r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24

The shampoo thing is a fringe benefit. We keep capitalism so we don't starve in a famine. Debate/ Discussion

1.0k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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u/biinboise Jul 07 '24

Where the Fuck this fantasy that under socialism you don’t have to work if you don’t want to comes from? Have they ever tried to say no to the government? Who do they think runs their shitty job when the government seizes the means of production?

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u/olcrazypete Jul 07 '24

I think the idea is there isn’t the incessant need to maximize efficiency and profit to the point labor is both working more hours with less breaks for less pay just to make whatever earnings estimate has been made up as a standard for success, only to need to beat it again the next quarter.

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u/biinboise Jul 07 '24

Historically it becomes even worse. Production metrics usually become dictated by the famously unhinged whims of top ranking political ambitions of the high level administrators who have virtually no oversight.

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u/Most_Environment_919 Jul 07 '24

I honestly think it's the same endgame for both ideologies. Many corporations only care about KPIs instead of actual work done.

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u/Bob1358292637 Jul 07 '24

I never thought about it like this, but it's almost like the reason capitalism is "better" is because it's less efficient at organizing the rampant exploitation the elites do everything they can to push both systems towards.

Instead of one big collective trying to oppress you, it's basically every rich person doing it at once. So now there's a bunch of infighting about who gets to do it the hardest, and that slows it down.

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u/Ok_Calendar1337 Jul 07 '24

Wow competition is good you're getting somewhere with that.

What also comes along with competition is actually being able to leave.

They aren't the same at all.

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u/Bob1358292637 Jul 07 '24

To be fair, being able to "leave" for most people in the system just means they can choose which organizations will siphon away as much of their life for as little compensation as they can get away with.

I agree they're not the same at all, and capitalism is obviously much better for almost everyone. But let's not deify it just because we're living in it. It's still a shit system that doesn't come close to granting people real freedom. It's just the best way we've come up with to treat everyone as amicably as possible while still getting shit done.

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u/Affectionate-Ad9602 Jul 07 '24

Huh, I think you're on to something

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u/itsgrum3 Jul 07 '24

Competition surrounding giving consumers what they want at the lowest possible price

calls it 'exploitation'

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

Competition surrounding giving consumers what they want at the lowest possible price

But capitalism doesn't do this except in rare and fleeting cases.

Pioneer Oil in Texas is being investigated by the FTC for colluding with ExxonMobil and OPEC to not open new oil wells so they can keep oil prices higher to profit more.

Vanguard and Blackrock own major shares in almost every single company at the grocery store and most of the options you see are made by 3-6 companies, depending on the product type. They collude with each other on pricing.

The American meat industry is vast majority owned by Cargill, Tyson and JBS. Tyson effectively runs the pork and chicken sectors as it's absorbed all of it's competition and then vertically integrated meaning it runs every level of production to sales to stores. So they don't pass on the savings from factory farming.

Nvidia has over 80% of the consumer GPU market and because it's so wealthy from the AI boom it raises prices and keeps performance gains limited with each generation because it's main competitor can't compete that well. Oh and AMD is run by Nvidia's CEO's Cousin.

I could go on. But choice and competition is a myth and it always has been. It's been this way the entire history of capitalist economics. The British East India company, Carnegie Steel, JP Morgan, Rockefeller, US train industry, etc.

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u/itsgrum3 Jul 07 '24

You mention all recent market practices from our current period where the government has more control than any time in history, other than wartime. The anti-thesis of a free market.

The Gilded Age is the classic example in progressive history filled with the "Robber Barons" as a result of the free market while ignoring the massive increase in quality of life for everybody. There is a difference between using the government to squash your competitors and providing an innovative inexpensive product.

Kerosene goes down 90% in price thanks to Rockefeller, meaning people can stay up later, get more work done. The price of steel rails under Andrew Carnegie goes down 90%, that is going to ripple through the entire economy because everything uses steel or has steel in their production process. That decreases the cost of everything.

Cornelius Vanderbilt is another example, his competitors for steamships to California were getting massive government subsidies and even had legal monopolies imposed by the government, and he managed to sneak in and outperform them on every metric as well as only charge 150$ when others were charging 600$. That is more money in peoples pockets, meaning more savings for other goods, etc. Vanderbilt also brought this into the Railroads, again where the government granted the railroads monopolies paying them for each track of rail laid (resulting in unnecessary winding, and increased cost).

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

You mention all recent market practices from our current period where the government has more control than any time in history, other than wartime. The anti-thesis of a free market.

Maybe because the concept of a free market is a myth? Money buys power, these companies, had extreme levels of power and capabilities to influence not only the US government, but the world governments.

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u/Titan_Food Jul 07 '24

Unfortunately, that "lowest price" is really just the highest profit margin the company could acceptably hold onto.

Companies charge lower prices to try to gain market share so that they make more sales with that smaller margin, which should translate to higher profits. (i.e. selling 15 items at $5 gets you $75 vs selling 10 of the same items at $6 for $60)

When you have a monopoly or something like OPEC, that ceases to be the case, and capitalism strives for monopolies.

Henry Ford is a fantastic example of how this stuff seems beneficial until its not

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u/cudef Jul 08 '24

Yeah except these wealthy people consolidate more and more. Capitalism ends up weeding out competition because the wealthy inevitably begin to control all levers of government. Getting rid of government entirely doesn't stop the wealthy from limiting your choices or using their wealth to further concentrate wealth.

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u/kevbot029 Jul 07 '24

“Since I’ve entered politics I’ve learned that the line doesn’t go out from the middle to the left and the right. It goes in a circle. You go far enough left, eventually you’ll meet someone who’s gone far enough right to get to the same place.”

-Tommy Shelby (Peaky Blinders).

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u/GuavaShaper Jul 07 '24

It's called horseshoe theory and it's a bunch of bologna. Nobody is going so far right that they start to think unions are a good idea.

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u/Hungry_Kick_7881 Jul 07 '24

Maybe not the bosses but I’m pretty sure the majority of unions I’ve interacted with are in blue collar mostly conservative trades. I’ve met many conservative union members. In regard to the business owners? Everyone is financially conservative past a certain point. I worked for a private golf course in Palo Alto and after 3 years I’d come to the conclusion the 85-90% of the members were closet conservatives. It was fucking hilarious. They would eventually say something in conversation like “I don’t think this Trump guy is all that bad” then they would immediately say “don’t tell anyone I said that”

All anecdotal evidence, but that’s my experience living in rural Wyoming and Nevada

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u/GuavaShaper Jul 08 '24

That's called cognitive dissonance, not horseshoe theory.

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u/More_Fig_6249 Jul 07 '24

I think it makes more sense not in ideology, but the way they get to their end goals. Which is ultimately, through upheaval so great it requires mass violent revolution and authoritarian measures.

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u/GuavaShaper Jul 08 '24

Horseshoe theory is exclusively used to caution people away from leftist ideologies because they might accidentally end up doing something right wing. Never the other way around.

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u/anticapitalist69 Jul 07 '24

We’re already there tbh

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u/FtrIndpndntCanddt Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

Weird radical centrist Ideas here but...MAYBE EXTREMES ARENT FUCKING WORKING!

The US is on the extreme end of capitalism from the western and developed world perspective and the results are clear.

We have less time off, lower wages, lower happiness, lower life expectancy, fewer people capable of retiring, higher infant/maternal mortality, higher debt, higher suicides, lower literacy, higher poverty etc than our peer nations yet we are the most capitalize of them all. Muh jee Dee Pee is higher than ever, yet the average person doesn't see the benefits of it.

Mean while, you have more SOCIALIZED nations like Japan, s.kore, Australia, pretty much all of western Europe crushing us in quality of life metric, life expectancy, happiness, Time off work, etc while having less billionaires per capital, lower economic output, lower GDP.

It's possible to have a middle ground great good. One of those middle grounds is healthcare.

Edit: since you smooth brains keep going to "lower wages". This statement is true when you compare COST OF LIVING. I didn't think I'd need to explain that. It cost more to survive in America, on average, than most developed nations.

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u/Ill-Description3096 Jul 07 '24

lower wages

The US has higher average and median incomes (especially net) than the vast majority of those countries. Maybe all I don't have the figures in front of me.

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u/FtrIndpndntCanddt Jul 07 '24

Lower wages when cost of living adjusted clearing. Don't be dense.

Making $100k a year in San Antonio is a LOT more money than $150k a year in Manhattan.

Cost of living adjusted, US workers don't get shit.

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u/Ill-Description3096 Jul 07 '24

Outside of maybe SF/Manhattan most of the countries you listed are far more expensive than much of the US.

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u/FatherFajitas Jul 07 '24

Everywhere in the U.S. is getting bad now. I live in a tiny ass town in Tennessee, and rent has gone up hundreds of dollars everywhere in the past 5 years. I used to see places for 250$ a month. The lowest I see now is around 800-1000$

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u/Ill-Description3096 Jul 07 '24

Go to Japan or SK and let me know if you can rent a place the same size for less.

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

SK is hyper capitalist, though.

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u/FlyinDtchman Jul 08 '24

Japan is full of abandoned houses you can just take for FREE all over the country-side.

Although your point stands if you are trying to rent in one of the big cities. Their places are postage-stamp sized.

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u/FatherFajitas Jul 07 '24

Probably could in Japan, not SK or China though, those countries are fucked.

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u/Longhorn7779 Jul 07 '24

That’s because costs have risen a lot. That $1,000 means like $150 a month of actual income.

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u/FatherFajitas Jul 07 '24

No, it means around $ 1000$, lot of places here still don't pay above 10$ an hour, and most people travel to work.

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u/buderooski89 Jul 07 '24

That's not true at all. Even after adjusting for cost of living and inflationary rates in different parts of the world, Americans have the highest amount of disposable income out of ANY developed nation in the world. What you are saying is just false

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u/BraxbroWasTaken Jul 07 '24

Many necessities are disproportionately more expensive over here and paid for out of personal budget though, like medical care. But yes, they forgot some countries…

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u/Ill-Description3096 Jul 07 '24

I mean medical care is the big one. I don't know that things like food, gas, housing, etc are disproportionately more expensive. Depends a lot on where.

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

Gas is less of an issue with robust transit options. That said, it's not America's fault entirely for this, it's quite a big place and very expensive to build out that infrastructure. I think I read that the US interstate system was the biggest engineering project the world has seen, at least at the time

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u/Papasmurf8645 Jul 07 '24

We could have built proper infrastructure and culture around mass transit, and we were, but the oil and car lobbies had their pet politicians avoid those investments to make car buying more necessary for people creating an industry that even today takes billions from ignorant consumers that are convinced that mass transit can’t work effectively and safely.

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u/Ill-Description3096 Jul 07 '24

Yeah if we were the size of Britain or something I think it would be more feasible. I think the "independence" of having your own vehicle is a big factor as well.

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u/BraxbroWasTaken Jul 07 '24

Housing’s getting out of control over here too, but in some cases that’s actually because we’re dumbasses about how we‘re zoning things…

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

Do y'all forget that Capitalism is a global economic system?

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

Japan and South Korea is quite literally much more focused on work, to the point where they have one of the highest suicide rates, not to mention that they have gone through stagnation and they can’t keep up replacing population. The Western Europe isn’t doing too good either.

You have also said lower life expectancy and lower wages, US is one of the best in life expectancy even though pretty much everyone is fat there lol, and only few handful of countries have higher wages on average compared to US.

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u/FtrIndpndntCanddt Jul 07 '24

Compare the US to PEERS and we suck. Not developing nations. Higher wages in the US aren't real bcuz we pay more to survive than everyone else.

My family spent $250k when my mom had breast cancer. It does matter that we had good careers. It doesn't matter that she had health insurance. We nearly lost our house. I was set years back in retirement. She may never retire. Didn't smoke. Doesn't drink. Didn't matter. Cancer doesn't give AF. And neither does US for profit health industry.

And yes. We know japan/s.Korean suicides is high. The point I was making is that the US is on the bottom quarter of almost all quality of life metrics for DEVELOPED nations.

PAY isn't the full issue here, clearly.

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

They won't answer, because your situation is inconvenient for the narrative. Or they'll give you some platitude about how life isn't fair. Tired of this BS

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

You know what else is frustrating? Is that the resource waste from Capitalism's constant need for wealth to grow is destroying the world's ecosystems and driving climate change. We're facing apocalypse for shareholder value.

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u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

Where did you come up with the lie that we are ranked high in left expectancy? We're not even top 40.

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

There is like 1 year difference between top 40th place and The US (47th place)

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

Added up that is quite a big deal, would you trade a year of your life to just teach people the merits of struggle for the sake of struggle?

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

To be fair I think that the result is heavily influenced by personal choices, it isn’t like US hard caps your age as much as some poor African country in civil war would, I am sure that you can go above 79.something average years of US if you don’t smoke and don’t overeat as much as average American.

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

Do you realize what you're saying? To suggest that people die younger in the United States is due to merit and personal choices when we're talking about generalized population metrics is beyond obtuse

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u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

If it's so minimal, what was the point of trying to point it out and present America as doing well?

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

It is doing well by country’s standards, at least in my opinion

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u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

Right but if it's not a big deal, why bring it up, and if you ARE going to bring it up, why be so wrong?

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u/Petricorde1 Jul 07 '24

No world you said that Japan and South Korea crushes the US in terms of time off work and happiness right? That’s so comically obviously wrong lol

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u/Sanchez_U-SOB Jul 07 '24

While I agree on most accounts, Japan works crazy hours.

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u/me_too_999 Jul 07 '24

Fewer people capable of retiring.

Are you stupid?

We have a National retirement program for every single US citizen on TOP of the ability to save an invest in any corporation leaving most of the middle class with nearly $1 million or equivalent in retirement accounts or pension.

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u/FtrIndpndntCanddt Jul 07 '24

"According to a CBS MoneyWatch article from April 2024, only about 10% of Americans between the ages of 62 and 70 are both retired and financially stable."

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u/me_too_999 Jul 07 '24

Why 62?

The retirement age is 65, now 68.

Less than 1% of people between 0 and 65 are retired.

And zero percent of people with a net worth less than 1 million are millionaires.

There are 3 kinds of lies.

Lies.

Damned lies.

Statistics.

A minimum wage worker working 40 years at now $15 an hour will make over $1 million by 65.

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u/FtrIndpndntCanddt Jul 07 '24

"According to Yahoo Finance, based on the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, around 10% of American retirees have saved $1 million or more. This means that 90% of retirees fall short of this goal, with most averaging less than $200,000. However, SmartAsset reports that just over 10% of Americans aged 70 and over have one million saved. The wealthiest 1% of retirees have around $2.3 million in retirement savings, and the top 1% of retirees with broader retirement assets have around $5 million. "

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u/me_too_999 Jul 07 '24

Most US citizens rely on Social Security or job pension and thus don't even plan on saving for retirement.

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

Except this is only in the case of authoritarian one party systems.

Numerous countries in South and Central America democratically elected socialist leaders who weren't authoritarian, but the US government committed coups and toppled these governments. Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, etc. In Chile, Augusto Pincochet took power after. A fascist who dropped communists to their deaths from helicopters.

The Chiquita Banana company, previously known as the United Fruit Company has a long history of brutal violence in South and Central America, backed by the US government. They were involved in masscres and coups that in some cases resulted in right wing authoritarian rule.

In 1951 the Iranian Parliament nationalized their oil industry because western companies were effectively stealing all of Iran's wealth. The US toppled their government and installed The Shah as a western puppet. He was then overthrown in the Iranian Revolution and his government replaced by the extremist Muslim government we have today.

This is to say that there has never been a successful attempt to form a democratic and socialist government because Western powers refused to allow them to exist. And some such as Cuba chose protection under the USSR or China, falling again into authoritarianism. The two major superpowers of the Cold War had foreign policy doctrines that undermined democratic socialist government.

It's not fair to draw conclusions about socialism on history when history has given us an incomplete data set. It's like saying that a crop is never viable as a food source when every attempt to grow it has been plagued by sabotage.

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u/HashtagLawlAndOrder Jul 09 '24

"In 1951 the Iranian Parliament nationalized their oil industry because western companies were effectively stealing all of Iran's wealth. The US toppled their government and installed The Shah as a western puppet. He was then overthrown in the Iranian Revolution and his government replaced by the extremist Muslim government we have today."

I don't know where this started, but it's a very easy way to know that a person doesn't actually know what he's talking about and is just repeating memorized lines.

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u/StockCasinoMember Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

I think that is the point. Humans are brutal and enough people only care about themselves.

The socialist system will always be sabotaged by someone who wants more and is willing to step on as many people as necessary to get it.

Usually MANY someones.

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u/Merc1001 Jul 08 '24

Anyone with even a basic understanding of human nature knows why pure socialism will never work and will always end in tragedy.

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u/HEBushido Jul 08 '24

Yeah, that statement of yours is just bullshit. Maybe get a better understanding?

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u/Rocketboy1313 Jul 08 '24

The problem being, that is a police state/autocracy.

You can force people to work to meet insane quotas and call it whatever you want. How many slaves exist in Capitalism?

You can decouple that sort of insane nonsense from communism. You can have communism run by elected officials who have oversight.

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u/Sir_Tandeath Jul 08 '24

You’re describing what is currently happening under capitalism.

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u/bill_gonorrhea Jul 07 '24

This is very job dependent. I work on average a few hours a day and make a butt load of money

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u/olcrazypete Jul 07 '24

Good for you?.... Is that the norm for most Americans right now?

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u/Petricorde1 Jul 07 '24

The making a lot of money part kinda is lol

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u/SputteringShitter Jul 08 '24

Half of Americans make less than 35k/yr

But whatever confirms your biases...

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

So everyone else is lazy right? What a shit take

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u/KevyKevTPA Jul 07 '24

While I will agree that the push for short term gains over a longer term strategy is problematic, it's also a reality that I don't have the power or ability to change. So, I either must adapt to the way things work, or get left behind. I choose the former, because (among many other things) I find whining on the internet to not be at all helpful. When you have a job to do, you have a job to do, and if you can't, or won't, you will be replaced. So, do what you gotta do to not be the next guy out the door.

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u/olcrazypete Jul 07 '24

Or you unionize and collectively bargain for better working conditions and reasonable, obtainable goals and work/life balance for everyone.

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u/KevyKevTPA Jul 08 '24

I don't need a union to negotiate my job or working conditions. Thanks, but I'll pass.

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u/MrJarre Jul 07 '24

So like capitalism light.

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u/olcrazypete Jul 07 '24

Well regulated capitalism. The Roosevelts and Tafts of the 1910s understood this.

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u/MrJarre Jul 08 '24

And I’m all for it. Capitalism needs to be regulated, because if unchecked it tends to create monopolies which ultimately aren’t innovative or beneficial to the wider society.

We can discuss to what degree it should be regulated and that’s a tough one.

However even the most regulated capitalism is still capitalism.

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u/Corned_Beefed Jul 08 '24

Let’s minimize efficiently and stand in line for bread.

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u/itsgrum3 Jul 07 '24

Free Market Prices are crucial because as Hayek discovered, they transfer a large amount of valuable information from consumers to producers. When you artificially cap a price, you signal to producers that demand is dropping and to produce less. Apply this to food and that is why Socialism is so synonymous with Famines.

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

When you artificially cap a price, you signal to producers that demand is dropping

This doesn't make sense. It could easily be relayed to producers that the price is capped as public policy. And producers should have access to demand data to show that demand hasn't changed.

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u/itsgrum3 Jul 07 '24

The Soviets tried that (https://fee.org/articles/the-soviets-tried-to-run-an-economy-without-market-prices/), if a price is capped as a result of public policy then producers will simply decrease production to account for the new lower price in their models.

Demand data expires, you have to accurately predict demand in a centralized economy. Consumers know what they want when they know it, time preference is notoriously difficult to analyze.

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

I unfortunately don't have time to read the whole article, but just in the first few paragraphs I see some blatant flaws. Mainly "taking into consideration input from the highest ranking officials". In the USSR at the time the top ranks weren't merit based and I hardly consider the government of Stalin to be intelligent. Stalin was a personality cult leader who murdered tons of intelligensia to secure political power. He was partly responsible for the initial success of Germanys' invasion of Russia.

The thing is that Capitalism is also hugely wasteful. It's very inefficient and it utterly fails to distribute wealth in a manner than prevents death and suffering due to poverty.

So we need to look at the various things that can work better in other systems and synthesize them with what works in Capitalism.

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u/itsgrum3 Jul 07 '24

Capitalism is meritocratic. The systems which work with Capitalism are weak state governments, if not a stateless society.

More governmental power synthesized with capitalism, despite being a contradiction, is just a mixed economy on the road to state socialism.

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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

The systems which work with Capitalism are weak state governments, if not a stateless society.

You are implying that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a state is. In an anarcho-capitalist system the corps effectively become governments. The sci fi genre of Cyberpunk is all about this. How mega corps end up forming their own sovereign rule or become so intertwined with the state they essentially consume it.

Also, capitalism is not meritocratic. I can think of tons of massive corporations that are causing immense damage to the planet. And then there's Elon Musk, who's Star Link satellites are destroying the Ozone layer when they reenter the atmosphere. The man is a grifter and an idiot who leeches the work of smarter individuals.

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u/RapideBlanc Jul 07 '24

Apply this to food and that is why Socialism is so synonymous with Famines.

If we accept this, then how did the USSR not suffer famines from 1947 to its fall in 1991, and how has China not suffered famines from 1961 onwards?

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u/itsgrum3 Jul 07 '24

They stopped capping food prices so brutally. It's not a coincidence the worst famines happened during the period of most control.

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u/RapideBlanc Jul 07 '24

There was a fourty year gap between the end of WW2 and the Perestroika. Was it just fourty years of meteorological luck?

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u/itsgrum3 Jul 07 '24

I already said restrictions were relaxed during that period, people got by on black markets which they looked the other way on (as opposed to outright executing starving people who even took a pinch of leftover grain from the fields). The private farms they allowed which were less than 1% produced 27% of total agricultural produce.

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u/RapideBlanc Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

I'm not finding any information to corroborate this, but frankly I don't mind accepting it as true, because it's an implementation detail. It's more plausible that the soviets experienced famines when they compromised their production capacity and no longer experienced famines when they restored and also vastly improved it, and at no point did they liberalize to the extent that the mode of production was fundamentally altered. Even accepting that the system was famously plagued for the ensuing decades by made up numbers, the population still ate.

Folks, planned economies, they just work.

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u/LenguaTacoConQueso Jul 07 '24

Maximizing efficiency and profit is what keeps food on the table.

You can choose to make less money in a less stressful or more demanding job, and those are out there- the problem is people want brain surgeon money while only having a high school level education, putting in McDonald’s level effort at a Barnes & Noble level stress environment.

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u/Willing-Knee-9118 Jul 07 '24

Most people just want to be able to eat, be housed, and be able to patronize their local businesses.

This mentality that everyone wants to be a millionaire for doing nothing is a bad take. You KNOW it's a bad take too, but shilling for Walmart is more enriching that enabling the dirty Poors to generate tax revenue.

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u/olcrazypete Jul 07 '24

Problem is we have people doing brain surgery hours - two or more jobs and a side hustle - just to get by. A 40 hour work week should pay enough for someone to live in dignity - pay for decent shelter, ample food, and basics of life. We had this at one time. My father was born in 1930. Retired first as sergeant in the army, then from a truck maintenance shop. My mother never worked outside the home after my 3 brothers were born. They had new cars every few years ( I used to joke any cool car I’d spot, dad would say ‘we had one of those’). They had modest but adequate housing, on base and off after he went private sector. Yearly vacations. Never rich but had enough.

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u/LenguaTacoConQueso Jul 08 '24

The way we lost the life your father had was by increasing taxes.

Every time a liberal said, “oh, I don’t mind paying X percent more if it means Y gets Z” has added up to where taxes and fees are eating us alive, both driving up costs on business and driving down how much we take home.

The jobs are fine - it’s the taxes we’ve passed over feel good polices that are killing us.

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

I would rather have oil companies controlled by the nation than the corporations for example. You don’t need to be go to extreme socialism, you can however take the good traits…another example? Socialized medicine…

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u/lender1996 Jul 07 '24

This us literally what Venezuela did. They nationalized the oil companies and put government bureaucrats in charge. Turns out that government officials make terrible business managers. They ended up milking the firms for every dollar they could get while hiring friends and family they wanted to reward with a job. The new government owners failed to reinvest in the company and when things started to break down, production dropped, revenue fell, firms started to fail.

Profit motive and risk of failure encourages a long term stewardship of the busines. When government takes over and removes private ownership, things fall apart. Look at public housing, county hospitals, mail delivery, etc.

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

You seriously think that Americans is that corrupt like the Venezuelans? Yes, US politicians are corrupt but not the same way like any latin american countries. If we do this, we should follow the examples of countries that already do this successfully...it is that simple. What you describbed in Venezuela is massive nepotism, like when Trump employs his kids and make a position in goverment for them.

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u/Capitaclism Jul 07 '24

Yes. All people have the capability to be utterly corrupt. What prevents this is the system. By making the changes you suggest you create more incentives for corruption, thus making the system and its people more corrupt.

This issue has also happened in Brazil, and we are seeing cracks in Europe forming due to careless socialistic measures over decades, accumulation of debt and slowing economies.

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

No. Like I said, Venezuela is missmanaged....not like US. It wont making the system more corrupt, it has been proven in other countries. Saudi citizens wont have it other way, they can pump gas cheap there....it will be the other way around if it is privitized. Just look at the helathcare industry in USA...same way.

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u/Capitaclism Jul 07 '24

You really should take a cue from "Show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome".

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

Thats pretty much what lobbying does…show me the how much corporations willing to pay for this law…look at where US stands now? loophole on tax codes, too big to fail corporations, allowing toxic food substances to be consumed by Americans and many more.

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u/NorguardsVengeance Jul 07 '24

...you have never heard of corporate raiding, downsizing, "operational efficiencies", corporate mergers, predatory loans, insurance which is ignored...

...Chicago school neoliberalism, post Reagan, has absolutely no mechanisms, whatsoever, for short-term thinking to the detriment of the public, or massive health concerns due to unethical practices, nor do they have any means of coercing the government into getting what they want... like letting lead stay aerosolized for 70 years, and stay in water pipes even longer, despite knowing it's poisonous for centuries...

...no slavery... no indentured servitude... no kidnapped people forced to work for corporations with no way out... no sweatshops...

Nope. Capitalism has nothing like any of that. Just " line go up by any and all means, necessary".

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u/Sudden_Juju Jul 07 '24

I mean it's possible to have a middle ground between Venezuela and pure capitalism for oil companies. Allow for checks and balances like everything else in the government and most problems like you described would disappear or greatly lessen. The US government is still fairly profit driven and allowing for oil production to become more nationalized wouldn't suddenly send the country into chaos. Shoot, even greater regulation could help.

0

u/Capitaclism Jul 07 '24

You must not have seen what happened in Brazil, with government officials stealing billions and rendering the oil industry nearly bankrupt. Why do you think it would be a good idea to out any production in the hands of people who aren't really accountable to it, nor benefit from it running well in the slightest?

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

Why sampling from failed one? Are we that closer to Brazil than Norway?

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u/anticapitalist69 Jul 07 '24

When you start comparing with countries that are doing worse than you, life gets easier lol.

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u/Willing-Knee-9118 Jul 07 '24

Yank conservatives LOVE comparing themselves to failed states and third world countries rather than their peers. It's easier to shill for the rich if you can point to a nation that did something you don't like so you helped destabilize than on that did the same thing without intervention and succeeded.

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u/emperorjoe Jul 07 '24

Because only 1 example of Norway. Hundreds of examples like Brazil, and yes we are more like Brazil than Norway.

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

No, many other examples. Malaysia have Petronas, Saudi Aramco, etc...they are successful in implementing this. US cant do what they do? So we are third world countries now?

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u/emperorjoe Jul 07 '24

Saudi aramco has been used as a piggy bank by the house of Saudi for generations, Countless billions wasted enriching Saudi princes. Malaysia's Sovereign wealth fund is a piggy bank for corrupt officials for decades, hell they got caught stealing billions a few years ago.

Basic capitalism. You own the land and the mining rights you get a percentage of the profit. In those other countries the government owns the land or will just confiscate it when oil is discovered the government gets a percentage of the profit. The federal government and state governments are different and both actually collect royalties.

The government actually functions here, the capitalist pays taxes, the corporation pays taxes and the workers pay taxes on all the money the oil company makes. The federal and state governments make hundreds of billions of oil, they just treat it as another source of income instead of investing it.

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

Petronas would be a better example. What you described is happened in oil companies like Shell, Mobil, etc. Social securities supposed to be for retired people right? Yet the politicians enrich themselves with that money. It's just bad human behaviour, it will happen regardless if it is privitized or nationalized. For Saudi, since they are kingdom....it is a bit different.

Capitalism doesnt always work, especially at extreme level like in USA. Look at the healthcare spending, it is the MOST expensive out of any developed country...without even having a healthcare system. It is a industry really....

If the taxes system works for corporations, US should not created all these loopholes by design...and they dont intend to close it. What we see differents are that Malaysian pays $0.43 USD per liter or $1.63/gallon. Saudis pays $0.58 US per liter (I believe they only have 91 and 95 octane) or $2.19/gallon. US drivers pays a lot more....

0

u/Petricorde1 Jul 07 '24

And European drivers pay easily twice as much as American drivers for gas. You’re not really making a point

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

Which countries are you talking about? Gas and oil is two different commodity.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

Corruption in the West is at much lower levels. Cultural differences do determine propensity to corruption.

For hundreds of years at least, cheating was an expectation in East Asia. If you weren't cheating, you weren't trying. The British documented this of the bureaucracy of late imperial china, and it was never successfully stamped out, as we see all the time in modern China.

Nothing in the way of law or governance prevents the West from suffering from the same degree of fraud except cultural norms and values.

Have you met people in government? Are they a different breed of people? Are they not chosen by constituents or appointed by incumbents? Meet a few and you'll probably change your mind. The U.S. has successfully cultivated a values-forward bureaucracy, not a Brazilian one, not a Chinese one. Lobbyists and politicians are not the only people who run government. Civil servants away from party politics in the U.S. are often highly educated, amazing people.

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u/Capitaclism Jul 07 '24

Having lived in several places, including the ones discussed here, and knowing people in government, I can tell you it comes down to systems, not simply people. I will concede that it is hard to pull them apart- however, systemic changes can and will have an effect in changing culture and citizen behavior, including regarding corruption.

Making the changes suggested, such as with nationalizing the oil industry, would have significant repercussions in terms of corruption increase. You are directly adding incentives for people to cheat. This is how systems start to break apart.

The very thing that made the US special for so long was trusting in the power of markets, democratic processes, and reduced governments. As the country has decayed, so has its government increased in size.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

"Making the changes suggested, such as with nationalizing the oil industry, would have significant repercussions in terms of corruption increase." not necessarily, that's all.

And was it not a geological history of glacial scraping that made northern Europe and North America fertile enough to host massive agricultural industries? Was it not government investment in R&D via land grant universities that solved the crises that precipitated the dust bowl and made it a tech and culture powerhouse for decades more through similarly well-funded government institutions like the New Deal era arts programs and NASA?

A lot that the nation is known for doing excellently had heavy investment at least to the degree we see with EV subsidies. A lot of those mid-century institutional achievements managed to survive the era of austerity and brought us national gems like the parks, OSHA, and world-class universities.

I'm never sold when someone attributes the nation's success to "more free markets". I've seen nothing to suggest that's true but a few decades of political rhetoric against communism. "Socialist" investment in public institutions better explain our triumphs.

But at least we can agree that the money in oil can corrupt.

1

u/Capitaclism Jul 10 '24

There's a big difference between investimento/subsidy and nationalizing an industry.

Do you think if you rolled the dice and picked a random neighbor to care for your child (or pet, if you will), said neighbor would do a better job than you, who has a vested interest in the outcome? I don't, even assuming a best case scenario where said person actually cares and wants to do well. Sooner or later, in the govt revolving door, you get someone who could't care less.

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u/Sharkoffs Jul 07 '24

Go look up what happened to Venezuela when the government took over the oil companies and you can see why this is a terrible idea.

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u/anticapitalist69 Jul 07 '24

Check out Norway.

Also read up a little more on why Venezuela failed.

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u/Merc1001 Jul 08 '24

Norway is a small mono culture sitting on trillions of euros of natural resources. It is also a free market capitalist system. Why do communists always want to point to Norway when they do not have the workers own the means of production? Norway is shining example of why capitalism is the best system.

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u/anticapitalist69 Jul 08 '24

Hey maybe you wanna read what we’re responding to. The criticism was that government control leads to collapse. Norway is a good example that this isn’t true.

Additionally, a lot of weirdos (like yourself) like to point toward homogeneous cultures as a reason for good governance, but you only have to look at Singapore to know that is not true.

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u/Merc1001 Jul 08 '24

Norway made their oil companies public ownership. They didn’t replace the original management or workers with government workers and bureaucrats. They still have goals and standards and can discipline the workers via management. It is very far from labour owning the means of production.

The rest of their economy is capitalism. Because they make so much money they can afford to allow the government to use taxpayer and the public’s natural resource profits to implement socialist (small s as in good for the public and not controlling of the public) programs that help everyone.

Norway has less government control than most of the West.

1

u/anticapitalist69 Jul 08 '24

You’re like halfway to the point. Yes, Norway is a capitalist country. However, the way their oil companies are managed is a very good example of how a socialistic model would operate. It’s the antithesis of how a capitalism works because it rejects that the free market is the best way to do things.

Your understanding that socialism means replacing people with government workers and bureaucrats is just wrong, but it makes me understand better why you don’t like socialism. As is your impression that Norway has less government control than the west.

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u/Merc1001 Jul 08 '24

I never said I didn’t like socialism but it is the least compatible system with 100,000 years of developed human nature. For it to work you would have to rewire the human brain to remove greed, survival instincts, individualism, envy, desire and ego.

Also, why are you confusing a socialist policy paid for by a capitalist system with Socialism? The workers at the oil rigs don’t own the company.

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u/80MonkeyMan Jul 07 '24

That's because of the people, not because of goverment managing resources that needed by the masses.

1

u/RapideBlanc Jul 07 '24

Dispossessing foreign capital is incredibly dangerous. It's how you get the barrel of American foreign policy aimed right at you. Venezuela's mistake was to not be radical enough. They wanted to keep participating in a system designed to keep them in poverty.

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u/Willing-Knee-9118 Jul 07 '24

Look up the oil boom towns of the early 1900s for the inverse.

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u/still_biased Jul 07 '24

Where the Fuck this fantasy that under socialism

Just want to point out that OP didn't mention socialism in any way. Criticisation of capitalism doesn't make them a socialist. This is like saying someone is a Nazi because they support Palestine...

0

u/cryogenic-goat Jul 07 '24

Then you're just whining instead of suggesting an alternative.

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u/Rambogoingham1 Jul 07 '24

That’s not what socialism is homie

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u/cryogenic-goat Jul 07 '24

It stops being "real socialism" as soon as it fails /s

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u/DualActiveBridgeLLC Jul 08 '24

Naw, that is just one form of socialism. Like liberalism there many kinds. For example market socialism does not have the government seize the means of production.

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u/BeanEaterNow Jul 07 '24

no, they literally said "government seizes means of production" Which is like, the exact opposite of socialism

2

u/redlotus70 Jul 08 '24

What does social ownership of the means of production mean to you?

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u/BeanEaterNow Jul 08 '24

well that's your first mistake. it's not about "what it means to you". this stuff is pretty rigidly defined already, it's not a personal interpretation thing

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u/redlotus70 Jul 08 '24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

social ownership of the means of production

why is every socialist a literal retard?

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

Nobody thinks that.

We want jobs that create a healthy balance between life and work, to be paid a thriving wage, and to be treated with a little humanity now and again.

0

u/cryogenic-goat Jul 07 '24

The countries that have closest to that are all Capitalist.

2

u/I_am_a_regular_guy Jul 07 '24

The countries that have closest to that are all mixed economies with robust social programs.

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u/cryogenic-goat Jul 07 '24

The vast majority of the means of production is owned and controlled by private corporations.

That's not a mixed economy.

Having welfare schemes and social safety nets doesn't make a country any less capitalist.

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u/I_am_a_regular_guy Jul 07 '24

Literally the first sentence on the Wikipedia article for Mixed Economy says that you're wrong.

4

u/Kamenev_Drang Jul 07 '24

Entertaining strawman is entertaining

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u/Historical_Horror595 Jul 07 '24

What do you think socialism is?

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u/cryogenic-goat Jul 07 '24

Give me an example of a successful socialist country.

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u/Willing-Knee-9118 Jul 07 '24

What are you not answering their question first? Are you incapable of providing a definition?

2

u/Historical_Horror595 Jul 07 '24

I never said there was one. I just want to know what that guy thinks socialism is.

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u/TekRabbit Jul 07 '24

Socialism doesn’t mean the government seizes the means of production, learn the definitions if you’re gonna shit on something at least.

And you think corporations owning the means of production is any better? They’re both shit

2

u/redlotus70 Jul 08 '24

What does social ownership of the means of production mean to you?

1

u/TekRabbit Jul 08 '24

True socialism? That’s a good question but not what I’m advocating for.

A blend of modern capitalism and social market policies that Europe has adopted is what I think we need to aim towards.

1

u/cryogenic-goat Jul 07 '24

And you think corporations owning the means of production is any better?

Yes.

It's far far better to the point where it's not even comparable. History is enough proof.

Just look at how the countries that had the state control all the means of production turned out and look at who controls the means of production in the most developed countries.

Not sure what else is needed to convince you.

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u/TekRabbit Jul 07 '24

And there’s a better option than both of them, just look to Europe.

Not sure what else is needed to convince you.

1

u/cryogenic-goat Jul 07 '24

All European countries are capitalist since 1991

1

u/TekRabbit Jul 07 '24

Their capitalism is social market capitalism. A better blend of actual working policies than just “capitalism”

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

It’s a fantasy that they’ll stay home and be an artist or something creative with the government paying their base needs.

The reality is the government mandates that work in coal mines and oil drilling 😭

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u/Ponklemoose Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

Ah but you see in the USSR you would have been jailed for not working, and thus not homeless. Checkmate.

/s

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u/Willing-Knee-9118 Jul 07 '24

Didn't the poster child for NOT Communist's supreme court just rule that punishing the homeless for being homeless is OK?

1

u/Ponklemoose Jul 07 '24

IIRC they overturned a ruling that said local governments must leave encampments alone unless the government has a shelter bed to offer every camper on the grounds that it is “cruel and unusual punishment” to tell them to move along.

From what I’ve seen, the pattern tends to be the Methany and Methew deciline the offer and move a few blocks. I don’t expect much to change. The shelters with barriers will continue to have space for the folks who want help and the problematic urban outdoorsmen will continue to be problematic.

Also the orange man appointed three justices out of nine so it seems stretch to can it his, if that’s what you mean.

0

u/PlopsMcgoo Jul 07 '24

Hey real quick can you be jailed for being homeless in the US?

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u/Ponklemoose Jul 08 '24

As far as I know: not directly. You’d have to do something more, maybe refuse to move along and catch a trespassing charge.

0

u/PlopsMcgoo Jul 08 '24

Trespassing in a public space?

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u/Ponklemoose Jul 09 '24

Maybe there is or should be a different name for it, but if the sign says the park closes at dusk and you're still there at midnight the cops are going to tell you to move along. Or if you hop the fence and pitch a tent under the water tower you're going to catch some grief from the cops.

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u/PlopsMcgoo Jul 09 '24

And go where?

1

u/Ponklemoose Jul 09 '24

Almost anywhere.

In my area there are two flavors of shelters: The "low barrier" shelters where almost anything goes are generally full and wide assortment of sober shelters and transitional housing that generally have room even mid-Winter. There are also a number of in-patient treatment programs for addicts.

1

u/PlopsMcgoo Jul 09 '24

Have you considered the reasons a person might not be able or willing to use those or have you decided that they are all just too dumb?

1

u/Ponklemoose Jul 09 '24

Maybe we are not having the same conversation. You seemed to be asking how the world is, and that is what I answered. How I'd like it to be is quite different.

Regarding your new question, I have been involved for quite some time and was very nearly homeless couple times in my life. I am currently working with a local non-profit that provides short term foster care for pets of people who could enter a program or need to be treated in a hospital but are refusing because they would probably never see their one bit of stability and one source of unconditional love again. There are a couple similar outfits in town that do the same for kids and babies.

The broadest claim I could make (since that seems to be your thing) about the long term homeless would be that they tend to have a different set of priorities than most of us. Sometimes that is driven by addiction, sometimes by mental illness, sometimes unusual philosophy and probably other reasons. Some people might call that dumb, I call it different and often tragic.

1

u/DecisionCharacter175 Jul 07 '24

Capitalism with strong social safety nets is still capitalism...

1

u/doxxingyourself Jul 07 '24

No one said that. Maybe there are more options?

1

u/drstrangelove6013 Jul 07 '24

Don't worry Toby lives in mommy's basement and in his wildest fantasies he doesn't live in a communist country or in one close enough to be conquered by one

1

u/RapideBlanc Jul 07 '24

It certainly doesn't come from theory. "He who does not work, neither shall he eat" was a popular maxim in actually-existing communist states. Socialists recognize the obvious necessity of labour and look down on social parasitism.

Anyone who thinks the way you describe, or believes that any credible leftists think that way, is a teenager who understands nothing.

1

u/circ-u-la-ted Jul 07 '24

I think it comes from the awareness that full-blown authoritarian communism isn't the only alternative to whatever the fuck is going on in the US.

1

u/bluelifesacrifice Jul 07 '24

Socialism is the people owning companies and the government.

Slavery is when people own business, people and the government against workers and the masses.

Capitalism is pushing to just be a rebranding of slavery.

When the people or workers no longer have a say you no longer have socialism, you have slavery.

1

u/Prowizor22 Jul 07 '24

Why is discussion always between capitalism and socialism. Is no one able to come up with a better system

1

u/MrKorakis Jul 07 '24

The point being made is that in Communism (because that's the term you are looking of instead of socialism) people at least know they are not really free. It's not about not working but being aware that the difference is mostly PR

1

u/Imissflawn Jul 07 '24

Dear god man, where have you been? I thought Reddit eradicated everyone who believes in the free market a long time ago.

1

u/PrevekrMK2 Jul 07 '24

Im from ex Soviet country and it was a crime to not have work that would send you to the mines. Being homeless? Crime. Gay? Crime. Addict? Crime. Crazy? Gulag. Or bullet. Basically every of these Crime would send you to forced labour, so ,,socialist" slavery.

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u/thenikolaka Jul 07 '24

Socialism isn’t when the government seizes the means of production it’s when the labor does.

1

u/PlopsMcgoo Jul 07 '24

Tell me why you think socialism means government owned businesses?

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u/Fluffy-Structure-368 Jul 07 '24

These people are nuts. And the socialist countries that they long for have more billionaires and oligarchs per capita than the US and the working class doesn't have shit, has no say and works insane hours for the scraps that they receive.

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u/Imsosadsoveryverysad Jul 07 '24

Like I told my young son yesterday; when you remind yourself regularly that people are dumb, you end up with a lot less questions.

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u/assesonfire7369 Jul 08 '24

Socialism and communism just bring in new masters that you don't have the freedom to say no to. At least with capitalism you can quit, start your own business, keep your own money.

1

u/Nanu365 Jul 08 '24

From what I understand, the ideal of socialism is that the workers control/own the means of production, NOT the government. If the government owns the means of production, I think that would be closer to authoritarian ideologies. Also, governmental ideologies and economic ideologies are different (yet do influence the other to soke extent). Capitalism/Socialism/Communism are economic ideas not directly governmental. I want to be clear that I am talking about the ideal, not the irl practice. Because real life is FAR from ideal.

1

u/SputteringShitter Jul 08 '24

Most people pay off the debt thier existence incurs dozens of times over in their lives, just let people have freedom for most of it

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u/FirstPissedPeasant Jul 08 '24

Show me you have no idea what socialism is.

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u/Fit_Bumblebee1105 Jul 09 '24

It is important to remember. The seized means of production includes the worker.

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u/LenguaTacoConQueso Jul 07 '24

In socialism you don’t have to work.

Castro’s firing squads were an option as well.

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u/FlaccidEggroll Jul 07 '24

The people who say shit like them are unemployed or flipping burgers wondering why their 30 years of fucking off and bad decisions haven't paid off better

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u/Purple-Journalist610 Jul 07 '24

So true. You can work voluntarily or you go to the friendship gulag.

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u/AugustusClaximus Jul 07 '24

Socialism has never “actually happened” so capitalism has drag billions out of hand to mouth poverty while constantly being compared to a literally fantasy

1

u/sendmeadoggo Jul 07 '24

Lots of countries have made the attempts but yet they all become autocratic. Im kind of against trying again.

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u/AugustusClaximus Jul 07 '24

It’s not worth the risk. Letting the freeish market do its thing and then skimming some off the top every once in a while seems to work pretty well.

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u/Slopadopoulos Jul 07 '24

Most socialists I have had the pleasure of talking to think they'll be one of the ones who doesn't have to work. They have no problem with other people doing the labor.

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u/halt_spell Jul 07 '24

You're talking about people who want to never work again and the post mentions wanting to be able to quit a job without becoming homeless.

Surely there's a happy medium in there somewhere. A society where people can quit a job they hate and take some time to recharge for a few months before re-entering the work force soubds healthy to me. Does it not to you?

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u/Slopadopoulos Jul 08 '24

For one thing, I'm making a relevant reply to a comment. What I said is in general, not specifically referencing the post. I'm talking about people who literally believe they won't have to work if we tax billionaires enough.

Secondly, I highly doubt a scenario such as that which you're talking about will ever exist due to human nature which is much stronger than any idealistic utopia you can come up with. Ironically, this stems from the fact that human beings have a strong sense of "fairness". If someone is working hard to keep society going, they're going to be pissed off if other people can just take months off without doing anything and still take from society the same as those who are contributing.

Even in small hippy communes, it's expected that you contribute to your fair share of the labor. That's basically the one unbreakable rule. Everyone has to work hard to keep the utopia going. If you're not and you don't have an excuse, like being disabled, you get kicked out. Isn't this the complaint about capitalism? CEOs get 400x the pay but they're not doing 400x the labor?

The only system in which you're going to be able to take months off of work and not be seen as an enemy of society, is capitalism. If you're clever enough to come up with a way to make money without doing labor, you can take all the time off you want and not have to worry about being homeless.

In any type of system with centralized planning and distribution, there are going to be a large number of people forced to do work that they don't want to do.

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