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This is why the US government runs the mail service, since it guarantees delivery to every address, no matter how remote, even if at a loss.
This is why education should stay a government service, so that schools exist for every student, even when a given class is too small.
And this is why medicine will always need a socialized element, since rare diseases are not profitable enough to treat.
socialized healthcare will still be better at popular diseases. None of the approaches are particularly good for rare disease sufferers. But socialized is not a silver bullet.
The point is that private healthcare is driven by the profit motive.
The state is the only institution under our current social organization both that carries capacities at the same scale as corporations, and that legitimately may be supporting the interests of the public.
I live with socialized healthcare, its nice. Especially for the poor, who would not be getting any without it. But you get random doctor that might be good or not very good. Some medicine you wont get cause its too expensive to procure. In the us, it seems if you got good coverage, you get better healthcare than pretty much all countries with socialized healthcare today. But i dont live in the us, so i dont know
But i dont live in the us, so i dont know
Obviously not.
So you are saying you dont get better healthcare in the US than say, UK, if you have a good healthcare insurance?
You can buy anything money can buy (if you have the money to buy it).
If you are elite enough to get top notch health insurance in the United States, but not elite enough to hire a personal
supplierdoctor, then you get top-notch healthcare.If you’re below that tier, you might get adequate healthcare but not great healthcare. The population health of Europe seems to be consistently better on their socialized programs.
Now yes, UK’s NHS has been deteriorating specifically correlating to when the Tories outsourced it to commercial providers so that’s an instance that appears to be socialized healthcare that got corrupted by capitalism. As is George W. Bush’s modification of Medicare so that we clients allegedly choose a provider that is then paid by Medicare. It also shifted prescriptions from Medicaid to Medicare D, again outsourcing fulfillment to privatized suppliers.
What is curious is that medical services, medicines and medical treatments cost typically more than twice as much in the US than they do anywhere else for the same thing so we’re paying extra, whether we’re getting premium or shit. As a result, those who have to pay out of pocket will often get their meds shipped from Canada or Mexico.
So regardless of what your medical system outside of the US, the medical system in the US is not a good model to follow.
I’m not quite sure your point. Any medical care program will be better at treating common diseases than rare diseases. There’s just more data to pull in research and development. We get more examples of what works and doesn’t.
But the point of socialized services is to make sure everyone gets served.
One of the major concerns regarding any good or service that is essential (not just medical care, but food, water and power) is that selling it as a commodity is a moral hazard. Since the customer is obligated to buy (or starve, freeze in the elements, die of dehydration) an unchecked capitalist can charge any price and, historically, has.
Before the age of states and movements away from monarchy towards (more) public-serving governments, we depended on the Church’s (meager) charity, and just accepted that a lot of people were going to die year after year, from famine, plague, freezing and so on. But I think we’re trying to do better than the middle ages.
Here in the US, the federal and state governments are completely captured by plutocratic interests, and it’s moving back towards autocracy. And our Republican officials have expressed that they’re okay with letting small children work long hours in hazardous environments, and letting poor children starve.
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All money is free. It is not taken from some limited store, but rather created by government, freely.
The value, stability, and legitimacy of money is sustained by the supremacy of state power. By such power, the government both determines the supply and shapes the distribution of money, and is assured never to be insolvent.
No distribution of money is natural or naturally superior.
Money is a social construct directed by political will.
Price inflation currently occurring is largely due to the political choice to distribute money to corporations.
That is, as a consequence of particular political choices, the already imbalanced distribution has become even more unfavorable toward workers.
If the political will were rather toward distributing money to workers, then prices may follow a pattern of gradual inflation, but as long as workers’ income keeps pace, workers would not be harmed by it even in the slightly.
Money is not free. The cost of new money is devaluation of old money.
Devaluation is not a cost.
It is, however, a consequence of expanding the money supply.
In turn, however, expansion of supply is not a threat, because of the various capacities for the government to withdraw money, as through taxation, or central bank policy.
You do seem offended. Whatever are you talking about?
I don’t see your point other than an explicit joy in the suffering of others. Do I have that right? You think people should go hungry for your personal pleasure?
They must be having a miserable time to get so much out of other people suffering, but that’s in line with most reactionary asses I’ve met.
I recommend you read about Modern Monetary Theory. The US has Monetary Sovereignty in a fiat currency, and therefore is not limited by taxation when it comes to federal funding. Instead, the US is limited by the real economy, which is worth trillions of dollars more than the federal budget. If the federal government stopped with the federal budget and just spent on the real economy, it wouldn’t impact inflation in any way. We do this already with the military, like outspending the USSR on military tech for a decade, sending hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment to Ukraine, and spending billions to support Israel’s genocide.
I’m guessing facts won’t work here. The “consequences” he’s laughing about are a consistent >100% ROI on welfare. He’s laughing because he’s proud conservatives are hurting the economy (and even their own bank accounts!) by hurting the poor, either out of willful ignorance or willful malice.
Reactionaries are not hurting the economy.
They are hurting the working class, including themselves, while helping the oligarchs.
Why, you may ask, do they hurt themselves, and help the oligarchs?
The reason is that they always do what the man on the television screen tells them.
Reactionaries are not hurting the economy.
Weakening welfare hurts the economy. That’s what he’s laughing about. Welfare has always been the biggest no-brainer in economic theory. It always makes the country more than you spend. Even the wealthy.
Why, you may ask, do they hurt themselves, and help the oligarchs? The reason is that they always do what the man on the television screen tells them.
Do you know many conservatives, for real? I’m not talking Trump-heads. I’m talking actual conservatives. There’s this underlying attitude that the world is a “free” place where you work hard and earn your way to betterment. You hear it in the voices of the older generation, but also the newer generation, when they talk about things like “work ethic”, or someone being “too proud to beg” when there’s a disaster and family or friends try to offer help. Have you never heard anyone say “I don’t want nothin for free”, or tell their boss “I don’t need that kinda money, just pay me ____ and I’ll be happy”? I’ve seen and heard all those things.
One way to look at conservativism is that it’s means based, where the Left is more ends based. A conservative cares more about “doing the right thing” than “making the world a better place”, They see the government’s place as “enforcing peace” and nothing else, so social programs seem like a giant mandated charity to them.
Conservatives rarely oppose welfare because they think it doesn’t work. They oppose welfare because they think it’s wrong whether it works or not. And that’s not a talking head telling them that, it’s decades of growing up surrounded by that same hierarchical mindset.
Like John F Kennedy said “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You. Ask what you can do for your country”. There’s people who take that to heart and feel it’s not the country’s job to make their life a better place. And will allow themselves to sink into poverty holding on to that belief.
They’re horribly wrong, but if you don’t understand why they feel that way, it’s hard to help move the country forward.
There is no “The Economy”.
Weakening welfare hurts workers.
There is no “The Economy”.
There really is. Even without capitalism, the median buying power of an individual will always be a thing.
Weakening welfare hurts workers.
Obviously. It hurts everyone, so of course it hurts workers.
The fuck you on about, mate?
Why is the literacy rate lower than it was before the DoE was created?
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Privatisation hounds do the same shit all over: enshittify a public service then offer a private alternative as a kind of shitty trojan savoir to the problem they created
Because it isn’t? It’s up by about 6%. The numbers are more accurate as well.
Frankly, even if your statement was correct, it would be the equivalent of asking why only people who go to the doctor have cancer.
Lastly, if we are throwing out random facts and trying to extrapolate the value of a system, why is Cuba’s literacy rate always close to 100%?
Official government numbers, of an authoritarian government that considers it’s education system a point of pride, self-reported in government census, by citizens afraid to criticize their government, after being filtered for those that received formal education.
Sounds a lot like the North Korean voter turnout to me…
Some of what you said is true, some of it is bull shit. The numbers have been corraberated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, as well as World Bank. Cuban’s really do have an exceptionally high, near 100%, literacy rate. Though many are at what America would call an “advanced first grade level”. So its not exactly perfect. But percentage wise, almost all Cubans can read. Which can’t be said for American citizens.
However, their education system does strongly push political beliefs, so it is not simply for the betterment of the citizens. It tries to encourage a world view favorable to the government. Using literacy as a way to teach “what to think”. (Not that the United States can throw stones from our glass house… I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States, etc. etc).
That being said, to compare Cuba to North Korea is hyperbolic to the extent that it is obvious you are either trying to be inflammatory, or are simply clueless.
Regardless, my point was that the value of something can not be pulled from a single data point. So in your haste to discredit a country you dislike, you kinda helped me prove my original point, so thanks!
P.S. What’s wrong with the education system being a point of pride? I wish the US took more pride in ours frankly.
Beautifully put, thank you
Probably some combination of our definition of literacy being adjusted, and the availability of more accurate data about populations and how educated they are.
Great question, why is it always Republican States as well?
The bastians of the homeschooling movement that allows household chores to be considered curriculum because of a campaigned for lack of oversight is also where there are low literacy rates? Say it isn’t so…
Just watched a thing yesterday about milk companies dumping tanker after tanker of perfectly good milk, because they don’t want the prices to drop.
that would be artificial scarcity
In Canada dairy is regulated. Hopefully all food becomes regulated soon. Real hard push back from the right even though they complain the liberals are doing nothing about food prices.
In Canada, regulation is the reason they dump milk. Regulation creates milk quotas that they are not allowed to exceed. Farmers do not benefit from this, they would certainly sell more milk at a lower price if it was allowed.
Newfoundland has one of the largest amout of dairy farms in Canada and not a single one dumps milk.
True. I believe Newfoundland farmers have more freedoms in who they sell to and for what prices. BC and Ontario both sell their milk through a provincial dairy commission, and since the commission stopped taking in milk, and they can only sell through them, the milk had to be dumped. If they had fewer regulations in BC and Ontario that allowed them to market their product at lower prices to other sellers, they wouldn’t have had to dump it.
Newfoundland(And most of Canada) literally has 2 companies to sell to.
Then evidently having 2 to sell to rather than 1 governing board of commissions worked better, right?
Dairy and meat prices still are overpriced over there, so I’m not surprised there’s only 2, but it also makes sense that something as absurd simply dumping excess can only happen when there’s only one buyer who has 0 incentive to negotiate price
Actually, I took your word for it when I first read this response, but it turns out dairy farmers in Newfoundland were asked to dump milk by their provincial dairy association. So yes, they have had to dump milk, and it was directly caused by the provincial dairy commission.
Also, the whole milk dumping thing became viral because of Ontario specifically, each case of which was cause by government regulation: https://globalnews.ca/video/9459508/milk-dump-dairy-farmer-exposes-where-excess-milk-goes/ https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/02/02/dairy-farmer-dumping-excess-milk/ https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-viral-video-shows-canadas-dirty-dairy-secret-we-dump-lots-of-milk
Your source relates to the dumping of milk due to demand drop during covid. Can’t sell spoiled milk.
But you can sell unspoiled milk for lower prices. Regulation prevents them from lowering price or selling to other marketers. That’s a fact. Regulations restricted sales. Regulation restricted dropping prices.
Regulation causes dumping, free markets cause lower prices. You have not falsified that idea yet.
I mean that’s your speculation, however the contrary of your speculation (companies literally dumping extra product so that they DON’T sell it at a lower price) has already happened. So I don’t think your speculation is accurate.
It’s not speculation. It is a fact that Canada’s dairy is sold at a fixed cost, so farmers aren’t even allowed to lower prices to open up market demand among a population that already way over pays for food. The farmers say they dump it because they can’t sell it, and all reporting around the cases say they are dumping it because they can’t sell it. BC and Ontario happen to be where many of the viral milk dumping videos come from, and they happen to be the most heavily regulated provinces. American corporations do something similar in that they make contracts with farmers, so when excess milk is produced, they have to dump it since they aren’t free to market it themselves anymore.
The problem is clearly market capture, whether its by corporations or the government. There is a clear cause and effect relationship between being told you’re not allowed to sell milk, and dumping milk rather than marketing it. It’s a very straight forward problem we’re seeing.
Please think about why your hypothesis makes no sense, if I can’t sell milk at $10, but I can sell it at a lower price, would that not be favorable to dumping it? If the problem is greed, would greed not incentivize me to make every cent I can out of that milk?
Economists laugh when people believe they’re moving away from the evils of money by not using “Dollar Bills”.
You read a novel about a post-apocalyptic society where the government is giving out food vouchers just to try to maintain order, and people instantly start using the food voucher slips as currency.
Power dynamics, including the power of the person who farms the land, the person who trucks the food to a storehouse, the person who invests time and thought to design and builds the processing factory, can be expressed any number of ways. You just pick your poison about how you express that power.
Power depends on consciousness of one’s capacities for power, and of others’ capacities for power over oneself.
Which farmers have
Some.
Consciousness is often elusive.
Fair
I did and I got a 14 day suspension from League of Legends.
Socialism has consistently failed to do that too because it can’t handle outside influence from foreign powers. Let’s just freely distribute technology and let people farm for themselves again doing that. Highly organized societies are nothing but slave mills.
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I would suggest anyone concerned about food production under socialism look up Lysenkoism to find the real pitfall.
The fatal flaw in any collective system will always stem from authoritarian policies, but all you need to avoid the greatest errors is simply not, you know, rule by terror.
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Yes it clearly has and if it hadn’t, they’d be the exceedingly rich countries with massive militaries, but they’re not. The U.S., the corporate oligarchy, is. So their social structure loses, and the one we both hate wins.
Life just favors evil in that way.
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You should learn about China’s construction boom starting during the housing crisis of 2008, and think about how events may have unfolded differently if China had not held up the steel and concrete industries globally.
China did that by becoming an authoritarian capitalist country, so that just proves my point. Communism doesn’t work.
Ugh.
Your premise has been that China is not capitalist. Now you insert the contradicting premise that China is capitalist.
No matter, though, if logical consistency is too arduous, you can always fall back on your pseudoscientific schtick 'cuz nature.
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That is how it works. It literally is how reality works. You can see it everywhere. You just don’t want to believe it because you want to live in a working communist nation but it’s just not possible in our Darwinian world where evil triumphs.
If you want to build a social system that reliably and fairly provides people their needs, you have to take the Darwinist nature of existence into account which no social system, including capitalism, really does effectively.
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OK troll.
I suggest not worrying too much about the “Darwinist nature of existence”.
Bro if you go from negative growth to one percent of positive growth you qualify for being rapidly developing
Doesn’t mean anything about life quality which is shit btw
The growth rate of either country has been high, but the industrial transformation began over one century later than in countries which are often given for comparison.
As a practical consideration, does anyone believe that within either country has passed a period of twenty years in which the basic substance of daily living had not markedly advanced?
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You don’t hate it. You’re just a troll.
And I am sure totally disregarding the subject of conversation to attack me is 100% not concern trolling in any way. Nope, looking for any opportunity to fling emotional barbs at someone you hate is the height of maturity
Now back to debating the merits of socialism while you go on the block list for the umpteenth time
Oh no.
Anyways.
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Listen, troll.
The argument is that activity driven by the profit motive is antithetical to the prevention of needless suffering and death.
Do you have one of your own, or are we done?
It is appropriate to express the various legitimate grievances against the Soviet Union, but not through narratives that are simplistic, dishonest, uncritical, or ideological.
Within the course of half a century, the Soviet Union transformed from an agrarian peasant feudal society to the first civilization to succeed in carrying a human to space and welcoming his safe return. Such is a remarkable achievement in its own right, unequaled before or since, yet more so considering the accompanying context, that within the same period had occurred a political revolution, a Civil War, foreign invasions of one wave during the Civil War, by the great powers, including the US, and of a second wave during the Second World War, by the Third Reich.
Socialism is merely workers owning the means of production. There is no reason you can’t have local, green-style politics or market socialism.
Just don’t.
Any path you follow will quickly lead to a truckload of babble about social Darwinism and other pseudoscientific dribble.
That is always the risk you run talking about politics on the Internet.
I am not explaining a risk, though, but rather behavior that has been entirely consistent from the particular participant.
There is no reason to vote down. I am trying to be helpful, by discouraging interaction with someone who repeatedly has demonstrated willful ignorance and obstructive tactics.
There is no reason to vote down.
I have no idea why you’re telling me this.
I thought you may have contributed to the down votes, but in fact it also appears that I have been targeted personally by organized voting.
Arguably you are simply suggesting that a population may manage land usage cooperatively.
I would not find much promise, though, in lack of organization. Lands and other resources are finite, and many will want to have a lifestyle or occupation that is urbanized, requiring food to be shipped into cities.
For conflict over land usage not to escalate into harm, it may seem necessary that those affected by its usage participate in organization.
Then let’s just kickstart human expansion into space so resources and land can be unlimited. That would be the only highly organized society you could convince me is legitimate.
We have more than enough land mass for every single human being to have at least one acre to themselves and then some right now, though. We just can’t distribute it evenly because humans are apes that form dominance hierarchies and control over the land goes to the dominant apes. Only when humans are genetically engineered to be egalitarian will it ever change, so I guess our debate is pretty moot.
So how do you distribute it fairly?
What if I a shitty piece of land with rocks in it? And my neighbor has a nice productive piece of land?
Good luck resolving these kinds of disputes
Give people the technology to meet their needs and survive happily regardless of the surface of the land they’re given. Land that cannot be built on is cut out of the equation. Vertical farms are used to grow crops instead of direct land cultivation. Water is provided in accordance with user use and if there isn’t enough, more is desalinated. Electricity and homeostasis maintenance is achieved with technology attached to the house.
Divvy up land by plains and fields first, then extend from there. Even land in the middle of fucking Siberia can have comfortable housing and farming done on it with the right technology. If it’s too cold or too hot, dome it over. Even the fucking ocean can have artificial islands or floating platforms constructed on it. No one has to go without territory.
It doesn’t have to be hard.
Sorry.
Your understanding of biology, anthropology, and history have been limited to the tropes distributed through a reactionary agenda.
Primates are social, and exhibit immensely varied and nuanced behaviors for sharing and cooperation, further enhanced by culture that adapts a particular population to local conditions. Humans share many general similarities with other kinds of ape, but are not constrained by traits that may be observed strictly in such species.
For a point of comparison, suppose we take your suggestion literally, about colonizing off planet. Do you imagine some level of cooperation being required, perhaps even great personal sacrifice, not strongly supported by your caricatured representations of nonhuman species?
At no point in the comment you are trying to answer was implied that cooperation was non existent.
I must conclude you are just arguing in bad faith
Did I represent the comment as insinuating that cooperation is nonexistent?
Your objection is outrageous, considering the intensity of its tone, and the structure of my comment, that you are criticizing, within its context.
Again, the comment was parroting reactionary tropes that are rejected essentially universally by experts who study the relevant fields.
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No personal attacks.
Lol go tell that to my detractors who you applaud when they do it to me, in blatant violation of sitewide rules of their own instances, while mods and admins don’t bat an eye.
Don’t pretend there’s any honorability in anything people do, especially not online.
Dangit bobbuh
Who’s we?
Our capitalist society
Is society entirely capitalist?
Does it matter?
Well, sometimes it helps to be precise about what you’re vilifying.
Yes.
What is capitalism?
What investigation of the subject have you yourself undertaken?
I’d say a fair amount, but to be honest, it doesn’t really matter how I understand the word. It is just a word, it can have any arbitrary definition. I’m asking how others here define it so I can better communicate with them.
The term is not being invoked arbitrarily.
The rationale or motive behind the criticism is not to associate narrow grievances with a nebulous bogeyman.
If you accept the fact of food insecurity, if you would wish for it to be resolved, and if you notice a conflict with the profit motive, then it may seem unnecessary to argue.
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You are welcome to feed the world bro, I have enough with my family and pets
“Got mine” huh?
Not even close that’s the fucking point dude
Sounds like you are suffering under capitalism.
Not at all, if anything, I have more thanks to it.
Thanking the billionaires who hoard, for the crumbs they let you keep.
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That is kind of the point.
Me, you and our tax dollars
Fat boy Dr Manhattan?
Farming shouldn’t be profitable. It should be considered a service.
Nothing should be profitable except the work of the individual for that individual. Every dollar of corporate profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.
I suppose, though, most would not call profit the value created by one’s own labor.
That’s because we’re used to profit being exploited from our labour rather than being the benefactor of our own value. Under capitalism profit goes to the slave owner, under socialism profit goes to the worker.
I know, but some might apply terms such that you would be describing the abolition of profit, rather than preserving one particular expression.
Sure, context matters. You’ll hear me say ‘Every dollar of profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.’ until I’m blue in the face. But everyone understands (or at least I hope they do) that profit is a value beyond the cost of production and that should benefit the worker not the whip cracker should it exist at all.
According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor, whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.
To a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.
Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.
Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.
According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor
Correct.
whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.
This falls short because it fails to examine how the customer is exploited by spending more than the product’s value for access to the product.
Resources + Labour = Cost
Cost + Profit = Price
∴ Profit = Exploited valueTo a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.
Correct, capitalists have a deliberately belligerent view of total value assessment because it’s not in their interest to share that value with the worker. And the workers are uneducated and rely on a capitalist system to survive so they simply don’t know better.
Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.
Correct.
Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.
You don’t need to abolish private property in a socialised system, just private exploitation.
Personal profit will always exist through the negotiation of one’s value with their customer but the definitive separation between cost, price, and value dissappears because they become the same thing.
Was there a watchmen parody in king of the hill that I missed? Or did someone just make this?
It’s just this one edit, it’s been around for like a decade though
Thats my purse!
There have been some pretty extensive studies that indicate that when you give poor people money, they become less poor. When you give poor people enough money to live on, they stop being poor. It’s a radical concept, but it’s also the truth.
South American experiments with printing money make the studies hard to believe. You can’t simply give people money without causing a devaluation in said money. You have to take it away from the market somehow (so, tax the shit out of the rich)
What does any of this have to do with Bobby Hill being on Mars in Watchmen?
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There are some very serious problems with various economics systems around the world. None of theses systems is actually capitalism and all of them feed people.
“Capitalism” is a theoretical extreme form of a market economy which nobody practices. In particular, all the larger economies are heavily regulated and have a lot of social programs.
Food scarcity has been so thoroughly beaten that in “Capitalist” countries the problem is reversed. Poor people can easily get all the calories they want. In many developed countries, poverty tracks with obesity.
Capitalism is not theoretical or hypothetical.
It is a system of social organization and production that emerged in a particular historic period following from particular historic antecedents.
Capitalism requires and produces stratification, marginalization, and deprivation on a massive scale.
In the US, over one in ten are experiencing food insecurity. In marginalized countries, rates are even higher.
The fundamental definition of capitalism is that all means of production are privately owned.
The reason I say that it’s theoretical and hypothetical is that you won’t find any real economies where that’s the case. Just like we don’t find any instances of the platonic ideal of Communism the way Marx described it.
What we have instead is a set of systems with varying degrees of public vs private ownership and various implementations of what should and shouldn’t be considered a public vs private resource.
I’m not sure why you would site “product stratification” as a requirement of capitalism. That literally just means that you sort products into different categories. It has nothing to do with any particular economic system.
Most modern economic theory does involve marginalization, but probably not the way you think. The requirement is just that either consumers have different preference curves or producers have different production abilities. That’s it and there’s nothing particularly sinister about it. Communism makes the same assumptions since those differences are a requirement for, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” to make sense.
Deprivation isn’t a requirement of capitalism either. It’s a basic assumption of economics. The idea is that we have unbounded capacity to consume but bounded capacity to produce. If that isn’t the case you don’t need an economy, everyone just gets everything they want. The difference between Communism and Capitalism is in how they prioritize using limited resources.
You can cite a single statistic on food scarcity but the data is very clear that we’re living in an era of unprecedented food excess. If you look at data sets that cover more than a few decades you’ll see strong trends of decreased malnutrition, both within the US and around the world.
One of the chief problems with getting these facts wrong is that they lead us to making bad decisions. Food donations are a prime example. The US subsidizes food production. That’s generally a good thing since it improves food security. However that screws food prices. The US deals with this by having the government buy up excess food at guaranteed minimum prices. It then has a bunch of food that nobody wants so, in an effort to kill to birds with one stone, it ships a lot of that food to poor countries at below market prices. That feeds some people but it also massively undercuts the local agriculture industry. There’s no way a near-subsistence farmer can come close to competing on price against a modern mechanized farm. That’s theoretically OK if we came up with some alternative economic activity but we don’t.
The fundamental definition of capitalism is that all means of production are privately owned.
The reason I say that it’s theoretical and hypothetical is that you won’t find any real economies where that’s the case.
When we discuss capitalism, we are discussing existing systems that are based on the capitalist mode of production.
We have no interest in fairy tales.
I’m not sure why you would site “product stratification” as a requirement of capitalism.
I believe you misquoted the text. I apologize if I originally submitted an inaccurate representation of the intended language.
Capitalism produces forces that impose systemic inequity across the population, and also, capitalism would collapse if somehow the inequity were resolved.
Thus, capitalism produces and requires inequity, on a massive scale.
Most modern economic theory does involve marginalization, but probably not the way you think.
We are concerned with facts, not just wishes.
The requirement is just that either consumers have different preference curves or producers have different production abilities.
Marginalization is cohorts of a population being systemically separated, disempowered, and disenfranchised.
Deprivation isn’t a requirement of capitalism either. It’s a basic assumption of economics. The idea is that we have unbounded capacity to consume but bounded capacity to produce.
Again, we discuss reality. Capitalism depends on cohorts of the population lacking access to the more desirable opportunities of employment available to others, thereby becoming forced to accept less undesirable employment. It also depends on most of the population needing to be employed to earn the means of survival. Wealthy business owners require no employment to survive, because they survive from the labor provided by their employees.
Thus, capitalist society is structured by a class disparity between owner and worker, and of further systemic stratification across the working class.
Asserting the intractable necessity of similar stratification for any system represents an argument from ignorance.
difference between Communism and Capitalism is in how they prioritize using limited resources.
The difference is based on control over production. Naturally, if workers control production, then they direct it toward their own interests, as the whole public, not the interests of a narrow cohort of society that has consolidated immense wealth and power.
You can cite a single statistic on food scarcity but the data is very clear that we’re living in an era of unprecedented food excess.
Food scarcity is the degree to which certain cohorts of the population have inadequate or insecure access to food, not the total amount of food with respect to need.
Statistics are easy to find if you search.
If you look at data sets that cover more than a few decades you’ll see strong trends of decreased malnutrition, both within the US and around the world.
Much has improved over time, however, precarity and insecurity have exacerbated by most measures in recent years and decades.
The US subsidizes food production. That’s generally a good thing since it improves food security.
The relationship is weak. Food security depends on stability and equitability of distribution. A society producing enough food to support the population is considered as resilient, but such an achievement is not sufficient to ensure security for the entire population.
Inequities in distribution are harmful to the population, by producing food insecurity.
The US deals with this by having the government buy up excess food at guaranteed minimum prices.
Much food is wasted.
Retailers discard food to keep prices inflated, even as many remain hungry. The practices you are describing, of government making purchases to keep prices stable and also distributing according to need, for households unable to meet the retail price, are not occurring in practice, to any meaningful degree, to address the problems.
In the US, over one in ten are food insecure.
As far as I can tell, “World Food Program” is short for “World Food Program USA”. These numbers are not surprising based upon that fact.
And donating money to a food charity is not the same as socializing food and preventing people from starving by just directly feeding them all
The American idea of socialism is having to beg strangers to pay their medical bills on GoFundMe.
Yeah, that’s not socialism. That’s the Right’s wet dream.
So all this insulting me in your other post isn’t because you actually want UBI, but because you think it’s the only thing Americans are stupid enough to vote for?
Since I’m trying to go about this educated, let’s make sure. We’re in agreement that UBI is objectively worse than universal welfare, right? So we’re just talking about whether UBI is the best conservative shit that uneducated Americans are willing to buy?
I’d be willing to buy that. But I still need to know how to resolve the issue of impoverished leftists being made poorer. I’m assuming the plan you’re in love with (or just don’t hate) isn’t Yang’s stupid plan. So what’s YOUR plan? Would you make it work without gutting welfare?
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What is it with UBI fans being so ad-hominem focused against the Left? I’m literally asking people to give me reasons to consider UBI and with my complaints, and all people do is treat me like I’m a moron.
Is it that there ISN’T anything substantive, and it’s just a blind dream that someday someone will come up with a UBI that works?
Our discussion has ended, and I’m hoping the mods take my reports seriously.
The left is against the left? You ask questions but ignore answers. You have provided nothing substantial, if self awareness was a disease you’d be the healthiest person alive.
The relationships of the US and the similar nations, of the imperial core, with marginalized nations, of the imperial periphery, are structured for economic exploitation, under practices of neocolonial hegemony.
Such relationships of labor exploition produce a massive transfer of net wealth from the periphery to the core.
If workers in poor nations were paid as much as businesses realize from selling the products of their labor, much or all of the food donations would be unnecessary.
As it stands, such aid is only an impartial restitution for the wealth that is transferred away from workers by the sales of the products they create through their labor.
