason is Socialsim by it's nature deemphasizes competition, so you get lower quality products (see Russian cars) because there isn't that competitive marketplace that capitalism has where everyone is trying to get a good selling product so they

look for ways to reduce costs, find something that they do better than the competitors, use higher quality materials, etc it's innovation and quality control due to adversity. I'm not saying capitalism is perfect because when unrestrained it can be very exploitative, but it's still better than

socialism. Social democracy on the other hand, now there's a future in that where your country isn't hard capitalist or socialist (like in Scandinavia) it's a little of both, those countries have some of the highest standards of living in the world and seem to do well economically.

The low quality of Russian cars has nothing to do with a lack of competition. There was in fact plenty of competition in the Soviet Union between different factories and design bureaus, as the state would only select and reward the best design. The low quality of Russian cars was entirely due to the fact that the Soviets couldn't care less about consumer goods like cars. All attention was on heavy industry and military. This caused designers and factories to spend most of their time and resources there, meaning cars had to be designed quickly and without using a lot of resources. Compare for example Soviet cars with Soviet trucks made in the same factories. The cars are shoddy, but the trucks are the best trucks in the entire world.
Of course, when you are trying to build a socialist society this isn't very good. But the Soviet Union wasn't really a socialist society in fact. Sure, they talked about socialism a lot (a huge lot), but actual socialist principles mostly never got off the ground. It was more of a form of state capitalism, with the bourgeois having been replaced by the apparatchiks. Workers still did not have much actual power, and wage slavery was not abolished. It was basically the same system as capitalism, but controlled by different faces. It bears note that the Soviets never actually claimed to have achieved socialism. They viewed themselves as being in the process of building a socialist state, rather than already being one. To my knowledge, there has never been an actual socialist state.

Also, there is plenty of capitalist countries, even democracies, that have lower standards of living than 'socialist' countries. There have only ever been 19 countries in the world that tried to build a socialist system (only 5 currently), so that should not be a surprise, despite the difficulties a socialist society faces in what is a capitalist global system. What is more, the Soviet-style planned economy does not necessarily lead to lower standards of living or a slow economy, as the early Soviet Union shows . It had a faster economic growth than any capitalist country at that time, so much that Russia was transformed from a technologically backwards feudal empire centered entirely on agriculture to an industrialised superpower and the world's first spacefaring nation in the span of a few decades. Again, they decided to focus all of their effort on the military and heavy industry, to increase state power. Had they spent all of their effort on making consumer goods and making people's lives awesome, the Soviet Union would without a doubt have had much better standards of living. But they chose to have a massive military ruling over a massive empire instead. The problem with Soviet socialism was political, not economical. It was too repressive, too focused on the power of the state, rather than the power of the worker.

Social democracy is a bad system, it is unsustainable. Not to mention that there is nothing equal or social about it, since it simply continues to propagate wage slavery. It is simply a tool for the bourgeois to keep the workers from power by lulling them into complacency through improving their standard of living. Of course, over time the costs of that become larger and larger, meaning the system is not sustainable. At some point it will have to revert back to a more oppressive form of capitalism.

 Just Tony wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

That worked out well for you guys, didn't it?

I mean, it did end tsar rule, industrialise a peasant nation, teach everyone to read and smashed one of the most powerful war machines on the planet that would otherwise have exterminated millions more than it already did. I would say it worked out better than the alternative.

Yet created a whole NEW ruling class that was only mildly better as far as worker abuses, and TONS worse as far as human rights issues. I wouldn't call it a win.

The Soviets overall were actually an improvement over the Tsars in terms of human rights. Stalin being the exception of course. Overall, it was definitely a win. If it was up to the Tsar, Russia most likely would still be full of poor, illiterate peasants today. That is how feudal landlords like to see their people after all. The Tsars never cared about the people, just about the nobility. The Soviets at least pretended to care about the people, and initially, they actually did.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
So.... Anyone feel like seizing the means of production?

No, every socialist country has had a lower standard of living and worse economy than capitalist democracies so why would anyone consider that a good idea? There's been dozens of attempts (some working a little better than others), but on average socialism stinks so just give it up

already it's not going to work out. Part of the reason is Socialsim by it's nature deemphasizes competition, so you get lower quality products (see Russian cars) because there isn't that competitive marketplace that capitalism has where everyone is trying to get a good selling product so they

look for ways to reduce costs, find something that they do better than the competitors, use higher quality materials, etc it's innovation and quality control due to adversity. I'm not saying capitalism is perfect because when unrestrained it can be very exploitative, but it's still better than

socialism. Social democracy on the other hand, now there's a future in that where your country isn't hard capitalist or socialist (like in Scandinavia) it's a little of both, those countries have some of the highest standards of living in the world and seem to do well economically.

You are aware that, by American standards, there's only ONE capitalist democracy in the world - America. And given recent political trends, it's rapidly ceasing to be a functional democracy.

Literally EVERY other developed nation in the word is more socialist than America. Every. Single. One.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hard socialism leads to a bad place a bit faster than hard capitalism.

Now THIS has been demonstrated to be true everywhere it's tried. But there's a huge gap between hard socialism a la Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, and Democratic Socialism a la... well, most of the developed world.


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 Cheesecat wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
So.... Anyone feel like seizing the means of production?

No, every socialist country has had a lower standard of living and worse economy than capitalist democracies so why would anyone consider that a good idea? There's been dozens of attempts (some working a little better than others), but on average socialism stinks so just give it up

Scandinavian countries regularly come at the top of quality of life rankings, and they're pretty socialist.

You didn't read my full post, did you. Also social democracy is not the same thing as socialism.

And yet American (and to a lesser extent English) conservatives treat them as synonymous.

 Just Tony wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

That worked out well for you guys, didn't it?

I mean, it did end tsar rule, industrialise a peasant nation, teach everyone to read and smashed one of the most powerful war machines on the planet that would otherwise have exterminated millions more than it already did. I would say it worked out better than the alternative.

Yet created a whole NEW ruling class

Yeah irony of millions dying to free themselves from an oppressive ruling class, only to be immediately oppressed by a whole new ruling class...

that was only mildly better as far as worker abuses, and TONS worse as far as human rights issues. I wouldn't call it a win.

I mean, we are talking about degrees of horror here, but the Soviets were objectively better than the Tsars, as far as the average citizen was concerned. The Soviets killed tens of millions of their own through purges and deliberate policy, the Tsars killed 100s of millions through ignorance and neglect.

 feeder wrote:


I mean, we are talking about degrees of horror here, but the Soviets were objectively better than the Tsars, as far as the average citizen was concerned. The Soviets killed tens of millions of their own through purges and deliberate policy, the Tsars killed 100s of millions through ignorance and neglect.

Which also explains Russian tepid reaction to democracy. It hasn't yet proven it works better than an authoritarian regime for the average Ivan.



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 Disciple of Fate wrote:

jouso wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Serious question. Is maybe not having kids an option if you work a job where no one values your time enough to pay for it? Like, maybe we need a cultural shift where having a family isn't the be all and end all of existence, or maybe it's too biologically engrained?

I imagine a single person on minimum wage has a decent chance of supporting themselves, especially if in shared accommodation or with a partner.

For the most part it's people on higher incomes who decide against having children, puting career or leisure first. Or plainly recognising they wouldn't be good enough parents.

People on lower incomes and people on higher incomes tend to have more children than the middle classes. There's also a rural/urban split.

In Europe reduced fertility is a huge problem right now, and will only get worse with an aging population.

People not having children on such a scale would require upping immigration to meet labor demands. Its not a viable solution to how our current economy and society is configured.

Plus children become a privilige to those with wealth is probably not a road to go down on. Its up there with people not getting proper healthcare because of their job level.

This is exactly what's happening in most of Europe. If it wasn't for immigration population would have started decreasing in the 00s

Replacement fertility rate is approx 2,1 children per woman, and some countries barely get above 1. Only France is close to the replacement figure.

 Vulcan wrote:

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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hard socialism leads to a bad place a bit faster than hard capitalism.

Now THIS has been demonstrated to be true everywhere it's tried. But there's a huge gap between hard socialism a la Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, and Democratic Socialism a la... well, most of the developed world.

Has it? If we look at both GDP and HDI rankings both those "hard socialist" countries end up slightly above the middle of the pack. So there are a lot of capitalist countries that are doing way worse then them.

jouso wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

jouso wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Serious question. Is maybe not having kids an option if you work a job where no one values your time enough to pay for it? Like, maybe we need a cultural shift where having a family isn't the be all and end all of existence, or maybe it's too biologically engrained?

I imagine a single person on minimum wage has a decent chance of supporting themselves, especially if in shared accommodation or with a partner.

For the most part it's people on higher incomes who decide against having children, puting career or leisure first. Or plainly recognising they wouldn't be good enough parents.

People on lower incomes and people on higher incomes tend to have more children than the middle classes. There's also a rural/urban split.

In Europe reduced fertility is a huge problem right now, and will only get worse with an aging population.

People not having children on such a scale would require upping immigration to meet labor demands. Its not a viable solution to how our current economy and society is configured.

Plus children become a privilige to those with wealth is probably not a road to go down on. Its up there with people not getting proper healthcare because of their job level.

This is exactly what's happening in most of Europe. If it wasn't for immigration population would have started decreasing in the 00s

Replacement fertility rate is approx 2,1 children per woman, and some countries barely get above 1. Only France is close to the replacement figure.

Yup, we have quite a few case studies of why depressing the birth rate is a bad thing when the economy wants at least a stable population. We get to see what that kind of social engineering leads to in China the next few decades.

Without immigration the population decline would have been massive, with some European countries losing perhaps as much as 1/3rd of their population by 2050. This shouldn't be promoted to please the employment of wage slavery.


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dyndraig wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hard socialism leads to a bad place a bit faster than hard capitalism.

Now THIS has been demonstrated to be true everywhere it's tried. But there's a huge gap between hard socialism a la Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, and Democratic Socialism a la... well, most of the developed world.

Has it? If we look at both GDP and HDI rankings both those "hard socialist" countries end up slightly above the middle of the pack. So there are a lot of capitalist countries that are doing way worse then them.

Historically its pretty misleading to look at just living/economic standards and go, see capitalism is better. Many of the most succesful capitalist countries i.e. the West had a massive headstart over the frequently poor countries that turned to communism.

Internally capitalism was less brutal than communism, but it quite made up for that outside of their own countries. Its been toned down somewhat, but you can argue about to what extent the capitalist economic system is still responsible for a great cost in lives due to it driving a relatively cutthroat supply and demand system.

So, this is all intersting but it does not address the question of why wages are not rising now.

Recent data showed that wages growth actually declined month-to-month!

All the signs are there for higher pay, but the 'mystery of missing wage growth' continues


Multiple job market indicators, including the 3.9 unemployment rate, are flashing signs that wages should be increasing.

Job openings are at a record high 6.6 million, about even with the amount of potential workers officially counted as unemployed.

Average hourly earnings, however, rose just 2.6 percent in April, a slight decline from the pace in March.

The last time the unemployment rate was 3.9 percent, wages grew 4.2 percent, a level the economy hasn't come close to replicating since the recovery began in mid-2009.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/09/all-the-signs-are-there-for-higher-pay-but-mystery-of-missing-wage-growth-continues.html

Occam's razor; the wealthy are not raising wages because they do not have to. The profits of this economy are there, and they are getting them, but there is little to no incentive to pass that down. The why is another matter.


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YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hard socialism leads to a bad place a bit faster than hard capitalism.

You're going to have to define bad here. I can list off genocides, revolutions and all kinds of general destruction from hard capitalism from before socialism was a coherent thought.

Just US history alone we have dozens of groups of people eliminated in the name of profit, half of Mexico quite literally stolen and then a war waged on behalf of said theft, that small labor dispute known as the civil war, when some folks decided black folks were people and others decided they'd rather enjoy the economic comfort of owning people, the invasion and suppression of the indigenous people of Hawaii, the labor disputes of the industrial revolution and the literal murder and skirmishes with private security forces leaving piles of dead.

The only thing socialism has on capitalism on body count is that there were more people to kill when it got hold, we'd been learning to reign in capitalism for a century or so at that point. And even then I can dispute what you're saying with the needless death and suffering caused by private healthcare.

Capitalism, restrained, is not the worst thing in the world. But we've had some impressive destruction in it's name that a lot of folks seem to ignore, and I'm just pulling from one nation's history here. If we want to include the east india company in this one I can feth up half the planet.

I should clarify: socialism/capitalism installed and enforced by a foreign power is not included in my statement because they are a different beast. And by bad place I mean bad for the country itself. Imperialism is another factor entirely, one I was not including. You make valid points.

Vulcan wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hard socialism leads to a bad place a bit faster than hard capitalism.

Now THIS has been demonstrated to be true everywhere it's tried. But there's a huge gap between hard socialism a la Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, and Democratic Socialism a la... well, most of the developed world.

The bolded part is not really true as the CIA like to "intervene" occasionally.

Mario wrote:

Vulcan wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hard socialism leads to a bad place a bit faster than hard capitalism.

Now THIS has been demonstrated to be true everywhere it's tried. But there's a huge gap between hard socialism a la Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, and Democratic Socialism a la... well, most of the developed world.

The bolded part is not really true as the CIA like to "intervene" occasionally.

Valid point.