"Democratic socialism" vs. Capitalism

I don’t have a degree in Psychology ( I have a BS Liberal Studies and a minor in Physics)

I DO work with many ridiculous antifa socialist though.

See. I almost was in the right. :innocent:

It seems that in the LONG TERM, humanity will have to use another economic system than all others previously used… including capitalism and corporatism (in the sense to provide all humans a sustainable and quality life, not just surviving). This arrears changes in culture and education of course, probably religion too.

The key factor is technology. As long as tech research outcomes are limited for the use of few ppl or companies for long times, a true macro development will also be limited. :confused:

this dudes on the right track. but what everyone should realize is that we’ve had the technology to free us from every kind of scarcity for a long long time. They have just been bottled up to keep existing power structures in place. Zero point energy is real, we have it. Anti-gravity is real, we have it. Cures for every disease is real, we have it. Unlimited desalination is real, we have it. Replicators are real and we will have it soon. This is all going to come out in your lifetimes. The old power structures are dismantled.

What will you do with freedom from scarcity? Economic systems will become obsolete as will money.

Here’s an article on Democratic Socialism from today. It truly disgusts me.

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/26/630960719/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-democratic-socialists-of-america

I laughed a little at “It truly disgusts me” … but then I read the article. :neutral_face:

I get so frustrated at two things mostly:

  1. being so focused on entitlement without fully thinking out how to provide and what it means for those who do the providing.

  2. retarded blanket statements like “we want to completely abolish capitalism”. What does that even mean? I seriously don’t think they mean completely removing market pressures and competition entirely (in fact they implied just that when they said certain things should be not left to a free market)… then they want to “abolish the senate” but just because 2 reps from all states is not fair with some states representing many more people. Why do you abolish the whole senate for that!!! Idiots!

That said, I find the concept of worker ownership and a few other ideas something I would at least entertain in an intelligent conversation… but not with this tribe!

Yeah. I agree.

“I think we just need to realize that the end goal is, ultimately, like social control of the means of production,” said Joe Cernelli, a founding member of that West Virginia DSA chapter. “You know we don’t just want to improve capitalism, we will ultimately want to get rid of it.”

Quotes like that are really unhelpful. I would generally be supportive of a lot of the goals of DSA - certainly in terms of reining in healthcare and education costs which have skyrocketed in recent decades - but this kind of hammer and sickle talk is not going to win over anyone except a few extremists and stoner college students.

Cooperation versus competition. We always lean too far one way or the other :bulb:

I agree with most of your statements Charlie Work

I would really appreciate if some day I become witness of anti-gravity tech for daily use and also cures for every disease. Probably when we control nano tech we could reach universal health for every human like in this movie Elysium. Also, note the criticism of the movie about that the rich people had the ways to share health and food with others but didn’t do never, instead, they used ppl as “slaves” workers to sustain their excessive luxury lives. As says frankybarnes above: or its extreme competition or extreme cooperation… but not both at the same time.

In my opinion, cooperation is the clue for human success in the long-term. The free share of high tech and free information access to every individual will lead us to sustainable and high quality life for probably 99.5% of world population. When you put abundance in the hands of people and also have a culture that promotes self-improvement, self-encouragement, altruism and responsibility, you can create an advanced society.

How will the world be in 100 years or 200 years? A dead planet with bunkers for survivors?, living in the underground in search for heat and water, or in an eternal war fighting for the last resources, etc. just because we couldn’t find other way?

I’m really glad most countries today use the capitalist / corporatist system because we can develop technology more easily than in other economic systems. Once we gather enough level of automation and control most of the optimal processes of production for every needed product or service, we should change to other system. The environment and resources will not stand forever.

I know this sounds “stupid” or at least utopian, but think for a minute what the world would be if every farm on earth used high tech to produce food, every factory in the world producing the most durable goods, with the least gases emissions and the least energy consumption; every piece of tech prepared to receive future updates with no programed obsolescence, massive public transportation and no need of commercial imports or exports (those are stupid as f…ck). The best part: world wide internet and free information share of everything in order to constantly improve tech where participants are willing people to make science.

Ok, relax and go back to normal life.

^You’ll never have nanotechnology without competition. It doesn’t have to be one or the other (in fact I’d argue that palantir is trolling again because those aren’t even really substitutes), but overall I’d take competition over cooperation any day of the week.

This bro is woke. I recommend searching a concept by Robert David Steele called Open Source Everything Engineering. He has correctly identified the enormous untapped potential of open source engineering the solution every problem facing humanity.

http://robertdavidsteele.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Open-Source-Everything-Engineering-OSEE-A-Nordic-Manifesto.pdf

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-27/watch-do-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-supporters-understand-socialism

^^

This kind of sentiment annoys me just as much as the more radical DSA people. The original point I was trying to make is that I want to take political ideas suggested by the Democratic Socialists coming from a position of non-bias. Lumping all the ideas socialist have together and pointing at Venezuela is just as retarded as them saying they want to abolish capitalism completely. The cartoons above obviously misrepresent the more pragmatic ideals of the DSA.

omg… I’m so frustrated.

In case someone hasn’t posted this:

”The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” - Margaret Thatcher

OP if you and your coworkers work where I think y’all work (maybe I have you mixed up) why don’t y’all pool all your money after stage fees and split what y’all make in a night? See how that goes. Doesn’t even really matter the job, any job y’all are at.

Ok, Im really glad you brought up my work. It is actually a GREAT demonstration in the points that have been frustrating me.

Where I work, there is a guy who owns the club and there are employees (managers, waitresses, bouncers) and all the dancers are private contractors that pay a “house fee” to work. The way I imagine it, if we were to take on a “social ownership of the means of production”… there would be no “owner of the club”. The employees and private contractors would collectively own the club. The house fees we pay, as well as the the the income for the club would go into collective ownership. Everything would be as before… EXCEPT the collective would vote on who gets paid what, who gets hired/ fired, what money goes back into the club…etc. The private contractors would still keep what they make but be responsible for their own health insurance, taxes, etc. The employees would still get salary as before but would be more protected as any employee would be (the +/- of employee/ private contractor is another conversation). Another version of this would be just the employees own the place and the private contractors remain independent.

As you can see, here is an example where competitive forces are still at play along with collective ownership.

I think the main objective of collective ownership is not necessarily about equalization ( which I am STRONGLY against!) … it is about hobbling exploitation of workers and owners who benefit w/o taking the actual risks that the workers are exposed to. That is interesting to me since it seems to be a way to fix capitalism… not abolish it.

Sounds like anarchy. You cant get large groups of people to agree on anything much less agree on anything that would benefit the whole over the self. Why would employees make the decision to reinvest profits into growing the company when they know it will subtract from their current paycheck. The average worker bee does not know what it takes to successfully grow a business.

I think the club is an example of capitalism at it’s best.

A couple thoughts on this specific type of business… what’s the average tenure for a dancer? Are we including all employees (bartenders, barbacks, managers, dj’s, valets, ect ect) and if so, how would you decide how much voting power someone gets? One big stream, alcohol sales, how’s that get split up and how do you ensure everyone gets a “fair share”?

I think the club is a great example of how specialization is important in maximizing value. The owner brings his capital, skill, and bears certain risk to earn his return. Just like every other person in the organization, from the dancers, to the bartenders, to the barbacks, and so on…

In the public markets, when I purchase equity in a company, executives are paid to run the business, so I don’t have to. If I feel the management team does not run the company properly or is overpaid, I can sell my shares and take my financial capital elsewhere. Same as people in the labor market, if they feel management is not paying them enough or not allocating capital property, they can take their human capital elsewhere. The market is fairly efficient and maybe there is an argument for intervention when there is collusion but I don’t believe that’s true among clubs.

There’s nothing really stopping a bunch of employees from saving up, buying a place, and doing that but it’s not an efficient use of financial or human capital, that’s why it hasn’t been done. Leave the dancing to the dancers, the bartending to the bartenders, the management to the managers, and the ownership interest to the capital providers. Each person plays a very important role, takes their risks, and earns their return. There’s much more value in an organization that’s run like that then as a collective ownership and that has second and third order effects (more tax dollars received, more social benefit, if you are into that kind of thing, more economic spending, and jobs created in other sectors).

^^

Thanks HP! Great response! Thats all I wanted to stimulate… a conversation that meets the socialist half way (even though they won’t meet us half way).

Really great points!