Capitalism or Socialism: Which is better?

[Sibirsky]

It allocates resources the most efficiently, sadly in the case of public land, most efficiently tends to coincide with most ecologically destructive, however resource allocation is one thing no one can say Capitalism does not do well, as I haven't heard of a shortage on well, almost anything in the Western World for the past two decades.

grain crops leading up to the great depression, then the government set up some subsidies to keep the cost of food down so people wouldn't starve. the modern western world isn't capitalist anymore all kinds of safe guards were put into play to prevent the busts built into the nature of capitalism.
we tried total capitalism once is became the caste system, which e decided was bad. capitalism has been tried and failed, so by the way have socialism and communism. you have to balance stability and adaptation.

The government set up subsidies to keep farming profitable. Even though it would have been profitable anyway.

Busts are not built into the nature of capitalism, they are built into the nature of central manipulation of the money supply.

Capitalism, has not failed, but has been a paramount success for millennia.

[Trotskylvania]

grain crops leading up to the great depression, then the government set up some subsidies to keep the cost of food down so people wouldn't starve. the modern western world isn't capitalist anymore all kinds of safe guards were put into play to prevent the busts built into the nature of capitalism.
we tried total capitalism once is became the caste system, which e decided was bad. capitalism has been tried and failed, so by the way have socialism and communism. you have to balance stability and adaptation.

The government set up subsidies to keep farming profitable. Even though it would have been profitable anyway.

Busts are not built into the nature of capitalism, they are built into the nature of central manipulation of the money supply.

Capitalism, has not failed, but has been a paramount success for millennia.

Considering capitalism as an economic system is no older than the industrial revolution, I'd say you're rewriting history to serve your ideology.

[Sibirsky]

The government set up subsidies to keep farming profitable. Even though it would have been profitable anyway.

Busts are not built into the nature of capitalism, they are built into the nature of central manipulation of the money supply.

Capitalism, has not failed, but has been a paramount success for millennia.

Considering capitalism as an economic system is no older than the industrial revolution, I'd say you're rewriting history to serve your ideology.

Not really. I'm referring to property rights and trade. That goes back quite a bit. And is central to capitalism.

[Occupied Deutschland]

The government set up subsidies to keep farming profitable. Even though it would have been profitable anyway.

Busts are not built into the nature of capitalism, they are built into the nature of central manipulation of the money supply.

Capitalism, has not failed, but has been a paramount success for millennia.

Considering capitalism as an economic system is no older than the industrial revolution, I'd say you're rewriting history to serve your ideology.

You could consider Rome capitalistic. Not entirely, true, but it had a number of key elements. Just as hunter-gatherer societies have key elements of socialism present.

[The Deep Vault]

I'm not clear on how socialism's being defined here, so for now I"ll say mixed with incredible amounts of socialism--perhaps even nearly socialist.

[Mike the Progressive]

Capitalism. You know why? Cuz it is! Nixon Wins!

[The Merchant Republics]

Considering capitalism as an economic system is no older than the industrial revolution, I'd say you're rewriting history to serve your ideology.

You could consider Rome capitalistic. Not entirely, true, but it had a number of key elements. Just as hunter-gatherer societies have key elements of socialism present.

I would say you could quite well call Rome and many other such nations "capitalist" if one defines capitalism as the system which allows for and protects the private ownership of property and the means of production, Rome then is capitalist, much more so then Renaissance Europe and countless times more then other societies, businessmen weren't lauded in Rome true but they came to their own eventual esteem.

[Servantium]

Sibirsky, you should stop saying things akin to "monopolies wouldn't exist in a free market" they still likely would especially right after a technological innovation or the successful fulfillment of a niche in the market. It's the bad kind of monopoly that would stop existing, because the only reason that the bad kind of monopoly can maintain that status is via government intervention.

[Sibirsky]

Sibirsky, you should stop saying things akin to "monopolies wouldn't exist in a free market" they still likely would especially right after a technological innovation or the successful fulfillment of a niche in the market. It's the bad kind of monopoly that would stop existing, because the only reason that the bad kind of monopoly can maintain that status is via government intervention.

Would we have patents and copyrights in a free market? That's the key. If we did, then yes, at least for some time, in new fields we would have monopolies.

[Staenwald]

Considering capitalism as an economic system is no older than the industrial revolution, I'd say you're rewriting history to serve your ideology.

You could consider Rome capitalistic. Not entirely, true, but it had a number of key elements. Just as hunter-gatherer societies have key elements of socialism present.

Surprisingly rome was actually a welfare state or so i've seen in a textbook somewhere. They could have an unregulated market but a welfare system sicne i doubt economics was as advanced, but its not pure LFC. And they had slaves so...

[The REAL Glasers]

But a completely free market does not allow for the breaking up of monopolies should they occur, once something grabs a stranglehold on the market, good luck having other companies pop up.

What part of "monopolies are a creation of the state" did you miss?

Maybe because I don't believe that and don't see any proof or reason to believe that monopolies are solely state creations and can't exist in a free market.

[Free Soviets]

Not really. I'm referring to property rights and trade. That goes back quite a bit. And is central to capitalism.

every system involving more than one person will involve rules about who has access to what and will involve exchange. you might as well say that having people involved is central to capitalism, and that's why religious communes are capitalist.

[Crabulonia]

That example doesn't make much sense, even to myself - a supporter of an Anarcho-Socialist system that doesn't fit. Central planning doesn't decide that millions of pencils are needed then forgets that paper is needed as well, what sort of moron do you think would be in charge of central planning? It seems more likely that for a centralised Socialist state to work it would need to be technocratic and a meritocracy, only in this way could the best planning be ensured.

I don't quite get what you're suggesting, that Socialists can't count?

The problem isn't of counting it's of pricing, centralized command economies cannot allocate resources correctly because they lack the pricing method, so to take their example, we are dealing with one logging company and two lumber mills, one mill produces paper, the other produces furniture, the logging company can only produce so many logs per day, so a central bureaucrat must allocate those logs to either the paper mill or the furniture make, so how do they make their choice? In the market this decision is made by prices, you see if paper has a higher demand in the market then the paper mill will have more money to purchase those logs, thus they will buy the logs they need first since they can take them for the most money, the furniture company gets the rest, vice-versa if the demand is in favour of furniture. There is no way to simulate that without competition and pricing, a bureaucrat therefore must be arbitrary, assuming people use paper more then furniture he sends more to the paper mill, but little did he know that furniture would become demanded, their is now a shortage of furniture and an excess of paper, it isn't a matter of simple math, it's a matter of complex economic relationships which any number of bureaucrats simply cannot manage. This is a rather simplistic scenario, so imagine if you will that each of these mills also needs machinery and other tools that need to be produced by other factories which will need their own resources, competing in the market, they will typically all satisfy their needs for production or elsewise will be financially punished.

In a centrally planned economy, the mill A which produces paper may receive too much machinery and too few logs, while Mill B has the opposite. The economic system required to make an ordinary pencil is extraordinarily complicated with perhaps a hundred industries involved all working to match their supply with demand, a bureaucrat, ten bureaucrats, a thousand bureaucrats cannot make it work nearly as well as the market could. Soviet Russia, China, and North Korea are prime realizations of the politicized economy, it leads to suffering and destruction.

That makes more sense, I'm not a fan of centralised planning as a system, it would be better done on a regional - or even town - system. I'm also not sure on whether the concept of money could survive Socialism, or whether the concept of Socialism could survive money. Currency is a good tool to get products, such as paper and furniture, but the problem is that it always leads to corruption of some sort. Again, I don't like central planning and would certainly object to ration books - but money seems to be as much a problem as a solution.

[Servantium]

What part of "monopolies are a creation of the state" did you miss?

Maybe because I don't believe that and don't see any proof or reason to believe that monopolies are solely state creations and can't exist in a free market.

I [and many others] have addressed the problem of monopolies MANY times throughout this thread.

It boils down to the only entity that can prevent competition in an industry is government regulation of that industry. The big competitor continually buying out competition is not a sustainable business model and criminal activity would be punished by the government.

[The Black Plains]

You could consider Rome capitalistic. Not entirely, true, but it had a number of key elements. Just as hunter-gatherer societies have key elements of socialism present.

Surprisingly rome was actually a welfare state or so i've seen in a textbook somewhere. They could have an unregulated market but a welfare system sicne i doubt economics was as advanced, but its not pure LFC. And they had slaves so...

The Roman empire was a welfare state; The Roman Republic was not. The empire was essentially anyone who lived in Rome got a free ride, everyone else had to work.

[Sibirsky]

What part of "monopolies are a creation of the state" did you miss?

Maybe because I don't believe that and don't see any proof or reason to believe that monopolies are solely state creations and can't exist in a free market.

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf

[The Black Plains]

Maybe because I don't believe that and don't see any proof or reason to believe that monopolies are solely state creations and can't exist in a free market.

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf

An excellent institution.

[Sibirsky]

The problem isn't of counting it's of pricing, centralized command economies cannot allocate resources correctly because they lack the pricing method, so to take their example, we are dealing with one logging company and two lumber mills, one mill produces paper, the other produces furniture, the logging company can only produce so many logs per day, so a central bureaucrat must allocate those logs to either the paper mill or the furniture make, so how do they make their choice? In the market this decision is made by prices, you see if paper has a higher demand in the market then the paper mill will have more money to purchase those logs, thus they will buy the logs they need first since they can take them for the most money, the furniture company gets the rest, vice-versa if the demand is in favour of furniture. There is no way to simulate that without competition and pricing, a bureaucrat therefore must be arbitrary, assuming people use paper more then furniture he sends more to the paper mill, but little did he know that furniture would become demanded, their is now a shortage of furniture and an excess of paper, it isn't a matter of simple math, it's a matter of complex economic relationships which any number of bureaucrats simply cannot manage. This is a rather simplistic scenario, so imagine if you will that each of these mills also needs machinery and other tools that need to be produced by other factories which will need their own resources, competing in the market, they will typically all satisfy their needs for production or elsewise will be financially punished.

In a centrally planned economy, the mill A which produces paper may receive too much machinery and too few logs, while Mill B has the opposite. The economic system required to make an ordinary pencil is extraordinarily complicated with perhaps a hundred industries involved all working to match their supply with demand, a bureaucrat, ten bureaucrats, a thousand bureaucrats cannot make it work nearly as well as the market could. Soviet Russia, China, and North Korea are prime realizations of the politicized economy, it leads to suffering and destruction.

That makes more sense, I'm not a fan of centralised planning as a system, it would be better done on a regional - or even town - system. I'm also not sure on whether the concept of money could survive Socialism, or whether the concept of Socialism could survive money. Currency is a good tool to get products, such as paper and furniture, but the problem is that it always leads to corruption of some sort. Again, I don't like central planning and would certainly object to ration books - but money seems to be as much a problem as a solution.

Money does not lead to corruption. Money is just a tool. A unit of account. A store of value (theoretically). A medium of exchange. Without money, people would use something else as medium of exchange, and to pay bribes with.

[Crabulonia]

That makes more sense, I'm not a fan of centralised planning as a system, it would be better done on a regional - or even town - system. I'm also not sure on whether the concept of money could survive Socialism, or whether the concept of Socialism could survive money. Currency is a good tool to get products, such as paper and furniture, but the problem is that it always leads to corruption of some sort. Again, I don't like central planning and would certainly object to ration books - but money seems to be as much a problem as a solution.

Money does not lead to corruption. Money is just a tool. A unit of account. A store of value (theoretically). A medium of exchange. Without money, people would use something else as medium of exchange, and to bay bribes with.

We said almost the same thing there. The issue is however that money leads to coercion, as do most sorts of mediums of exchange. Thence lies the problem with every system - they are all coercive if they use trading and all completely impossible if they do not use it.

[The Black Plains]

Money does not lead to corruption. Money is just a tool. A unit of account. A store of value (theoretically). A medium of exchange. Without money, people would use something else as medium of exchange, and to bay bribes with.

We said almost the same thing there. The issue is however that money leads to coercion, as do most sorts of mediums of exchange. Thence lies the problem with every system - they are all coercive if they use trading and all completely impossible if they do not use it.

Nobody will deny that temporary problems and monopolies can occur in a capitalistic system. There are always freak accidents/fad/natural disasters that cannot be accounted for that could give a company temporary control over a market. Capitalists simply purport that under free-market capitalism the risk of this taking place is significantly reduced as compared to a regulated (not even necessarily planned) system.

[Crabulonia]

We said almost the same thing there. The issue is however that money leads to coercion, as do most sorts of mediums of exchange. Thence lies the problem with every system - they are all coercive if they use trading and all completely impossible if they do not use it.

Nobody will deny that temporary problems and monopolies can occur in a capitalistic system. There are always freak accidents/fad/natural disasters that cannot be accounted for that could give a company temporary control over a market. Capitalists simply purport that under free-market capitalism the risk of this taking place is significantly reduced as compared to a regulated (not even necessarily planned) system.

I'd still prefer Market Socialism with worker owned cooperatives rather than the state.

[Sibirsky]

Nobody will deny that temporary problems and monopolies can occur in a capitalistic system. There are always freak accidents/fad/natural disasters that cannot be accounted for that could give a company temporary control over a market. Capitalists simply purport that under free-market capitalism the risk of this taking place is significantly reduced as compared to a regulated (not even necessarily planned) system.

I'd still prefer Market Socialism with worker owned cooperatives rather than the state.

How would you set prices? If you let supply and demand set prices, there is nothing stopping employee owned companies from existing right now. At least one of my suppliers is a 100% employee owned company.

[Servantium]

Nobody will deny that temporary problems and monopolies can occur in a capitalistic system. There are always freak accidents/fad/natural disasters that cannot be accounted for that could give a company temporary control over a market. Capitalists simply purport that under free-market capitalism the risk of this taking place is significantly reduced as compared to a regulated (not even necessarily planned) system.

I'd still prefer Market Socialism with worker owned cooperatives rather than the state.

You can have worker owned cooperatives in capitalism.

[St George of England]

I'd still prefer Market Socialism with worker owned cooperatives rather than the state.

You can have worker owned cooperatives in capitalism.

John Lewis.

[Crabulonia]

I'd still prefer Market Socialism with worker owned cooperatives rather than the state.

How would you set prices? If you let supply and demand set prices, there is nothing stopping employee owned companies from existing right now. At least one of my suppliers is a 100% employee owned company.

Well good, I hope they are successful and set fair prices to match the rules of supply and demand. Workers co-ops are very good ways of maintaining the good part of Capitalism (the market principle) and the good part of Socialism (a bit more fairness).

I'd still prefer Market Socialism with worker owned cooperatives rather than the state.

You can have worker owned cooperatives in capitalism.

There should be more of them in my opinion.

You can have worker owned cooperatives in capitalism.

John Lewis.

A damn fine business I might add.