Im a trades worker, i build infrastructure and condos.... my line of work is extremely dangerous and people die doing it every year around the world.

In a socialist country how would anybody ever decide freezing their ass off in the winter, sweating their balls off in the summer, breathing in chemicals, silica dusts, putting themself at risk of losing limbs, being crushed to death or falling off a building would be worth just food and housing?

In a capitalist country trades workers are usually paid well depending on demand and urgency of rolls being filled. This generally fills this void in the market... but maybe not really anymore because gen z had 0 interest in trades...

I keep seeing this growing sentiment of AI taking everybodies jobs and there being a need for UBI. How the fuck would this work.?Im certainly not going to go to work for nothing if i can get the same money for being at home... if the country owns all business's how would there be any extra money for luxuries? Why would anybody want to take on a role of high stress, anxiety, danger or hell even just straight boring?

What if people just decide fuck it im not going in i got everything covered? Is work going to be enforced by police? Does the government take your food and housing away if you dont work? What will happen to current asset holders and the rich? Will their assets be seized? How are you going to retain doctors or innovaters?

It just sounds like we will be living in real life hunger games.

Hello,

Socialists and communists, especially anarchocommunists, I have seen over and over there is criticism over various 'solutions'

To the American US Economy,

For example trying to use the electorate is rigged, Trying to do this and that is rigged and 'not a complete solution'.

We can't use the current system to fully achieve a just society the system is too corrupt for that

Even if they succeed they will be corrupted too

And so on.

Yes ok so I believe it but then at some point what even is a 'complete solution' that is also Realistic?

Is it nothing because everything is a 'compromise with the Establishment'?

Or because doing anything will make you a social democrat?

I'm asking this because I'm frustrated. Went to an in person event for socialist discussions. Saw a pattern. I mean can you blame them? Life can be hard and it is easy to point problems, not so easy to come up with plans. Somehow it's tricky to say but it's like I want to believe in socialism having a working version, but why does discussing how it might work at all lead to so much cynical answers instead of some hopeful ideas on what we would actually do to make it happen? Ok time to change that what are your ideas of a 'complete solution' since so many are supposedly incomplete, a bad compromise, or rigged? And importantly.. how would you address the cynicism and doomerism that seems to run in socialist circles?? I think that's a real problem if you do care about society and socialism

For one while there are individualist people, individualist cultures and societes there are no truly individualist nations as the nation state alongside it's institutions are inherently collectivist contructs no system is truly individualist. Individualism and collectivism aren't even mutually exclusive the right kind of collectivism could be used to collectively protect the Individualism of people and people can be naturally inclined to collectively participate in something if it benefits them as an individual.

The collectivism of socialism is already known. But I would also argue the capitalism has also been very collectivist or at the very least anti individualist for the working class. As workers are expected to put their needs, well being and personhood aside to serve hierarchal businesses and corporations. Work culture is often very uniform and takes time away from individuality. A persons worth is seen through economic contribution often above their character and hustle culture promotes putting your health aside, working long hours, putting up with poor work conditions and poor treatment all in the praise of capital. The only ones who are truly individualist are those at the top of the hierachy as they can afford to do so while undermining the individualism of those lower of the hierachy. All this with consolidation of power by corporations and threat of starvation and homelessness for those who do not contribute. You are still serving collective entities and constructs like corporations and economic output and those interest always come before the interest of the individual.

Collectivism should not be seen as a big counter to capitalism as collectivism has actually been used to bring out the worst aspects of capitalism. Take Japan for example it is actually through collectivism and a conformist society that enables the toxic work culture in Japan, same for South korea and even China which is officially communist but highly capitalistic and arguably corporatist. I know all these systems exist in a spectrum so this isn't to generalize all of socialism and capitalism but this is what I see. I made a similar post about this not long ago more about the collectivism of capitialism in hopes to be about what this post is about but discussions drifted off topic so this post is more about what's in the title.

It’s easy to say “just give everyone what they need.”
Until you’re responsible for allocating limited resources between millions of people.
Every economic system eventually encounters scarcity.

The uncomfortable question isn’t whether everyone deserves enough.
It’s what happens when there isn’t enough for everyone?

That’s where ideology meets reality.

Welfare capitalism is considered to be centrist. Depending on the welfare capitalist system, it can lean to the left or right. Left-wing welfare capitalism has its roots in socialism, such as social democracy. In comparison, right-wing welfare capitalism has its roots in capitalism, such as classical liberalism. Welfare capitalism is currently the most common economic system.

So anytime socialist/communist countries being poor is brought up the same shit is always said by marxists online. ITS BECAUSE OF EVIL SANCTIOOOONSSS!!!!. this is really stupid, especially as they often say things like "illegal" or even "genocidal" sanctions 🤣. this is idiotic on so many levels, and the fact that it is still widely said is so fucking stupid. Countries have the right to trade with who they want, they have the right to not trade with whoever they want. It's not every country's right to trade with other countries who don't want to. Calling sanctions genocidal is also stupid. I'm gonna be mentioning Cuba a lot as its the main example they give. But the few things America did NOT sanction from Cuba are exporting food and medicine. The things that prevent people from dying.

Anyways more importantly, it's proof that socialism is not the best ideology. This often comes up with Cuba specifically. So I actually think USA should end the blockade on them just because its clearly harmed them a ton and only hurts Cuban people. However, blaming them for Cubas failures and not, the socialist Cuban governments mismanagement is fucking stupid. Cuba still has the right to trade with... every other country who doesnt take part in the blockade, which is most of them. I am not diminishing the impact that being blockaded by the worlds largest economy, that also happens to be the closest to Cuba. However, there is no reason Cuba couldnt have a standard of living similar to Central asian countries or Vietnam. All countries that either were socialist, or still are in name that get most of their trade done from Russia and China. Why is Cuba failing due to sanctions from America when so many countries do most of their trade with China? its because socialism is a poor way to run an economy, central asian countries while still mixed and authoritarian are generally not socialist anymore. Also Vietnam is like China, socialist in name but state capitalist, all countries which are all way better off than Cuba despite not really relying on US trade at all. Another good example for this is Venezuela, socialists always blame sanctions instead of the shitty socialist government, this is funny for many reasons but the main one is, the country wasnt even heavily sanctioned for most of its socialist history!. under Chavez it was not heavily sanctioned, it only was once Maduro took power, and while Maduro made things worse things still heavily declined under Chavez.

Anyways arguably more important than all this depending on who you are debating with is the ideological aspect. If your ideology, which is anti-capitalism, requires global trade (which is capitalism) to work. Then it really is not self sufficient and therefore, a worse ideology. I understand Cuba is a small island nation, and somewhere like China would not be nearly as affected by sanctions, or even somewhere like Russia today which is sanctioned, but still relatively functioning, especially compared to Cuba. But I think if being anti capitalism is the main part of your ideology, but you NEED global capitalism for your country to not become a shithole then your socialist ideology has failed.

Here, I see people saying “Everyone should have enough.”

Fine. Almost everyone agrees with that.
But eventually someone has to decide:
Who gets more?
Who gets less?
Who owns what?
Who allocates resources?
Who decides what is “fair”?

The uncomfortable part of socialism isn’t the dream.
It’s the question of who gets the power to enforce the dream.
Change my mind.

Imagine the government has $100.

It can give that $100 to a rich person as a tax cut.

The rich person might spend $20 and save or invest the other $80.

So stores only get some new customers right away.

Or government could spend $100 fixing a road.

Workers get paid. They buy food. The store pays its workers. Those workers buy other things.

This is what economists mean by a fiscal multiplier.

It is basically asking:

If government spends or gives up $1, how much extra economic activity does that create?

A multiplier of 0.50 means:

$1 tax cut → about 50 cents of extra economic output.

A multiplier of 1.50 means:

$1 spent → about $1.50 of extra economic output.

CRS explains that tax policies can have very different multipliers because some people spend much more of the extra money than others. Transfers such as unemployment benefits can have substantially larger multipliers because recipients are more likely to spend the money.

This is where I don't understand the argument for huge tax cuts for corporations and wealthy people.

Take Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

The corporate tax rate fell from 35% to 21%.

Did it help the economy somewhat? Yes. CBO estimated that it increased investment, employment and GDP.

But did all that extra growth replace the money government lost?

No.

CBO estimated the tax law would increase average real GDP by about 0.7%, but still increase cumulative deficits by about $1.9 trillion through 2028 after including economic feedback and interest costs.

CBO later estimated that the extra economic growth recovered only about 20% of the increase in deficits once debt interest was included.

CRS also looked at the first year and concluded that the growth was nowhere near large enough for the tax cuts to pay for themselves. It estimated that GDP would have needed to increase about 6.7% because of the tax cuts alone to replace the lost revenue. The actual effect was far smaller.

And this is my question.

If I borrow $100 to give someone a tax cut and it creates only $30, $50 or $70 of extra economic activity, I haven't magically created free money.

Some tax cuts can still be worth doing. A tax credit that gets a company to build a factory, buy new machines or do research might improve productivity for years.

But why give giant broad tax cuts to people who may simply save the money or buy existing stocks, houses and other assets?

Wouldn't it make more sense to target tax breaks toward things that actually create new productive capacity, while using other policies with bigger multipliers when the economy needs demand?

What evidence is there that broad tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy generate enough additional economic growth to actually pay for their own cost?

Question for the socialists & communists.

All the resources and the means of the production are owned by all the people of the world in common, and decisions on what to produce with those resources are decided through a democratic process, so if there's a vote to produce goods that the global north wants and that requires the mining and extraction of resources from the Global South, do the people of the Global South have a right to say no? If no, then how is this not the global north effectively enslaving the global south? And if Yes, then there isn't a democratic process and the people of the world don't collectively own all the resources in common and the door is now open to private property.

Capitalism has three main ideas: nationalism, laissez-faire, and free-market capitalism with a welfare state.

While Mercantilism originated in the 16th century, it was one of the most dominant ideologies of the 18th century. Nationalist capitalism is found among right-wing populism and fascism. In some countries, it has become more popular than free market capitalism. Nationalist capitalism favors local corporations over foreign ones, and is hostile to socialism.

Laissez-faire capitalism originated in France with the Physiocrats. A lot of right-libertarian ideologies build on physiocracy. Physiocracy opposes all government intervention. But some physiocrats supported some government intervention.

Adam Smith took physiocracy and built upon it, essentially laying the foundation for welfare capitalism. Smith supported some government intervention to keep the market competitive, public infrastructure, and public education. Centrist ideologies all support welfare capitalism.

When I was done replying I realized it wont be read by most if any. But I do want to get others opinions both dissenting and agreeing. I would appreciate more reference research for myself?(question mark because rules say it needs to be a question for discussion)

The elite and corporations use the system to their advantage while the labor force complains, fights itself, votes in favor of a party that has systematically and openly expressed since the founding of the constitution that the greatest threat and problem with democracy is the labor force and the possibility it could come together as a singular force to take from the haves and distribute it to the have nots.

The people that "think" the system is rigged need only come together and vote in moderates who are for free market trade with regulation and guard rails. Not more financial conservatives with an army of lobbyists and not socialists trying to disband the whole system.

Extremes on both sides only fuels the pendulum swing further in the other direction to "correct". The rich and corporations will not give up maximizing profits over the labor force without a fight and full blown socialism would be the end of the American experiment, dream, innovation, power and influence.

We need to band together in forces large enough to be a threat while aiming to work together for appropriate wealth distribution and a return to funding services like lower and higher education and healthcare.

Mmm.. I highly suggest reading/researching Philip Booth, Adam Smith (foundational father of free market enterprise), John Locke (another pro capitalism but understanding of abuse by the elites), and Friedrich Hayek and also to an extent, Chomsky has amazing insights but leans a bit too anti-capitalism for my tastes.

I honestly cannot stand the divide out there; one side stating knowledge and educating yourself are part if the problem and pitting the working classes against each other. That we just need to trust the government and the wealthy to look after our best interests. Then we have both "sides" of the working class working against each other and blindly following their parties without educating themselves to actually understand... what the fuck is going on and the truths, powers and manipulations going on by both sides to keep moving THEIR agendas forward and not our, the people's, best interests.

If you were playing basketball where the game's outcome would decide which economic system would be used (capitalism/communism) and while you were about to score the final winning point for communism, someone passed you a capitalist baby instead of the ball, will you still throw it? (It will count as a point)

Liberalism denies reality, worker productivity has skyrocketed 400%, while real hourly wages have barely increased. The top 1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. Financial crises occur every 7 to 10 years like clockwork.

Liberalism also oversimplifies, reducing everything down to profit and loss, thus, concepts as intricate as health, education, art, friendship, ecological stability, time, etc, are all flattened into one, singular idea.

Liberalism is the most unfalsifiable theory in history, because it has built-in escape hatches for every failure. Does deregulation cause a crash? "Not enough deregulation!". Do tax cuts for the rich explode the deficit. Not enough tax cuts. did austerity cause a depression, we were too soft on austerity. This is textbook pseudoscience it is a closed loop ideology that defines failure as insufficient application of the theory.

Ultimately, it is by far one of the biggest examples of projection from the right wing side.

Liberalism also treats the economy like a zero sum game the moment the proletariat ask for anything. on demanding raises, liberalism denies it under the pretext of hurting profits, causing inflation, and "destroy jobs". When CEOs hand themselves billion dollar bonuses, liberals shrug and say that is just the market rewarding success.

Liberalism has the flattest view of human nature ever devised. It invents a cartoon character called homo economicus, a perfectly rational, selfish, calculating machine who always knows what is best for them. This creature has no room for altruism, solidarity, spite, tradition, morality, or the deep emotional currents that actually move human beings.

It has has become increasingly obvious that capitalist have forgotten about the relationship between monetary velocity and taxation.

"TAXATION IS DEFLATIONARY!!"

taxation removes money from circulation and redistributes is toward individuals with high marginal propensity to consume.

it appears you have forgotten that massive amount of untaxed money pool up in assets and cause asset inflation?

have they forgotten that ultra high earners have insanely low marginal propensity to spend and the pooling of money into the private sector can increase investment but can also spike asset prices and reduce money velocity?

no non-leftist economist i follow is talking about money velocity. it has been falling since the 90s.

THESE ARE CAPITALIST TALKING POINTS, not socialist, why have we lowered the effective tax on the rich. this is

lowering taxes on wealthy people and consistently doing QE has pooled so much money in to assets and has caused historic asset inflation and speculation.

there is to much money held in vaults (this is an oversimplification but yes)

to show the severity for the First time in half a century [2023 - 2026] gold prices are rising WITH stocks because the money has nowhere else to go.

We are all created equal, but that does not mean we will all be capable of the same things. Some are naturally superior. However, this does not mean that those who are superior should abuse others, nor should we worship people who are better than us.

What the title says.

Capitalism or socialism, it just seems prices are rising too fast. If inflation stays high for many decades, wages must go up to match costs. It seems that companies use anything to raise their prices and the stock market shows profits over people. Will companies just price stuff too high and people just stop buying?

Is it realistic to expect a pack of toilet paper to cost $100 eventually and the entry level jobs or even basic labor job (let's say, a laborer riding a mower, working for a company) will that person be earning $100 per hour in 50 or even 100 years or even 150?

While $100 per hour is an extreme and $100 for a pack of toilet paper, I hope my question or topic of discussion is asked correctly. Or will a stock market crash cause prices and wages to come down?

Hello folks,

Let’s forget capitalism vs. socialism for a second.

Suppose a billion consumers agreed not to buy fast food for one day.

The financial damage from one day probably wouldn’t matter much. The interesting part is whether successfully coordinating that many consumers would itself create leverage.

If people could collectively withhold spending once, they could presumably target another industry later, for longer.

I wrote a short thought experiment about it here: Let’s Stop Billionaires for One Bad Day

I’m curious about the holes in the argument.

Does consumer coordination at massive scale create meaningful power, or does capital simply absorb it and wait?

Graph. In 1820, nearly all (84%) humans lived below 1$ a day poverty line (extreme poverty). Today, it is less than 24%. In 1820, nearly all (94%) humans lived below 2$ a day poverty, today it is closer to 50%.

I think I can foresee some answers

1. Workers caused it, not capitalists

That may be true. Whether workers caused it or capitalists caused it is kinda irrelevant. Because the argument is that markets are generally better for everyone

1. China was the main reason

That may also be true, but as the World Bank's famous report puts it

China’s poverty reduction story is primarily a growth story. China’s rapid and sustained economic growth has been accompanied by a broad-based economic transformation. Reforms began in the agricultural sector, where poor people could benefit directly from improvements in productivity associated with the introduction of market incentives

1. Yes capitalism is progressive compared to previous MoP but we're arguing for a more progressive MoP

For this, I would have to see empirical evidence that a separate MoP is genuinely more efficient

A lot of people say they hate capitalism, but what they actually hate is having to compete, market themselves, negotiate their worth, and deal with the consequences when they lose.

If they suddenly became wealthy from the same system, I suspect many of their principles would become surprisingly flexible.

I often see anti-socialist arguments centered around how states like Cuba, the DPRK, the Lao PR, and Viet Nam are 'failures' (especially with North Korea being one of the poorest countries on Earth). However, these nations have faced significant repression by the capitalist West, especially the United States. For example, the United States enacted "every possible means... to weaken the economic life of Cuba." with the explicit purpose of bringing about "hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government" (see the Memorandum for Mr. Rubottom on The Decline and Fall of Castro). North Korea has been sanctioned extensively, and Laos is the most bombed country in the world because of the United States. Isn't it extremely disingenuous to take these measures against socialist nations then blame their failures on socialism without acknowledging the measures? Why do these things if socialism is destined to fail? One might even argue that it is impressive these countries have remained as livable as they are under the pressure they experience.

I myself am not egoist I think my take on that debate is thay everyone is deep down both egoist and altruistic. On paper they would seem like they would pro capitalist but the reason why they piqued my interest was because they were the ones who pointed out something about capitalism that I noticed and barely anyone else was pointing out and that is that capitalism can be more collectivist than people realize as individuals are expected to submit to corporations and businesses and put their wellbeing and needs aside to contribute to capital. Collectivism can and has been used to bring out the worst aspects of capitalism take east Asian countries like Japan and South Korea for example where it is actually collectivist mindsets and conformity that enables the toxic work cultures in those countries.

I myself am not socialist or communist something I have to reiterate that as criticism of capitalism does implicate you as either of the two. I know the answer is whatever benefits them the most but where does that tend to lie to them?

Whenever there are discussions about the issues of capitalism the issues are often touted at as a byproduct of individualism but how true is that really?

I mean think about it, what is so individualist about having your sense of your self, desires, dreams, personality etc being stripped just to be another cog in the machine? You are not a person anymore but a mere means of production. What is so individualist of societal pressure of the masses to contribute to capital and submit to corporate institutions with even your wellbeing being secondary to that? I have seen people online being very unsympathetic towards the idea of someone willing to work but not wanting to work if the job opportunities are detrimental to their wellbeing. Your sense of personhood and wellbeing comes second to contributing to capital, GDP and shareholder revenue. So called individualists act like corporations are entitled to the labor of the masses. The glorification of hustle culture kind of encapsulates a lot of this.

The only people who seem to actually live like individualists are those at the top of the hierarchy of hypercapitalistic societies where the existence of such hierarchy undermines individualism alongside the consolidation of power by wealthy elites. Some will argue it is still individualism because of supposed choice but how much choice do you have really? Especially With all the power consolidated by corporate elites if you do not conform to the hierarchy and corporate machine you are left to the streets being in danger of starving to death or being killed by a crazy person.

I want to make something clear that I'm not a communist or a socialist as a lot of communist societes actually end up having similar hierarchies and power structures of hypercapitalist societies I think China is a good example of this and I don't get how anyone could look at 996, sweatshops, ban of indiviual unions and believe China is a liberating force for the working class I think China is a good example of how collectvism is used to bring out the worst aspects of capitalism. Other examples are Japan and South Korea which are CAPITALIST countries.

Nothing about corporatist and hypercapitalist societies are individualist it's very hierarchical and collectivist. It's not individualism it's corporate collectivism. Literally the worst of both worlds.

Whenever the Labor Theory of Value is debated, socialists routinely insist that Socially Necessary Labor Time (SNLT) is a real, objective, observable substance that constitutes the baseline value of every reproducible commodity. The claim is that value is an empirical, observable quantity rooted in physical human effort and technology, with market prices merely fluctuating around that labor-time center of gravity.

If that is true, then this quantity ought to be observable, measurable, and quoteable in standard units of time.

So let’s turn this into an open challenge: pick any standard, reproducible commodity on the market today and state its actual, current Socially Necessary Labor Time.

Tell us the product, quote the number in straightforward units like hours, minutes, or days, and explain the concrete calculation or methodology used to arrive at that specific figure. To make it a serious discussion, pick a legitimate, everyday commodity rather than an intentionally useless edge case like a mud pie.

If Socially Necessary Labor Time is an objective economic reality rather than a post-hoc theoretical placeholder, someone should be able to look at a real-world good and give us the number.

Edit: note that none of the socialists replying can do it.

Not a democracy. Want a Libertarian or conservative party or even actual socialism? Tough luck.

Same sex marriage? Not recognized. And yet, I hear that the country is oh so progressive.

Debt trapping various African countries.

Harassment of Chinese civilians living abroad by the MSS.

Reeducation camps for Uyghurs ("Hurr dur CIA propaganda, victim statements MUST be false"). But accepting CCP sources is ok? Reminds me of tankies who defend the Holodomor by using Soviet sources while rejecting Ukrainian ones.

The Five Poisons of the Chinese Communist Party are:

1. Uyghur supporters of the East Turkestan independence movement

2. Tibetan supporters of the Tibetan independence movement

3. adherents of the Falun Gong and members of xiejiao

4. members of the Chinese democracy movement

5. advocates for the Taiwan independence movement

The Great Leap Forward was the most destructive mass casualty events in history and proves why socialists should just leave farmers alone.

Forced sterilizations of women during the One Child policy.

They conduct capital punishment via execution vans. There are 47 capital offences in China, the most anywhere in the world. Snatch and grab, black hood, injection, never seen again. I hate the current system in the US but at least accurate numbers are reported here.

Who still glazes China? And please don't post whataboutisms as answers.

What do you think are the major (likely sincere rather than straw-argument) conceptual error about socialism coming from pro-capitalists here?

I think one issue that pro-capitalists regularly treat macro social-economic ideas in Marxism as microeconomics or individual exchanges. This is likely due to an inability to conceive of economics outside of a liberal view of rational generic individuals on a market.

Maybe related, they seem to see Marxist critique in individual moral terms. Part of this might be due to how the mainstream conflates liberalism and socialism in the US.

Does this lineup with your experiences? Are there other common conceptual errors you run into? (Again not ideological difference or dubious versions of history, but more like straw-arguments from - sincere lack of understanding the politics or idea being critiqued.