What a fucking nasty and disgusting piece of writing that shows a total misunderstanding of socialism.

This is what Obama wants America to be Obama and the secular progressives who now determine policy in America pride themselves on being the intellectual representatives of modern thought and thus superior in knowledge, wisdom and moral virtue than those who hold traditional values (conservatives).

I fail to see the difference between liberals or conservatives(there's only superfical differences, in my opinion). Quite frankly, when you vote for a liberal or conservative you're simply rearranging sticks towards either government power or corporate power.

They believe their duty is to offer new ideas to the public and deride whatever is conventional and/or traditional.

I deride it all. Both conservatives and liberals draw my ire.

The fly in Obama’s ointment is the fact that the system of socialism USN’t very good at creating wealth.

Of course, but as I posted on anaother thread:

There are going to be people that will defend capitalists by claiming they are an inventor, a risk taker, an innovator, or an organizer.

In the real world, capital begets more wealth. The capitalist is the one who owns the means of production. He is an investor: someone who owns stocks, bonds, derivatives, real estate, etc. Since he already is wealthy, the personal risk he takes is very minimal. He doesn't have to invent anything. He doesn't have to manage anything. The stockholders in a corporation vote to appoint a board, who hire managers to decide how the company is run.

Capitalists tend to get capital by inheriting it and then leveraging it, by exploiting workers, to make more capital. There is very little economic mobility in the USA. Most "self-made-men" were really small capitalists that became bigger capitalists. Look at how the share of income has increasingly gone to a smaller and smaller elite. The story for wealth is even more striking.

Now a capitalist could choose to work as an executive, or an artist, or a philanthropist, or a clown or a lazy stoner for that matter. A grand(as opposed to petite) bourgeois has enough wealth that they don't need to work for wages/salary. They own enough to live off of dividends or increased value of their investments.

Petite bourgeois (small business owner) tends to own a small company, or some share of a large company, but not quite enough to live off of. The petite bourgeois will work, usually as a boss/manager at the company they own.

Incremental innovation/invention tends to be the domain of the engineer or other technical worker at a business. Usually the value of their invention is owned by the company they work for, not themselves. There are occasional stories of people with good ideas and little existing wealth forming tech start-ups, but this is the exception, not the rule. High tech ideas, be they software or hardware, when implemented, will need to run on a platform that contains thousands of patents. The only way to bring a high tech idea to market is through cross licensing with big firms that already have huge patent portfolios.

Most people who defend capitalism claim that even though the investor isn't some brilliant creative mind, at least they perform the role of directing capital to where it can innovate the most and away from where it is being wasted.

Lets see if this is really the case. Are investors moving their money to medical research that could cure malaria? ...to education? to universal healthcare? No. Investors are moving to pure gambling speculative capital (high frequency trading, deliberately mathematically source-obfuscated derivatives, etc). Investors love brands around ultimately cheap/worthless consumer goods (Pepsi and Coke are selling ad-created identities that really amount to sugar water[though it is delicious]).

By law, companies must serve their investors demand for short term profits. It is basically illegal for a company to invest in the long term good of the economy. Markets only allow incremental innovation. That means that real innovation, fundamental research, is publicly funded, and not a part of capitalism. Public universities, government research labs, national institutes of health and science, etc do the most groundbreaking scientific research that actually moves society/technology forward.

The examples usually given for massive private innovation usually turn out, when examined closely, to have been almost entirely outside the market.

Take Bell Labs: probably the most important tech company ever. You can fairly credit them for creating radio astronomy, solar panels, digital audio, international communications networks, information theory, the transistor, UNIX, the laser, c/c++, discovering background radiation, etc.

But did these inventions happen through investors trying to get higher ROI in a competitive market?

AT&T which owned Bell Labs, was a tightly government regulated monopoly during the innovative period at Bell Labs. There was no market pressure for short term profits and undercutting the competition by being as lean as possible, so AT&T was able to "waste" resources on basic science and engineering. Also, this was at the height of the Cold War. Billions* in state funding went to companies like Bell Labs that were creating advanced technology

The morality of capitalism is dependent upon the source of loans (debt).

Where do loans come from? And once discovering this. If you find the debt system (the foundation of capitalism) immoral, will you agree that the entire economic system as it is built today is immoral? I hope so.

The "credit" system is just a system for allocating social resources. In capitalism, banks perform this function. They allocate resources to those who have a) lots of money and then b) have good-ish ideas. Also, banks steal from borrowers by demanding "interest" on the allocated resources. Property is theft. To charge someone to use a part of the earth is usury. The banker's interest is the same as the landlord's rent is the same as the copyright holder's royalties is the same as the capitalist in this image's profit.

To me, the problem with this whole model can be summed up like this:

What if the worker's decide they want to come in an control the factory democratically/associatively? Then the state rolls in and forces them off these resources. Property is despotism. Beyond that, the 'owner' (individual with a piece of paper from the state) simply charges a tax to anyone who wants to use these resources. And when the whole planet is under 'ownership' (that is, when all things and places are under the absolute control of a relatively few number of people), most people are forced to pay tribute to these owners. Property is theft. (the big ones being profit, rent, interest, and royalties)

I just summed all of my problems with capitalism and why it is NOT libertarian.

*maybe even trillions if you count all the science, engineering, and high tech production that was state funded through the 20th century. Consider WWII, the Manhattan project, NASA, etc...

But hey, socialism is "ethically superior" and that’s what counts. Right?

Yes, it is. Socialism is much superior to capitalism.

And best of all, these moochers can also claim the moral high ground. After all, they are victims of rich capitalists.

Let's discuss how morally repugnant and how disgusting your defense of wage slavery, exploitation, and oppression is. Hey, we're culturally against slavery, right? When productive property (businesses, factories, farms, etc.) is owned and controlled by an elite few, everyone else must rent themselves to a boss (a slightly more flexible and temporary flavor of slavery). I always wonder why the working proletariat never ever engages in class warfare, perhaps it's because of people like you that always wages it against them and gives them the propaganda that they can one day become the grand bourgeois.

God gave us free will -- the ability to fail or succeed based on the choices we make.

Heh. Is it free will because the poor cannot become the next Bill Gates? It's a statistical anomoly that the poor might become rich, because it certainly can't just happen with their conditions. Wealth creates wealth.

But best of all, socialism allows life’s losers the moral high ground as they systematically plunder the fruits of another man’s labor.This is socialism.

Now we get to the core of the post. No, socialism is when the workers own and control the means of production, though it often goes deeper than that, depending on the socialist you talk to. I am happily in support of the abolition of property, markets, and money. Property is theft and despotism. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need".

But that's somehow wrong. I bet people like you think I'm wrong for being a communist too. If capitalism is liberating, it is only liberating for the individual at the detriment of society(people). Socialism is liberating for the individual, for the benefit of society(people).

Quote from Lady Catherine

But that's somehow wrong. I bet people like you think I'm wrong for being a communist too. If capitalism is liberating, it is only liberating for the individual at the detriment of society(people). Socialism is liberating for the individual, for the benefit of society(people).

The only liberating part of socialism,is liberating people from their hard earned money,by coercion.

Quote from senach

The only liberating part of socialism,is liberating people from their hard earned money,by coercion.

No. Socialism is superior to capitalism(note: I'm talking from an anarchist perspective*). What we have(state-socialism) relies on a model(capitalism(aka state protection of the bourgeois)) to function. It does rely on theft in order to function. Not all socialism is statist: For instance there's mutualism which relies on market principles to work(though it advocates for the abolition of property, well at least European mutualism). There's communism which works for the abolition of markets, money, and property. Syndacalism which works to remove the wage system.

*I'm not dissing my authoritarian brothers and sisters, but I just disagree with Marxist dialetics. To summarize the differences: Marxism has tended to be a theoretical or analytical discourse about revolutionary strategy. Anarchism has tended to be an ethical discourse about revolutionary practice. Marxists prefer a slower approach to change and anarchists tend to talk about radical change here and now.

All I have to say on this matter is.
" Sig Obama Bin Ladin! "

Quote from Lady Catherine

No. Socialism is superior to capitalism(note: I'm talking from an anarchist perspective*). What we have(state-socialism) relies on a model(capitalism(aka state protection of the bourgeois)) to function. It does rely on theft in order to function. Not all socialism is statist: For instance there's mutualism which relies on market principles to work(though it advocates for the abolition of property, well at least European mutualism). There's communism which works for the abolition of markets, money, and property. Syndacalism which works to remove the wage system.

*I'm not dissing my authoritarian brothers and sisters, but I just disagree with Marxist dialetics. To summarize the differences: Marxism has tended to be a theoretical or analytical discourse about revolutionary strategy. Anarchism has tended to be an ethical discourse about revolutionary practice. Marxists prefer a slower approach to change and anarchists tend to talk about radical change here and now.

Thank you for your response,but i lost you after the first "bla".

Quote from senach

Thank you for your response,but i lost you after the first "bla".

T_T

Quote from Missy-A

What a total misunderstanding of socialism!

This is a better explanation:



Note that I am an anarcho-communist and I still disagree with the need for a transitional state.

Quote from Lady Catherine

T_T

What a total misunderstanding of socialism!

This is a better explanation:



Note that I am an anarcho-communist and I still disagree with the need for a transitional state.

Yes Catherine,i fully understand,a mixture of hippie and kibbutznik,fine go with it,comrade.

Quote from senach

Yes Catherine,i fully understand,a mixture of hippie and kibbutznik,fine go with it,comrade.

Sort of... but it gets the message across, and is sufficient for my purposes.