[offtopic]I'm glad you said weapons industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
(Though, as we've been over before, the Great Depression didn't really end until after WWII.) [/offtopic]
Printable View
[offtopic]I'm glad you said weapons industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
(Though, as we've been over before, the Great Depression didn't really end until after WWII.) [/offtopic]
Why?Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
Well, the engine got cranked up and the economy started growing big time during the war. There wasn't really an official day the Great Depression ended, but the economy did keep growing for a while after the war ended because it had been jump started.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
By the way, what would you say caused the Great Depression? I know the stock market crash kicked it off, but something led to that. There was overproduction of crops and withdrawal of American investments in Europe (because of the crumbling economies) leading up to it, but what else do you think happened?
Because if you said "the whole economy" or something I would've cried lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
I wouldn't say the economy started growing during the war. As I've stated some time before, you can't really create wealth during war for a few reasons. One, meaningful employment is usually lowered due to the fact that men are being shipped off to war. Sure, people may be employed, but they're just dying or destroying shit. It's like public works. Sure, people are employed, but they're building bridges to nowhere, or in China's case, entire ghost towns. Two, the goods being made are just going to be destroyed anyway since they're war-goods. Not to mention the property destruction that comes along with war. You can't develop prosperity through property destruction.Quote:
Well, the engine got cranked up and the economy started growing big time during the war. There wasn't really an official day the Great Depression ended, but the economy did keep growing for a while after the war ended because it had been jump started.
Oh and the domestic rationing didn't really help either :P.
If anything, the economy started to kickstart because soldiers started to come home and get readily-available jobs. And those ridiculous New Deal policies were finally retracted over some time. I have a book around that explains the economy around WWII somewhere...
Unfortunately people seem to think Hoover was some kind of free-market president that cut taxes and lowered spending, but unfortunately he was like FDR-lite. He was the one that really started up the New Deal programs (or similar), then FDR just continued with those.Quote:
By the way, what would you say caused the Great Depression? I know the stock market crash kicked it off, but something led to that. There was overproduction of crops and withdrawal of American investments in Europe (because of the crumbling economies) leading up to it, but what else do you think happened?
Anyway, a lot of the problem was most likely due to the Federal Reserve's monetary inflation policies during the 20's. After the 1920-21 depression (which, by the way, was worse than the first few years of the Great Depression yet lasted only one year - the government did very little during that time which is a great case against government action since that recession was over, as I said, shortly, as compared to the Great Depression which lasted a hell of a lot longer WITH government action), the government just had a giant "let's see how much we can fuck up" session.
Quote:
"But the focus of this collapse," he [Henry Hazlitt] wrote, "was aggravated enormously by the whole series of post-war policies." Among these he listed the "vicious Treaty of Versailles," the "disorganization caused by reparations and war debts," the "preposterous tariff barriers thrown up everywhere," the abandonment of the gold standard and the adoption of the "gold-exchange standard," and "reckless lending to foreign countries.
Most importantly, he blamed the "artificial cheap-money policy pursued both in England and America, leading here to a colossal real-estate and stock-market speculation under the benign encouragement of Messrs. Coolidge and Mellon." This malinvestment, caused by inflationary policies, created distortions in the capital stock which called for correction.
Something had to make those jobs readily available. It took economic stimulation. The problems you mentioned did exist, but the war did do a lot for the economy. Do you agree that if the government gave back a great deal of the money they have taken from citizens, it would significantly help the economy? Taxing too much causes economic difficulty, so giving the money back takes away a certain degree of economic difficulty. That is what the war did. It caused the government to give back a lot of money by buying things from the public, and that got things flowing. I'm sure there were other factors, but that is a big one.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
That's interesting and proves an important point. I have thought for a long time that too much government tampering caused the Great Depression, but I do need to learn more about the specifics. Socialists and communists claim the economic nightmare resulted from not enough government tampering. I think the falsehood of that claim is strongly suggested by what you explained.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
I have a question for the socialists and communists in here. What is the significance of the statement, "Thank God it's Friday."? Why is it a common saying?
I'm not sure if those jobs needed to be made or were just there. Those factory jobs a lot of women took were given up when the war ended and were taken over by men.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
I'm no expert on WWII/The Great Depression, as I only have a little-more-than-basic understanding of those two events, but I think this somewhat answers your concerns, as it addresses the supposed growth during WWII:
The official government measures of rising GDP during the war years is also misleading. GDP figures include government spending, and so the massive military outlays were lumped into the numbers, even though $1 million spent on tanks is hardly the same indication of true economic output as $1 million spent by households on cars.On top of that distortion, Higgs reminds us that the government instituted price controls during the war. Normally, if the Fed prints up a bunch of money to allow the government to buy massive quantities of goods (such as munitions and bombers, in this case), the CPI would go through the roof. Then when the economic statisticians tabulated the nominal GDP figures, they would adjust them downward because of the hike in the cost of living, so that "inflation adjusted" (real) GDP would not look as impressive. But this adjustment couldn't occur, because the government made it illegal for the CPI to go through the roof. So those official measures showing "real GDP" rising during World War II are as phony as the Soviet Union's announcements of industrial achievements.People are too heavily influence by John Maynard Keynes (large government spending, boosting "aggregate demand," public works). No matter how many times people refute his theories, his policies are still used.Quote:
That's interesting and proves an important point. I have thought for a long time that too much government tampering caused the Great Depression, but I do need to learn more about the specifics. Socialists and communists claim the economic nightmare resulted from not enough government tampering. I think the falsehood of that claim is strongly suggested by what you explained.
Henry Hazlitt (economist, journalist) actually took Keynes' General Theory and wrote a paragraph-by-paragraph refutation of it in his book "The Failure of New Economics" (which I haven't read but it is on my list). He also goes over some of those policies in "Economics in One Lesson."
It's ironic because we all know Marx was one of those damned Atheists :panic:Quote:
I have a question for the socialists and communists in here. What is the significance of the statement, "Thank God it's Friday."? Why is it a common saying?
Hmm... With all the argument in here, stalking y'alls comments was getting a little time consuming.
Communism, as an idea, sounds great. Everybody's happy. In theoretic cases, this could work. Those cases would would have a small population, within a very prosperous community. But when you go onto a larger scale, there are a lot of people who just won't work, period. I want to stress that this doesn't exclusively apply to Americans, as was insinuated earlier. Anyway, in the long term, it would start to fall apart, when people see no incentive to work at the 9 to 5 job they hate.
The economy in capitalism is unstable. Sure, certain areas enjoy massive growth, but the growth is rampant and inevitably leads to recession and loss of jobs, as we have seen recently with the IT bubble of the late 90s and the housing bubble of the late 2000s. Economic growth in capitalism can be summed up as "2 steps forward 1 step back", how many jobs were lost in the last two years?Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
I talked about socialized government services such as education in a previous post. I mentioned that for a government service to be of high quality, it must have appropriate funding and it must have a monopoly. Public education in the US is crap because there is no funding, americans pay very little taxes. The government doesn't see this as a problem, because there are private institutions that do offer high quality education, and its public system is mainly a safety net for those who can't afford private (almost everybody). In short, providing education to the population is not a top priority for a capitalist government.
Last I checked I wasn't getting paid or compensated in any way for this debate. Who says I'm out to win it anyways, I'm merely trying to educate those who don't know any better and provoke thought in those who do. The point of a debate isn't so much to convince the hard liner that opposes your views, but the undecided that are reading along.Quote:
Greed cannot be unlearned. You want to win this debate, right? Try to talk yourself into deliberately letting me win it. Let me know how it goes.
A big difference though is that my government is trying to be socialist, whereas the American government is trying to be capitalist with certain socialist elements, such as public education and minimum wage, to keep society from collapsing. There is an interest here in providing quality services for citizens whereas in the USA, the state is trying to spend the least amount of money on its infrastructure. As I have said, don't expect a public system to be superior to a private one in the same sector, the government is not trying to compete with its country's own private establishments. A private company cares about profits, sometimes that coincides with public opinion, sometimes it doesn't. The government (and in consequence its state-run companies) however very much cares about public opinion, if not for the good of the nation it governs, then at least to be reelected next term.Quote:
You have a mixed economy, like we do. Yours is just much closer to pure socialism than ours. Like I said about education, the private system always works better than the public system in a country. That is because greed makes things happen very effectively. The same principle applies to healthcare and everything else. We have a government run electicity "company" called Entergy in the southeastern United States. Dealing with them is very different from dealing with a truly private company. A for real private company actually cares about customer complaints and showing up for appointments. Socialism doesn't work too well. Why would a socialistic company care all that much about being thorough? What's in it for them?
I won't lie to you, pure communism is very idealistic and a radical departure from current society. When I discuss it, it's usually in a philosophical or hypothetical sense. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with it that could prevent it from existing effectively at some point. However, if you want to stay practical and talk about the transition of current governments, I will talk about socialism, which can be implemented effectively at present. Communism is simply too far away to be discussed in a real world sense at the moment.Quote:
You are counting on an aspect of human nature that isn't very abundant. That is the problem with the idea. My equal distribution of grades scenario illustrates that absence.
Just say "totalitarian" or "dictatorship" instead of fascist and I'll discuss the point. I'm a democratic man, I don't believe communism should be forced on a population if they don't want it (as has been done in the past). Communism should start from the the bottom of society and work its way up. It should be something the majority of citizens want, whether that's through necessity or the desire to improve society. Citizens should also play an active role in the implementation of communism, rather than being submissive to an unaccountable government.Quote:
No, it's not the same thing. Communism is left wing by definition. Fascism is not right wing by definition. It is just commonly right wing. Also, you are talking beside the point. I said that nothing has ever made a communist country function at all whatsoever except a fascist government, and you are splitting hairs with me over the definiton of fascism while not addressing what I am getting at. It takes a tyrannical, totalitarian government to make anything happen under communism. Fear is there in place of greed. Without fear and greed, all you have left is the goodness of people's hearts, which is not something so abundant it can be relied on for a truly effective economy.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascism
fas⋅cism /ˈfæʃhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/diction...una/thinsp.pngɪzhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/diction...una/thinsp.pngəm/ http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/dic...on_default.gif Show Spelled Pronunciation [fash-iz-uhhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/diction...una/thinsp.pngm] http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/dic...on_default.gif Show IPA
–noun 1.(sometimes initial capital letterhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/diction...una/thinsp.png) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.2.(sometimes initial capital letterhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/diction...una/thinsp.png) the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.3.(initial capital letterhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/diction...una/thinsp.png) a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.
Well you can view communism in two ways. The more purist, idealistic sense would have you believe that everybody is completely equal, and as such would be compensated equally regardless of their function within society. This is a pretty utopian concept, and I don't really see it happening without some kind of "forced allocation" of jobs, far too restrictive for my taste. A more real definition of communism is the abolishment of private property, with the workers of the state working and being compensated according to their needs and abilities.Quote:
Nobody is gung-ho about starting a big ass business and creating zillions of jobs and products without a financial reward. Do you disagree with that? Fear does something, but greed is far better. The goodness of people's hearts doesn't do shit for a big economy. A few doctors, lawyers, and engineers (and practically all artists) might be in love with the work itself and have drive to work hard even without a financial reward, but they are rare exceptions. Most lawyers hate their jobs. I know tons of them, and it is the truth. Doctors are generally tight ass money magnets. Most jobs are not that interesting, and we need fast food workers, store managers, janitors, construction workers, sales representatives, etc. What do you expect to motivate them? Why would anybody ever become a high level business manager if he can make the same amount of money being a lifeguard or just answering a phone? Why would the masses work harder jobs than what's at the lowest levels if the rewards are the same? If you answer nothing else, please answer that. Don't tell me it's because the work is fun. Work a few 40+ hour a week jobs with lots of co-workers and see for yourself that the idea is not realistic. Now imagine business owners and executives having the attitudes most workers have. That is where communism fails.
I try to tread very carefully when I explain this, because people go "you can't get paid differently in communism, that would mean different classes!!!", but personal compensation alone does not determine class, opportunities do. In communism, the child of a factory worker has access to the same education, or healthcare, or whatever as the child of a doctor. Everybody starts their life on equal footing with a clean slate.
I suppose their could be a pay matrix that could work by comparing job enjoyability vs job skill required.
Regardless, the minimal standard of living would be very high.
Then if it's so real, why are the majority stuck in the lower classes?Quote:
The opportunity to move up is very real in my country, but it is impossible in a communist country. That is because there is no up. So why try? Because Stalin or Mao might barbeque your ass, and that's it. That only results in people getting by just enough to stay safe. It doesn't produce mass innovation and excitement for progress. Do you know what I mean?
Sounds to me like this is largely due to poor education and lack of opportunities. If you grew up in the ghetto, and believe that you're going to be stuck in unskilled jobs (or crime) for the rest of your life, then where's the motivation? How many upper-middle class citizens act like this?Quote:
The truth is that most poor Americans don't really try to do much in the business world. They also seem in too many cases to have a problem with having kids they can't afford. Lack of responsibility and discipline are big problems with the poor in a large percentage of cases. The truly dedicated ones who are not retarded do make it. I have seen it happen many times.
If education was completely privatized, the well performing schools would be too expensive for most. All the mediocre staff would pool down to the cheaper schools, which would be the first choice for many families. Some people might not be able to afford education altogether. The amount of debt incurred by university students in the USA is ridiculous enough as it is, imagine if it was the same for elementary, high school, etc.Quote:
Our public education system is socialistic. There is no school choice within the public system, and the people running the schools don't make profits. If the schools were privatized, learning would go way up because the teachers and everybody else would have tougher work standards and have to actually make sure the students learn. As it is now, why try? That's the problem. Again, our private school system is different. I went to several of both public and private American schools. The difference is enormous.
An uneducated populace suffers socially, economically, democratically...
All I'm saying is you can't compare a poor person in America to a poor person in a third world nation, just look at the kind of infrastructure the USA had at the time all these african or asian nations gained their independence. The USA was a first rate nation long before the advent of "quick transportation and high tech industry".Quote:
We are living in an age of quick transportation and high tech industry. Businesses no longer depend on domestic natural resources. Japan is the second richest nation in the world now (because we rewrote their constitution after World War II), and Japan is a fucking island the size of Montana.
Their madness is what drives a capitalist economy, and this is the natural state of a capitalist nation, but it doesn't have to be that way. The state is a more effective job creator than any corporation. Consumerism is an ugly and harmful result of capitalism.Quote:
Yes, that is the natural state of business. If you take away the money and the incentive that those at the top have, jobs get lost by the zillions and the public stops spending money. It's a disaster. Don't forget that the rich people you are complaining about are the job creators, and their madness is what drives an economy. Let's not fuck them up.
I think we can do slightly better than the animal kingdom. Unfortunately, financial success and failure is hereditary in capitalism. A person born to a rich family could be a complete retard (or "evolutionarily weak" so to speak) yet have all the opportunities in the world thrown at them. A person born to a lower class family could have massive amounts of bottled up talent (be "evolutionarily strong") which they will never use because they had to get a minimum wage job ASAP to support the family.Quote:
Yes, that is how it works, but your suggestion of what we should do about it is a recipe for destruction. There is always a bell curve when it comes to success. That is how it works in all animal populations. Hindering it is unnatural and catastrophic.
OK I see what you mean now, but I was not actually suggesting that we should immediately communize America, I'm just pointing out how unevenly spread the wealth is.Quote:
It makes the greedy assholes stop trying, and that results in business stagnation, which greatly harms the entire nation. If you suddenly evenly distributed all of the money in the U.S., there would be a huge wave of job resignation from top to bottom, and that would bring further wealth creation to a halt. That is what would happen in reality.
I read through those articles. Looks like in the first one, improper management was to blame for economic decline (officials shifted attention to heavy industry after receiving fraudulent information on agriculture results, causing widespread famine), and that many citizens were unwilling to participate, leading to purges. The second article referred to more purges against government opponents and a boost in national propaganda.Quote:
That is the idea, but it has never worked and never will.
Have you ever studied the reign of Mao Zedong in China? He went all out to create a classless society in China. He engaged the country in two revolutions, the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The idea was to make the country communal and classless. Both revolutions were failures that led to the worst mass murder in history. The push for a communist Utopia of classlessness failed, then people got killed, then it failed again, and even more people got killed. After that insane nightmare, China still didn't have a classless society. In fact, they were way behind where they had been before Mao came to power. Communism is not a realistic concept. To anybody who says communism has never really been tried, yes it has. That is the quintessential example of the attempt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
Mao, Stalin and all these other idiots were not very intellectual men. Power hungry, ambitious, charismatic even, but they hardly had the talent to single-handedly run the economies of their entire country. That's the problem with planned economies, they rely on the skill of those doing the planning, so they better be damn good...
I also mentioned that I don't want communism to be forced on citizens. China went through a very bad civil war revolving the implementation of communism, so it's clear that many chinese were not happy with the system. I doubt the majority of chinese had any say in the running of communist China.
Communism is a social contract between an individual and the state. It's a simple exchange, work for home. If you don't fulfill your end, why should the state fulfill there's? Now what to do exactly with individuals that despite this, still refuse to work is anyone's guess, but kicking them out is as good an option as any. Communism is not a massive welfare program, the state will not take care of you so that you may sit on the couch and watch TV all day, it expects something in return.Quote:
What kind of system exists outside of the house is irrelevant. If it helps you, pretend the house is in communist China and Mao is the landlord. You can also pretend that the people pay rent with labor. Do whatever you have to do to understand the point of the analogy. People wouldn't do shit, and that is the point. That is how it happened under Mao, and production greatly decreased under him. That is a historical truth. In fact, there was mass starvation. Communism a recipe for failure, and both logic and history prove that.
Think of the ten most unmotivated people you have ever met and imagine them working hard to pay rent just because of pressure. If the house is everybody's, which is the idea in communism, nobody is going to be worried about getting kicked out. Count on a lot of couch potatoes living in that house. Kicking them out for not doing their part would be capitalistic, unless you kill them like communist dictators always do.
No, I don't think grades should be evenly distributed. What does this prove? Do you think grades should be bid on?Quote:
Knowledge cannot be spread, but grades can. Do you think grades should be evenly distributed? What would be the result of such a system? Would it increase or decrease learning on the individual and group levels? It would decrease it, just like Mao's programs tragically decreased work output.
Quote:
The New Deal was implemented in the mid-30's, but the Great Depression did not end until the 1940's, when World War II just happened to be creating an Earth shattering boom in the weapons industry.
- The New Deal had a positive effect on the Great Depression
- The goverment was successful at reducing the unemployment rate
- The weapons industry boomed because the goverment needed weapons
Or in short, the government is very good at creating jobs, either directly or indirectly, and especially when private enterprises are closing their doors.
Communism trades off rocket-like economic growth for stability and social equality, a fair trade. I know you can't think of a single example of communism brought about without a bloody civil war, imposed rather than demanded. Do you really think there's no better way of going about it?Quote:
I still don't see what would bring about the same level of effort and innovation that exists in capitalistic countries, I don't know of a single example of where your idea has ever worked in reality, and I do know of examples of where it was a miserable failure.
Yes, some people just get by with minimum wage, but at least they have the opportunity to climb. Those who try hard enough to climb do climb. I can name lots of examples of it, but you can't name one example of where communism has ever worked. Right?
And opportunities to climb to what, a lifestyle similar to what one would have had under communism? Few people get much higher than that, definitely not enough to justify capitalism. So what if you can name a couple of people that have hit it big, I can name more that have ended up in the gutter.
Yes, although my particular province, Quebec, is significantly more socialized than the rest of Canada. Socialism doesn't exclude private enterprises, it just regulates them. And I don't recall ever saying that, maybe I alluded to how canadian companies are often bought out by american companies? I'm not a big fan of that either.Quote:
Canada still has a major degree of free enterprise. Also, didn't you say the United States owns Canada?
Spartiate, may I ask you to define both Capitalism and Communism?
Capitalism - An economic and political system where property and capital (wealth or other assets) are privately owned. Characterized by a free market economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
Communism - An economic and political system where property is publicly owned. Companies are state run and workers are compensated according to their needs and abilities. Characterized by a centrally planned economy.
So when you say...Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
The economy in capitalism is unstable. Sure, certain areas enjoy massive growth, but the growth is rampant and inevitably leads to recession and loss of jobs, as we have seen recently with the IT bubble of the late 90s and the housing bubble of the late 2000s. Economic growth in capitalism can be summed up as "2 steps forward 1 step back", how many jobs were lost in the last two years?...you're talking about free-market capitalism?
Spartiate, let's cut to the chase...
Why not? What would be the result of such a system?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
YesQuote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
This was probably one of the least important points in your post. I know you're just going to say I'm dodging or evading, but you're comparing apples and oranges. How about you explain to me exactly what the answer you are looking for is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
I can make up crap analogies to try and support my point too.
"A dozen men are lost in the woods. Two men have enough food and water to last them a month. Six men have enough food and water to last them a week. Four men have no food or water whatsoever. Obviously nobody wants to die, should we spread the group's food and water evenly between each man?"
Spartiate, just answer the questions. If you disagree with the point I make to follow what you say, you can explain why.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
We have gotten to where it takes me more than an hour to respond to your posts about your communist dream (That's all it is. It has never worked in reality.) when I do it paragraph by paragraph, so I want to get straight to the point about the results of lost motivation.
Why don't you think grades should be evenly distributed? What would be the result of such a system? Would there be more or less overall and individual learning?
Do people in those woods have jobs they can work? Either way, I am all for voluntary charity. The private sector handles things like that with a good bit of caution in most cases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
So then I'll ask you to define "free market."Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
Spartiate said the economy of Capitalism is unstable and he is right.
Sure free market capitalism has it's periods of effectiveness, but it is a self-destructive system in the end. It's allways been waving between extremes of poverty and welfare.
What people who support marxism are after is a more stable economy.
Allthough communism epicly failed, it is no reason to say "see? Capitalism is THE system"
The Sovjet leaders(who were fascists) did not at all serve the common good. They were corrupted from the start. They were no less Capitalistic than the Tzars before them.
What Marxists actually desire is a TRUE change in economy/politics. I think it CAN be done. I don't think it'll be any kind of easy though.
This is where a little hint of Anarchy would help. A drastic decrease of authority-power so to make sure human communities are less prone to Corruption is what is needed.
And off course you couldn't enforce Communism or ANY kind of ideology on people that don't want it or it would just be another form of Fascism.
That's where I'd like to point towards the example of the Kibbutz.
Kibbutz is a free kind of communism existing within otherwise free-market societies(Israël is the birthplace of the Kibbuts)
I think the Kibbutz is a very well tought through life form. It is far from perfect and nowadays isn't very supported anymore in Israël, but it may just need some tweaking and finetuning to today's situatio to be as close to marxism as it will ever get.
For those of you that aren't familiar with the Kibbutz, google it and check it out.
SKA, if a university with 20,000 students had a system in which grades are evenly distributed, what would be the result?
The bottom line is that you seem to think that communism is some sort of charity or welfare. It is not, people will be motivated for the same reasons as they would in capitalism, to put food on their table and a roof over their head.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
Do you believe that capitalism as you know it today in your country is sustainable? What about in developing countries? I'm not so much pro-communist as I am anti-capitalist, but that wasn't the point of this thread.
An economy with no government regulation or intervention, except to combat corporate crime.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
Spartiate, your answers please...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
I agree with that definition, except for "to combat corporate crime."Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
One more question: Do you think we live in a free market capitalist economy?
If every person received the same grade regardless of what they did, they would show less initiative because if the end result is the same, it is easier not to work at all than it is to work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
KEEP READING
This differs from communism in the following points:
- In communism you do not get compensated regardless of how you perform, you are expected to meet targets, quotas or whatever you want to call them. The state expects a return on its support.
- Communists are compensated according to their abilities and needs, not necessarily "evenly".
Do you mean in the USA? I don't believe it is a perfect free market, but it is as close to one as there is on this planet.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
I had the USA in mind, but anywhere in the world is fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
Anyway, as we've established, a free market is an economic system with no government regulation/intervention. You say we don't have a "perfect free market," which means there is government regulation in our economy. Would you agree?
The degree of free market in the USA is much higher than say, Canada or European countries, so there's an important distinction.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
And yes, there is an element of government presence. Minimum wage, a central bank, public services, etc.
So then you can not possible say this without being wrong:Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
The economy in capitalism is unstable. Sure, certain areas enjoy massive growth, but the growth is rampant and inevitably leads to recession and loss of jobs, as we have seen recently with the IT bubble of the late 90s and the housing bubble of the late 2000s. Economic growth in capitalism can be summed up as "2 steps forward 1 step back", how many jobs were lost in the last two years?Why? Because you said that in the above statement, you were speaking of free market capitalism. However, you just admitted that in the USA and around the world, we don't have a free market (an economic system without government regulation/intervention).
The world does not work in extremes. The USA is predominately ruled by free markets. It is predominately capitalist. If you put the USA on a left-right political spectrum along with every other country, it will probably rank all the way at the right. State involvement in the american economy is puny, and was not responsible for any recession. The Great Depression and every recession since or before have largely been caused by speculative bubbles and deregulation, aspects of free market economies.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUELINE976
I didn't say it does, but that is irrelevant. You conceded to the point that free market capitalism is an economic system without government regulation/intervention, then you admitted that the US and other economies around the world do have government regulation/intervention.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
So your statement is incorrect, because you were talking about free market capitalism yet we don't have free market capitalism. It doesn't matter if we have "predominantly" free market system. It's not fully free market, which is what you were talking about.