Socialism and Capitalism correctly defined

L

localgrizzly

Active member
Capitalism: An economic system that rewards the industrious and punishes the indolent.

Socialism: An economic system that rewards the indolent and punishes the industrious.

Which system would you prefer to live under. (Remember, your answer reveals much about your personality:-P )
 
This is just provactive, and not going to go anywere productive.

This is almost as bad as something i would post.
 
Yeah, I mean capitalism is much better than just that and then real socialism is something enormously worse than that.
 
Rabs said:
This is just provactive, and not going to go anywere productive.

This is almost as bad as something i would post.
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A discussion doesn't necessarily have to be productive to be intertesting.:mrgreen:

And ALL debate is provocative. Otherwise, it wouldn't be debate.:camo:
 
And there are many blended systems out there which would render a black and white debate something quite fool hardy. LG, could you further illustrate your argument with a tangible real world representation of each system as you understand it?
 
Thank god you're back IG, i missed the nuance on many topic. I couldn't agree less with you Grizzly, but that might not come as a surprise.

And Rabs, if the rep thing would be working I would definately given you a point for your post!! Absolutely brilliant :)
 
Ted said:
Thank god you're back IG, i missed the nuance on many topic. I couldn't agree less with you Grizzly, but that might not come as a surprise.
:)
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Ted,

Please explain to me how you can disagree. In a capitalist society, a person gets to ebnjoy the fruits of his labor, and isn't required by law to support those too lazy to labor.

In a socialist society, everyone is "entitled" to "the good life" even if he makes no attempt to earn it. Social parasites are rewarded. Hell, social parasitism is actively encouraged.
 
Well since we are aiming at the nuance:

I work full houres on a honest job in a capitalist society. Why am I not a millionaire already? Because the fine lines are left out of the equation. As much as socialism stimulates parasitism, I reckon that capitalism stimulates egotism, greed and a blind individualism that holds everything in contempt except themselve.
Sure capitalism rewards some of the hard working but it usually is the one who has the connections, money or background. It is a system that focusses on the particular anomaly that did make it instead of the very large group which didn't, reagardless whether they made it or not.

In the former USSR many groundbreaking discoveries were made in scientific area's (please don't go and make me mention them one by one) by people who weren't overpayed but just plain keen on doing a job! What I am trying to say is that your statement leaves an enormous ground not talked about and left out of the equation. And I just happen to be one of those and I have a hard time with that black and white statement!
 
Did you think evryone who believes in capitalism is a milionaire?

Ted said:
In the former USSR many groundbreaking discoveries were made in scientific area's (please don't go and make me mention them one by one) by people who weren't overpayed but just plain keen on doing a job!
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But very little of these were even put to use to make life easier for their people, and there is where the evidence is seen. Beisides most of those people lived mundane dreary lives.

Most of these dicoveries were put to weaponery, or developments for the purpose of making war.

Very little had to do medical science, and information technology, or devices which can make life easier such as microwave ovens and cell phones. Alot of the insentives of capitalism make life easier for everyone, giving everyone a better quality of life.
 
Honestly Ted if you could promise me perfect socialistic society il fight for that in a second. A perfect world were no one goes hungry, no one starves and everyone is equal. But theres this pesky thing called human nature.

So until you do that Ted, im still a captalistic pig.
 
Hi,

Rabs said:
Honestly Ted if you could promise me perfect socialistic society il fight for that in a second. A perfect world were no one goes hungry, no one starves and everyone is equal. But theres this pesky thing called human nature.

So until you do that Ted, im still a captalistic pig.
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Me says Aren't People Confusing Socialism with Communism ..... All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.


Peace
-=SF_13=-
 
Hear hear Swordfish, hence my other post asking Local Grizzly to please define the archtypes he wished to discuss.

LG??
 
But that is the trouble when one discusses the Grand Theories of the old political systems. "They" have been so eclectic about it all, borrowing bits here and there and your average socialism turned into quite something else. We call the founding father Marx a communist and Marxists tend to be communist.
So I have to agree with SF13 and Bulldogg that it might be handy to define the boundaries of the discussion.
 
localgrizzly said:
Capitalism: An economic system that rewards the industrious and punishes the indolent.

Socialism: An economic system that rewards the indolent and punishes the industrious.

Which system would you prefer to live under. (Remember, your answer reveals much about your personality:-P )
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Yes, let's make it clear cut.

From my standpoint I am not seeing this. I can think of a few examples that would put a flaw in your pristine idea about capitalism.
 
localgrizzly said:
Capitalism: An economic system that rewards the industrious and punishes the indolent.

Socialism: An economic system that rewards the indolent and punishes the industrious.

Which system would you prefer to live under. (Remember, your answer reveals much about your personality:-P )
Click to expand...

As far as i know, Sweden is under socialism, but if we should go by your defination, i doubt we are, guess we're under capitalism. This means that you took a wrong turn somewhere as Sweden sure is under socialism.:neutral:

I agree with what SwordFish said! :)
 
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Ted,

The scientific advances made by the USSR, were. for the most part STOLEN from other countries, not made by the USSR. There were a few exceptions of course, but the Soviets primarily advanced their technology by stealing it from others.

Alex,

Sweden is what the USA was becoming under the democrats. A neo-Marxist society. Under true socialism, the means of production and distribution are owned by the public. (Actually, the ruling party) Under neo-Marxism, the means of production and distribution are THEORETICALLY privately owned, but are so tightly controlled and heavily taxed that for all practical purposes they are owned by the party,..uhh the public.

I also laugh when someone tries to explain the difference between "socialism" and "communism."


Marlboros, Winstons, Camels, Lucky Strikes, etc are all cigarettes. Regardless of brand name.

Socialism, communitarianism, nazism,fascism, communism etc. are all the same product, just packaged under different brand names.
 
localgrizzly said:
Sweden is what the USA was becoming under the democrats. A neo-Marxist society. Under true socialism, the means of production and distribution are owned by the public. (Actually, the ruling party) Under neo-Marxism, the means of production and distribution are THEORETICALLY privately owned, but are so tightly controlled and heavily taxed that for all practical purposes they are owned by the party,..uhh the public.

I also laugh when someone tries to explain the difference between "socialism" and "communism."


Marlboros, Winstons, Camels, Lucky Strikes, etc are all cigarettes. Regardless of brand name.

Socialism, communitarianism, nazism,fascism, communism etc. are all the same product, just packaged under different brand names.
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LG, I have been on this forum now for quite some time and this is, by far, the most simplistic, un-nuanced, lariekoek (dutch). Let alone totally not true! To compare socialism with nazism and nazism to communism is truely the silliest thing I've heard you say 'till now. Come on read any book or website on this topic and you see the fundamental differences between some of them.

And if I could trade our society with that of Sweden I would do it straight away. They are an example of how things should be run. Free college, good day-care, great health care system and payable insurance for everybody!

Check out the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Funny that 8 of the 10 are , what did you call them, neo-Marxist countries. So they must do something right........
 
Hold on you guys. Slow down, please.
I believe there is a huge misunderstanding at play. My father would call himself an Italian socialist, and that's why he votes for the right (the Italian Socialist Party was destroyed by judges belonging to the Communist Party hence Italian socialists went en masse under Berlusconi's umbrella).
On the other hand, all the communist regimes of Eastern Europe (and nobody teach me anything about that, cause I have close friends from Albania, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia, Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, Russia - and have had a number of girlfriends from there) would call themselves socialist. "Real Socialism".
My friend Ana from Belgrade would always say "There's no difference whatsoever between fascists and communists or those who call themselves socialists".
Those were regimes where the actual economic system was socialist or communist No private property, no freedom of speech, no free market, everyone equal because everyone poor. Everybody had it all therefore everybody never had anything. No trade unions, because it would have been nonsense for a socialist country to need a separate organization in charge of the workers' rights protection. And so on.
On the other hand, under the capitalist economic system, a lot of leftist parties in Europe and the world were called socialist, socialdemocrat or labor. They never questioned the free market and private property though. They were just more to the left and called for higher taxes, higher social welfare, protection for disadvantaged groups, public healthcare etc.
Hence the (once) successful model of Scandinavian countries, for instance. But hey Sweden has always been a capitalistic country as much as Italy or France. It was only ruled and governed by socialist parties, but never established a communist system.
Noone from the communist world would consider Sweden a non-capitalistic country.
So I think we shouldn't confuse communism (otherwise called real socialism) with capitalism. Western European socialism is a way of governing countries but never questioning capitalism.
 
Ted said:
And if I could trade our society with that of Sweden I would do it straight away. They are an example of how things should be run. Free college, good day-care, great health care system and payable insurance for everybody!
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When you say "free", what do you mean? Since there are people getting paid to perform all these services, then someone has to pay the bill. The only way I could see this system work for a long period of time is for the country to be small, unemployment of zero, pay scales equal to a Saudi oil magnate, and zero people getting serious illnesses. Welfare is not a zero sum institution, if someone gets something, someone else has to pay.
 
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