Greatest debate in modern history? Socialism(not Stalinism) vs Capitalism

[mheslep]

This simply isn't true. Have a read of some literature about the labour movement in the US in the first half of the 20th century and how it was brutally and often illegally suppressed.

Yep. It also includes brutal and often illegal coercion of labor by the union leadership. The film 'On the Waterfront' is a dramatic fictional account but reflective in many ways of reality.

You might also wish to consider the fairness of the price that slaves and the descendants of slaves received for their labour right up to living memory in the US, which only ceased to be a formally racist state just over 40 years ago.

That's an overstatement of localized Jim Crow laws.

Once you move away from the US and look at the position of, for instance, the Indian builders who died in their hundreds building the Burj Dubai, all for the princely sum of $5 per day, your position becomes simply ludicrous. Those who control capital impose their terms on those who have no leverage. There is nothing free about such a market.

In may be in those places that people are coerced by the government to work there, but that condition aside, why do they have no leverage? Were those people forced at gunpoint to work there? Why can't they go elsewhere? Who is to say that $5/day in some parts of the world is extortion? Perhaps they left 5 cents/ day elsewhere for those jobs.

 

[Sea Cow]

In may be in those places that people are coerced by the government to work there, but that condition aside, why do they have no leverage? Were those people forced at gunpoint to work there? Why can't they go elsewhere? Who is to say that $5/day in some parts of the world is extortion? Perhaps they left 5 cents/ day elsewhere for those jobs.

Are you really that naive? The have no leverage because they are poor and they have no collective organisation to represent them.

Perhaps they did leave even worse-paid jobs to go there, but the fact remains that most of the value of their labour was not paid to them. It was taken by the developers to make their millions – how? because they are the ones in control of capital, that's why. This idea that the poor would better themselves if only there were more free trade is laughable nonsense. Try looking beyond your own borders occasionally to see how other people live.

 

[Sea Cow]

That's an overstatement of localized Jim Crow laws.

Overstatement, you say?

How would you then explain to me and my wife that our marriage would have been illegal in several states of the US until the late 1960s.

That's racist, mate. Pure and simple racist laws extending across several whole states.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Perhaps they did leave even worse-paid jobs to go there, but the fact remains that most of the value of their labour was not paid to them. It was taken by the developers to make their millions – how? because they are the ones in control of capital, that's why. This idea that the poor would better themselves if only there were more free trade is laughable nonsense. Try looking beyond your own borders occasionally to see how other people live.

I have an idea. Let's boycott the companies that pay people only $5 per day! That way all the workers can go back to their $1 per day jobs.

Or maybe we can go the "fair trade" route. 90% of those formerly making $5 per day get laid off, with the remainder making $25 per day (but being 5x as productive, thanks to better machinery &c.).

It should be a simple exercise to calculate the first-order effects of these on consumers, assuming that the affected industry is small. Extra credit: calculate the effects on the workers and consumers if this happens across all industries, remembering to re-normalize the money units used.

 

[Sea Cow]

That's such an idiotic answer – sorry, your son is going to have to die because you can't afford that medicine he needs as the free market doesn't value your work highly enough.

All I ask is that millionaires should pay proper wages to those who build their homes for them. These people are screwed over for nothing. Paying a fair price for cocoa, for instance, a price that would allow poor farmers to educate at least one of their children, and so add future value to their economy, would add the equivalent of about 1 cent to the price of chocolate bars. If the workers were paid a fair wage, your shoes might cost you $1 more, that's all. Your argument doesn't stand up to close examination. Workers aren't paid terrible wages because goods would be too expensive to produce otherwise. They are paid terrible wages to increase profits by a little bit.

You seem to forget that capitalist companies do not operate for the benefit of workers or customers. They operate for the benefit of their shareholders. of capital in other words. So: the effects on workers and consumers if workers across all industries were paid a fair wage would be enormously beneficial.

 

[mheslep]

Overstatement, you say?

How would you then explain to me and my wife that our marriage would have been illegal in several states of the US until the late 1960s.

That's racist, mate. Pure and simple racist laws extending across several whole states.

You are changing the goal posts. Above you stated that the "US [...was] a formally racist state", not that "several [local] states" were formally racist, as was the case in many places in the world 50 years ago.

 

[Sea Cow]

You are changing the goal posts. Above you stated that the "US [...was] a formally racist state", not that "several [local] states" were formally racist, as was the case in many places in the world 50 years ago.

Forgive me, but if several of the states were racist, to me that makes the whole country racist. The federal government permitted, and thus condoned, it.

Which places do you have in mind as having racist laws 50 years ago?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Overstatement, you say?

I suppose this could be quantified. Find the number of marriages that had been illegal as a percentage of total marriages. Multiply this by twice the number of marriages in states where this had been illegal. This is the number of affected people.

You could go further, summing this over the years -- although this would probably overstate the effect somewhat, since I imagine the increase of such marriages has more to do with the change in culture than the change in laws (and in any case, seems to have more than nothing to do with the change in culture).

You could also take it a different direction by computing the change in welfare. Presumably, some chose to marry another (suboptimal) person, decreasing their welfare; some chose to live with the person they could not marry, losing the legal benefits of marriage; and some chose to move to a place allowing such marriages. Assuming that people chose the best course of action for themselves, and with some appropriate (Chicago-school) measure of the first case, taking the minimum of the three across some distribution of preferences for the number of affected people would give a rough estimation of the monetary equivalent of the loss suffered.

Let's say that in all cases, option #2 is best (stay with the person, but don't marry). If the number of such marriages would be about 50,000 per year (for a total of perhaps a million such marriages at any given time), and 3% of those were made illegal, and the lost legal benefits of marriage were $10,000 per year, then that's a loss of $10 billion dollars per year. Of course the societal (dead weight) loss may be less, as some of that is recouped (wrongly) by the government. But I imagine most of the loss would be real, and only a small portion would be transferred to the government in fees and taxes.

But, even assuming my calculations are reasonable, that doesn't say whether it's an overstatement or not -- it would just reduce that to a question of whether $10 billion is a lot of money.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Forgive me, but if several of the states were racist, to me that makes the whole country racist. The federal government permitted, and thus condoned, it.

You're clearly not a federalist.

What would you say if a European country had such laws, but Brussels didn't overrule it? Would that make all of the EU racist?

 

[vici10]

I took a look at your first reference. It doesn't support your thesis. Yes people are attempting to make profit from mineral resources there, even through corrupt means.

These corrupt means fueling civil war in Congo and this is what I have said. It is difficult to talk to people who live in a complete denial of the facts because of their ideology. You probably have not read Forbs article very closely, therefore I cite from it.
http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109038a.html

Hiring a Turkish pilot to fly a Challenger 601R into rebel headquarters in Goma on Mar. 27, 1997, Boulle and an associate, Joseph Martin, gave Kabila a boost by buying diamonds produced in Kabila- captured territory.

Boulle put at Kabila's disposal AMF's Learjet and "advanced" $1 million worth of "mineral taxes" and "fees" to the guerrilla leader.

So if providing money and jet to the rebels just before their attack on the government is not fuelling the civil war, then I do not know what is.

A week before Kinshasa fell to Kabila -- and he gained U.S. recognition -- AMF flew a group of investors and analysts to meet the new Congo rebel leader in the area he controlled. On that Boulle-sponsored trip were high-powered Washington guests: Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (Democrat, Georgia) and, from the White House, Robin Sanders, Director of African Affairs for the National Security Council. Congresswoman McKinney says she and Sanders were on a "fact-finding" mission on behalf of the U.S. government and simply hitched a ride on Boulle's plane.

In the garden of a local house Kabila talked grandly to his American visitors about the need to bring democracy and economic opportunity to the people of the Congo. "It was like meeting George Washington," says Robert Brisotti, a Wall Street investment banker flown in by AMF.

Also note the fact:

Well, not quite. Kabila's forces have been condemned by the U.N. for their role in the Hutu massacres, and as the new "president," Kabila has shown no sign of bringing anything even remotely resembling democracy to his suffering country. The best that can be said for him so far is that he and his associates are not pillaging the country Mobutu-style.

Notice what Forbes (not a commi left wing radical magazine thinks of it):

FORBES is certainly not the first to discover the intimate connection between political contributions and official favors. What makes Boulle's story possibly sinister is that he is profiting essentially from Africa's misery.

Also this is not the only trouble place that Boulle profits from:

Laurent Kabila's Democratic Republic of the Congo is not America Mineral Fields' only troubled African hunting ground. The company has been heavily involved in Angola, the former Portuguese colony that for decades was a battleground between a Soviet-backed Marxist government and Unita, a rebel force backed by the U.S. government. In 1993 the U.S. switched sides in Angola -- as it did later in the Congo -- recognizing the Marxist government. Guess who made out in the switch? Jean Boulle.

Mercenaries and mining often go together in Africa, and Boulle has ties to providers of what are believed to be military mercenaries.

So he also has connections to the mercenaries.

Here's the murky tale: Paul Beaver, a consultant to the reputable Jane's defense publications who specializes in mercenaries, says the Clinton Administration forced the Angolan government to ditch mercenaries it had been employing and replace them with groups of Washington-approved mercenaries. One such security company to emerge was a Brussels-based outfit called IDAS Belgium S.A. (International Defense & Security). The Angolan government granted a Netherlands Antilles IDAS subsidiary 50% of the diamond rights in more than 36,000 square kilometers of rebel- controlled bush. Think of it as an incentive contract: Clear out the rebels, and a share of the diamonds is yours.

Starting in May 1996, Boulle's AMF began buying the IDAS affiliate with the diamond rights, paying $2.3 million in cash and shares, plus a back-end share of profits capped at $84 million if enough diamonds are produced.

Besides Forbes articles, there are other references that I have provided. All together they provide clear picture who fuels and benefits from the civil war in Africa.

 

[Sea Cow]

You're clearly not a federalist.

What would you say if a European country had such laws, but Brussels didn't overrule it? Would that make all of the EU racist?

Ok, I take the point that in the US, the concept of the country is different as different states have different laws. However, since racist laws did exist in the US until the 1960s, you certainly could not say that the US as a collective entity was not racist. In the same way, if some European countries had racist laws, you would not be able to say that the EU was not racist. Of course, the EU does in fact have a court of human rights that covers such things as racial discrimination in great detail. There may be various levels of racism in different parts of Europe, but there are no racist laws, and the EU would not permit membership to any country that did have racist laws. There is a fight on at the moment in Italy against Berlusconi's attempts to introduce laws that discriminate against the Roma, but even these disgusting laws are not framed in explicitly racist terms.

 

[mheslep]

These corrupt means fueling civil war in Congo and this is what I have said.

No that is not what you have said, which was:

The problems in Africa are not cultural. [...]

Listing reference after reference about mineral hunters in the Congo does not support your thesis. I'll grant that this is a difficult thesis to support (most negatives are), but I won't go along with a change from subject A to subject B that along the way purports to prove A.

 

[mheslep]

[...] Of course, the EU does in fact have a court of human rights that covers such things as racial discrimination in great detail. ...

Not fifty years ago they didn't.

 

[CRGreathouse]

There is a fight on at the moment in Italy against Berlusconi's attempts to introduce laws that discriminate against the Roma, but even these disgusting laws are not framed in explicitly racist terms.

Compare the poll taxes in the US. They weren't [generally] explicitly racist, but were [generally] designed specifically for racist ends.

 

[Sea Cow]

Not fifty years ago they didn't.

So what?

In any case, I'm not here defending the EU or anyone else for that matter. The UK has never had racist laws, but it was not until the 1970s that anti-racist laws were introduced and before that, discrimination in such things as housing and jobs was widespread.

I'm also not condemning the US for ever for its past, but it remains true that a great many of the descendants of slaves in the US are still at the bottom of the pile economically. The free market has been anything but fair to them over the generations.

If you start your life at the bottom, it is more than likely that you'll end it there too, no matter how hard you work – escaping poverty requires more than just work, it also requires luck. And there are reasons some people are born at the top and others at the bottom. They're not nice reasons, either – and that doesn't just go for the US, in case you think I'm just US-bashing again.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I'm also not condemning the US for ever for its past, but it remains true that a great many of the descendants of slaves in the US are still at the bottom of the pile economically. The free market has been anything but fair to them over the generations.

It's a complex issue. Correlation isn't causation, and it is by no means clear that a system other than the free market would have been more beneficial, either in relative or absolute terms. I know of many cases where an *intermediate* result ('free' but heavily taxed or regulated markets) have had disproportionately bad results for blacks in the US. My guess is that, in absolute terms, they would do best in a free market, and that they would do best, in relative terms, in a socialist society.

 

[vici10]

mheslep, if by culture you mean the culture of the West to habitually break humanitarian laws to make outrageous amounts of profit (sociopathic kleptomania) as these articles show then you are of course correct. Your continued statements supporting your position has reminded me of a comment made by Mahatma Gahndi. When asked what he thought of western civilization, he replied,"I think it would be a good thing."

 

[CRGreathouse]

mheslep, if by culture you mean

I wasn't able to find a post my mheslep on this thread mentioning "culture". Quote?

Otherwise, it will be very hard to determine what was meant by the reference to "culture".

 

[mheslep]

So what?

I read your above statements as comparison between the US of fifty years ago and today's EU. Otherwise why mention them that way in adjoining sentences.

In any case, I'm not here defending the EU or anyone else for that matter. The UK has never had racist laws, but it was not until the 1970s that anti-racist laws were introduced and before that, discrimination in such things as housing and jobs was widespread.

Never? That wipes out a good bit of readily available UK history. Even the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833" act officially sanctioned some remaining slavery directly under UK control, not to mention what was on the books centuries beforehand.

I'm also not condemning the US for ever for its past, but it remains true that a great many of the descendants of slaves in the US are still at the bottom of the pile economically. The free market has been anything but fair to them over the generations.

Better in the US than elsewhere, for the most part, as President Obama has stated numerous times, or as I expect, say, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Johnson" would say (net worth $0.7 billion). As for those that are chronically at the bottom, I point first to government programs that provide incentive for them to stay there such as welfare and the war on drugs, not flaws in the free market.

If you start your life at the bottom, it is more than likely that you'll end it there too, no matter how hard you work – escaping poverty requires more than just work, it also requires luck. And there are reasons some people are born at the top and others at the bottom. [...]

Ok, though I'd add that mainly escaping poverty requires opportunity. So far free market capitalism, flaws and all, seems to be far and away the best at providing opportunity.

 

[Sea Cow]

Never? That wipes out a good bit of readily available UK history. Even the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833" act officially sanctioned some remaining slavery directly under UK control, not to mention what was on the books centuries beforehand.

In the UK there have never been racist laws. The British Empire was fearfully racist – it produced South Africa, after all – so much so that the people on the receiving end of that racism would sometimes try to seek redress in the UK.

But I'm not defending the UK as a bastion of racial equality. It isn't and hasn't been historically – the British were bollock-deep in the North Atlantic slave trade.

 

[mheslep]

mheslep, if by culture you mean the culture of the West to habitually break humanitarian laws to make outrageous amounts of profit (sociopathic kleptomania) as these articles show then you are of course correct. Your continued statements supporting your position [...]

My only 'position' is that you are not supporting yours.

 

[Sea Cow]

As for those that are chronically at the bottom, I point first to government programs that provide incentive for them to stay there such as welfare and the war on drugs, .

War on drugs, certainly, but blaming continued poverty on welfare is bizarre. The countries with the least inequality, in which the poorest have the highest standard of living in absolute terms anywhere in the world, are the high-tax, high levels of social provision and welfare Scandinavian countries.

 

[CRGreathouse]

The countries with the least inequality, in which the poorest have the highest standard of living in absolute terms anywhere in the world, are the high-tax, high levels of social provision and welfare Scandinavian countries.

Which way does the arrow of causation point? It would be easy to imagine that wealthy countries can afford more welfare.

The 'right' amount of welfare, and how to properly design a system to encourage people to work, seems a quite difficult question to me.

 

[mheslep]

In the UK there have never been racist laws. The British Empire was fearfully racist – it produced South Africa, after all – so much so that the people on the receiving end of that racism would sometimes try to seek redress in the UK.

But I'm not defending the UK as a bastion of racial equality. It isn't and hasn't been historically – the British were bollock-deep in the North Atlantic slave trade.

OK let's just use common definitions. The UK first came into existence in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707" , under what would historically be called the British Empire.

 

[Sea Cow]

Which way does the arrow of causation point? It would be easy to imagine that wealthy countries can afford more welfare.

The US is a very wealthy country. But it is a very wealthy country with a very large gap between richest and poorest. Why, and what are the social consequences? How is inequality related to the enormous numbers of people that the US locks up? To put that in context, the UK, to its shame, locks up a higher percentage of its citizens than any other EU country. The US locks up about 5 time more people as a percentage than the UK.

These are the questions I'd be addressing. A more equal society is a healthier, happier, more peaceful society.

 

[Sea Cow]

OK let's just use common definitions. The UK first came into existence in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707" , under what would historically be called the British Empire.

No, the UK and the British Empire are different things. India was part of the British Empire. It was never part of the UK. The UK comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Before Eire seceded, it comprised the whole of Ireland. Before about 1800, it comprised none of Ireland. In 1707, Great Britain came into being with the union of Scotland and England/Wales.

But if you wish to extend that to include the whole of the Empire, that's fine. You won't find me defending the British Empire or anything that took place under it.

 

[mheslep]

War on drugs, certainly, but blaming continued poverty on welfare is bizarre.

Unquestionably the case that welfare (as set up the US) contributed to the continuation of poverty. Chronic poverty trends such as teenage pregnancies collapsed after the reform of welfare in the last decade. Before then people were being paid to have more children with no father in sight, and with no time line for continuing more of the same. I'll provide sources if you like.

The countries with the least inequality, in which the poorest have the highest standard of living in absolute terms anywhere in the world, are the high-tax, high levels of social provision and welfare Scandinavian countries.

Regarding the highest standard of living - I doubt that's true outside of the the oil rich Norway. Even so pointing to countries with less population than a large US city, with homogeneous societies, and little poor immigration does not give us much of a marker for comparison.

 

[CRGreathouse]

The US is a very wealthy country. But it is a very wealthy country with a very large gap between richest and poorest.

True -- and it's very unusual in that respect. Graphing countries by GDP per capita vs. Gini coefficient*, most countries fall into either a band of poor countries (with widely-variable inequalities) or into a band of egalitarian countries (with widely-variable wealth). The US is, as I recall, the only large country to fall outside one of these two bands. It is exceptionally wealthy but noticeably higher in inequality than its fellow wealthy countries.

* Note: The Gini coefficient isn't a very good measure of inequality, but it's widely available.

How is inequality related to the enormous numbers of people that the US locks up? To put that in context, the UK, to its shame, locks up a higher percentage of its citizens than any other EU country. The US locks up about 5 time more people as a percentage than the UK.

This is another hard question, to which the answer is not clear. I suspect that if you measured inequality across only those never imprisoned, re-weighting by age, race, and gender, that US inequality would remain exceptional. Do you think so? Do you know of any study looking at this?

A more equal society is a healthier, happier, more peaceful society.

This is by no means obvious.

 

[Sea Cow]

I would exclude Norway for the reason you give – its oil wealth. But Sweden in particular is a very good example of a country that has achieved higher standards of living for its poorest – one tangible marker of that is that if you take a Swedish teenager at random and give them a physical examination, you will not be able to tell at all what their parents do for a living. That's not true here in the UK or there in the US, and it is an achievement of welfare, first and foremost – universal provision of the basics needed for a healthy life.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Even so pointing to countries with less population than a large US city, with homogeneous societies, and little poor immigration does not give us much of a marker for comparison.

I agree, it's hard to compare countries with widely-differing sizes. If the US was split into geographically contiguous, "non-gerrymandered" districts roughly the population of (say) Norway, I imagine many would be wealthier than Norway. Likewise, if you combine countries near Norway so as to make the combined population similar to that of the US, I would expect the per-capita wealth to drop, putting it closer to (or at least lower than?) the US.

 

[Sea Cow]

The point about scale is a fair one, but I think you'd be hard-pushed to find a place in the US with the population of Sweden (10 million) that has a comparably high standard of living for its poorest inhabitants.

 

[mheslep]

BTW, I don't have a problem per se with providing a social safety net. I think it should be done while keeping in mind that it can have unintended consequences causing more harm than good, and should be done as locally as possible - connecting people helping those in need - while the central government is used only as last resort.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Sweden in particular is a very good example of a country that has achieved higher standards of living for its poorest – one tangible marker of that is that if you take a Swedish teenager at random and give them a physical examination, you will not be able to tell at all what their parents do for a living. That's not true here in the UK or there in the US, and it is an achievement of welfare, first and foremost – universal provision of the basics needed for a healthy life.

That's an interesting assertion (and, I assume, fact). But it does bring up a relevant point. I wouldn't accept that as a goal for a country. It could be achieved, for example, by making better-off children less healthy (intentionally infecting them, etc.). [I'm not suggesting that you were suggesting this! -- just trying to be careful about how we measure different programs.]

In particular, I consider any Pareto improvement to be a good (a societal improvement), even if the improving person is wealthy.

You may support Rawlsianism, in which the goal is to improve the well-being (in this case, the true value of the services received by) the least-well-off person in society. Another person might count the total value of the medical services provided to all people in society, regardless of who gets it. Both seem preferable to literal egalitarianism, which considers *decreasing* the medical services to the well-off to be an improvement, even if medical services are not increased to anyone.

You can easily imagine systems between the two. One example: every doubling in yearly medical services to a person (beyond the first dollar) would increase societal value by a fixed amount. So if A receives $10,000 per year in medical services and B receives $500, this would be considered just as good as if A received $5,000 in medical services and B received $1,000. (This system favors equality, but not as strongly as Rawlsianism.)

 

[Sea Cow]

Any system I would use would include absolute minimums – rights as members of a society to decent health care, housing, clean water, education, heating, enough money to buy food, clothes etc. I see no good reason why all rich countries cannot guarantee these basic needs to all their citizens – paid for out of general taxation.

Above that, equality becomes much less important – there are thresholds, in other words, and what matters is what side of the threshold you stand on. For instance, I, with my relatively (by UK standards) modest income, stand on the same side of most of the important thresholds as Bill Gates compared to anyone living on a dollar a day.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Any system I would use would include absolute minimums – rights as members of a society to decent health care, housing, clean water, education, heating, enough money to buy food, clothes etc.

How do you determine what is an absolute minimum? What if society cannot afford to produce the absolute minimum for all members of society, even using all its resources? Does the absolute minimum change over time?

I see no good reason why all rich countries cannot guarantee these basic needs to all their citizens – paid for out of general taxation.

I agree, although this statement makes it seem simpler than it is. Increasing the well-being of some by $X billion (in aggregate) may require the rest of society to forgo $10X billion.

Above that, equality becomes much less important – there are thresholds, in other words, and what matters is what side of the threshold you stand on. For instance, I, with my relatively (by UK standards) modest income, stand on the same side of most of the important thresholds as Bill Gates compared to anyone living on a dollar a day.

That actually tells me a lot about your preferences, and makes me think that we probably have similar value systems in this regard.