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@freemo
No, that person has a poor understanding of socialism. In true socialism you: (a) don't get things for free, you work for them. Ah, you are unexploited in your work, that's different; (b) there are no rich as opposed to poor; (c) you have privacy but not at the cost of others' basic needs; (d) you are encouraged to express well-reasoned opinions, since they can only contribute to everyone's benefit.
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I would appreciate if you make my mini-list known. I will also do that. Good luck!
@cosas
I disagree, that is what pro communist/socialists think it will cause, but in reality that does not describe it at all.
@freemo
What reality? The fake socialist regimes of history did not carry genuine socialism. Who else tried to really implement a system where EVERY person is not only given all chances to contribute, but is also properly rewarded for her/his efforts? Properly rewarded, not paid with junk, while the bosses profit/steal.
On what grounds are the rich rich? Can you truly enjoy your comforts knowing that the majority of humans lack the basic necessities? They aren't all lazy, right?...
@cosas
Ahh the good old "no true scotsman" fallacy. You will never have true communism how you idealize it to be because it simply can not exist. All you will ever get is the horrible human rights disaster we get everytime a nation attempts communism.
The rich are rich because they created their wealth through expiernce, knowledge, and hard work. There is a reason the majority of billionaires in the world started as middle class and lower and are self made. As for everyone else, no mot everyone is lazy, some make bad decisions, some dont even want to be rich, there are many reasons.
@freemo
At least we remain in civil terms. I've had worse experiences :)
I could also say you rush to conclusions based on failed social experiments with so-called socialism.
Maybe I prefer idealism to a "reality" that ignores so much suffering in the world, very little of which is due to bad decisions or "not wanting" to be rich. Maybe many of the poor just want a minimalist decent life and they are not allowed even that because others are too greedy.
I realize I cannot convince you, oh well..
@cosas
You have been nothing but respectful, i would have no reason to be uncivil just because we disagree on something.
Its not so much that its idealism, its more about it fundamental not working because it is naive to how money and wealth works as well as human nature. Usually i find communists fail to understand that wealth is not some fixed quantity of money where someone being rich and having alot means others have less. In reality wealth is constantly being generated and destroyed and much of the wealth rich people have is wealth they created in the first place. Eliminate the rich and you eliminate wealth for the whole of society. This why every time you attempt communism the result is the same, an extremely poor nation with everyone starving to death and very little progress.
@freemo
The planet resources are limited, therefore some having more (even if they truly deserved, which is highly unlikely) means others have less.
Let's not forget that the majority of the rich come from affluent backgrounds which in their turn based their accumulation on human exploitation.
If wealth is that easily generated, why don't the highest rich eradicate world poverty??
Fake socialist regimes did not eliminate the rich; the new leaders became rich themselves...
@cosas
Everything about this post is factually incorrect.
For starters wealth is not equivelant to planetary resources nor is the quantity of all resources fixed. For example if i buy a farm and breed cows im increasing the number of cows and therefore creating wealth/resources that didnt exist before. Further i might be a seller of farm tech and invented and sold some technology that enables a person to support more cows on less land. Wealth creation is not and has never been directly dictated by the quantity of resources as if it were a fixed value
Second the idea that most of the rich come from affluent backgrounds is factually false. The majority of the rich, in fact, come from poor and middle class homes, ive cited several sources on my page proving this in the past.
The reason the rich dont destroy world poverty is several reasons, one is that wealth can be destroyed just as it can be created. So if they truly dumped all their monry into the poor, since these people are for the most part people with bad monry habits, it would destroy most of the worlds wealth and put us all in poverty. Second, there wouldnt be even close to enough money to solve the problem long term anyway, at best it would fix the problem for a short time. The only way to fix the problem is to get the poor to have good money habits so thry become wealth generators rather than wealth destroyers, this is a complex problem to fix.
@freemo
You claim to create things out of nothing then? How logical is that? The cows need space and food. These are resources that you take away from other uses.
Having parents as directors, businesspersons, or prominent lawyers hardly counts as "middle class" or "poor".
So the fault lies with the poor having "bad money habits", not with them lacking the following proper: environment, housing, education, medication etc. Billions of "bad money habits"?! I find that insulting.
@cosas
I already explained how inventions that increase effiency essentially create out of "nothing" by creating more with less. That said yes there are also plenty of creations out of nothing, stories for example, yoga instructors, math equations, etc
@freemo
There is a law of conservation of energy and this universe is subject to it.
Stories, sports, equations--all these require investments of time, energy, research... standing on the shoulders of giants...
Creating a product or service means mobilizing all sorts of resources in that final product/service. One such resource is human labor. In capitalism, if that labor is correctly rewarded it is up the boss. Therefore, in capitalism, personal achievement is very much a matter of luck.
@cosas
Yup, thats true. You can be born i to poverty and have a shit deal in life. Nice thing about capitalism is it doesnt exclude social welfare and aid. So no reason you cant bave a capitalism that doesnt provide assistance to educate or train the poor. Europe is a prime example of that, virtually all countries in europe are some variation on capitalism and many of them provide free college or assistance to get people who cant afford it into college.
@freemo
Capitalism doesn't exclude social welfare and aid--that happens not due to inherent merits of capitalism! If it were completely up to the rich, the poor would only get as much as they "deserve" to be able to survive in order to bring profits to the former! All welfare and aids and improvements in work conditions happened because the oppressed organized themselves against the oppressors, not because of so-called kindness from the latter.
@cosas
Beleive it or not unlike communists who demand purity or else it cant "work" capitalists generally dont have that mentality. I, like most capitalists, are aware that idealistically pure governments dont abd cant exist. There is no pure capitalism, never had been, just as there is no pire communism and never has been and never will be.
What you do have are countries, like most of europe and america, that adopt capitalism but know that their governemnt is and should be far more nuanced and for a healthy government you have components in addition to a free market. Most understand capitalism is absolutely a requirement for a healthy government, but that isnt where things end its only where it begins. Having good welfare and social programs are part of a good capitalistic government as well.
@cosas
Also to be clear "if it were completely up to the rich"... That statement has nothing to do with capitalism. Capitalism by definition is free markets, a free market is one where all parties, regardless of wealth, have equal opportunities in the market.
@freemo@qoto.org @cosas@mastodon.lol
The US does suck right now though.
Common people aren't treated well. Profit is put before people's well-beings. Rich people are building rocket ships. The planet is dying because corporations won't stop burning fossil fuels. People are stuck in low-wage jobs that don't support them, and it takes up all of their time and energy.
That's all I've got to say. ☺️
There are plenty of problems with all governments around the world and the usa is no exception to that. But thankfully it is at least far better than the state of affairs in most communistic countries past and present. But yes plenty worth addressing.
@freemo @thebiologist1117
Here I can say that at least in some former socialist countries, some social problems like homelessness, lack of employment were non-existent. I lived in such a country and I describe it in my book, along with a proposal for a new type of socialism, one based on ethics, compassion and reason.
@cosas
Which country do you feel eliminated poverty without costing everyone else a decent quality of living at the same time? Lets not talk in vaguries if you think there has been a successful implementation of socialism lets dig into it.
Any government, whether it be socialism/communism or capitalism, when based in ethics and compassion will usually get you better results than a government that does t care about the welfare of its people. So i am certainly ok with considering the ethical side when designing our political landscape, i would demand it.
@thebiologist1117
@freemo @thebiologist1117
Which country eliminated poverty in a satisfactory manner? Well, short answer is none. I think all countries of the world failed miserably on this level.
So far, there are too many compromises. Even Cuba, the former Yugoslavia and even Romania, although each fared decently under "communism" (they never achieved it by the book), still had their shortcomings.
But each country has those! We should take the good things and remove the bad.
You specifically said:
> Here I can say that at least in some former socialist countries, some social problems like homelessness, lack of employment were non-existent.
Which specific communist countries did you mean?
@freemo @thebiologist1117
Cuba has no homeless and very low unemployment rate. I don't think former Yugoslavia stood worse. Never seen any homeless in Romania for the years I lived in it... Regarding the latter--all people had jobs. If you finished high school, you obtained a house from the state, where you paid a monthly "rent". This had the effect of buying the house for you eventually, after 20 years or so...
I'm not sure having no homless yet 26% living in abject poverty like conditions is a win. In fact I'd say thats a huge loss.
@freemo @thebiologist1117
Which country is referred to by that 26% abject poverty? Do you mean by "abject poverty" having less than 2$ a day per person or...?!
Please, let's try to define terms exactly, otherwise we get nowhere.
Cuba, 26% of cubans live in conditions considered to be poverty (based on living conditions). Keep in mind i used the lowest measurement typically used. Other measurements have cuba's poverty rate as being 50% or higher.
Being a communistic country it cant be evaluated in dollars owned, so the methods to derive these numbers come from looking at quality of life. As stated up to 50% or more of their people live a life equivelant to being below the poverty line.
Attached is a picture of what poverty in Cuba looks like. 26% - 50%+ of the population are living in these sorts of conditions.
@freemo @thebiologist1117
What is the source of your cited data?
As for that image, come on, such living conditions are in each country, depending on neighborhood and ethnicity. One could just as well photo/film a few American homeless living in cardboard boxes among bottles of alcohol and say, "That's America!"
The USA, however, has significantly fewer people living below the poverty line than cuba.
I specified a range of numbers and as such there are many varied sources for those numbers. The borgen project generally cites the lower end numbers, research journals and economists that have touched on the issue tend to cite much higher numbers for overall poverty (lower for house-hold poverty, though still consistently higher than in the usa). For example this source puts the poverty rate on the higher end of 51%: https://elestadocomotal.com/2018/08/10/contando-ricos-y-pobres-en-cuba-que-dicen-los-datos-disponibles/
Some other numbers to give you some ideas of how bad poverty in cuba is:
* Only 13% of the population has access to running water 24 hours a day, and only 16% of the population have "easy access" to water at all.
* only 50% of water pumped even makes it to homes, most is lost due to broken pipes
* 40% of homes are falling apart and deemed being in need of "major" repairs
* 35.6% are unemployed
Yea sorry but holding up Cuba as a shining example of ending homelessness was a pretty horrible choice.
@freemo @thebiologist1117
Sorry, I don't understand the language of your cited article.
This is a more recent source:
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate?continent=world
It seems, they are somewhat close to U.S. in terms of unemployment rate, and both above U.K.!
As for housing and water, Cuba has indeed its problems.
Still, many people might prefer to live even in such conditions than as a homeless, or in danger of being evacuated by a bank, or not knowing from which income they will pay a rent etc.
@freemo
We probably use different definitions of "capitalism" at this point. Mine has its roots in the animal world, where an individual's instinct and egotism attempt to prevail over the needs of others. And if we watch human history, we see that in action, the same vicious cycle of oppressors and oppressed, hunters and hunted...
The question is--are we in agreement that this inequality has to end, that we need a new type of economic and social relations?
If yes, then we can tackle free market
@freemo
We can tackle the free market as a concept, for its pros and cons, I mean.
@cosas
I use the accepted definition of capitalism, the one youll find in the dictionary. If you made up some other personal definition of capitalism then yes, no wonder you disagree.
@cosas
As for if we agree that oppressor and oppressed needs to end. More or less yes. Which is exactly why in against communism, it forces those who accomplish the most to be oppressed by those who accomplish the least. What i am for is capitalism, where a persons contribution dictates their wealth, but with a system of free education and training to ensure everyone had equal opportunity yo be a contributor and reap the rewards that go with it.
@Co
Its much more than that, as i dont think university is a particularly good way to learn most topics so i dont think people need to go if they are willing to learn on their own.
Its more about educating the population has a ROI well beyond the cost of educating them. A well educated society is better able to vote for good candidates and generate wealth which indirectly benefits everyone.
@cosas
@freemo
I haven't made up a personal definition! You haven't specified which dictionary definition you go by.
In short, capitalism = control of resources (processing of resources in the form of tools and machines is also a type of resource) by individuals, not by government.
Do we agree on this definition as the (re)start of our discussion?
@cosas Thats only part of the definition. There must be a free-market component where prices are determined by their natural supply and demand and where the market is not manipulated.
@freemo
Ok, so the definition is:
capitalism = control of resources by individuals, not by government; the individuals compete in a free market not manipulated by the government.
Is this right?
@cosas No free-market does not simply mean it isnt manipulated by the government, it means it isnt manipulated by anyone. So no price fixing by individuals or govt, no slavery, no threat of force, no insider trading, etc etc.
@freemo
Alright. We'll start here.
Let's assume nobody fixes prices and forces another person into a contract or a job. Does that mean each person is really free, economically speaking? How do we relate this context to that "natural default" you have once mentioned?
@cosas two random strangers trading property have a free market scenario in that exchange.
@freemo
Any two random strangers? Is each person economically free in the same way in that ideal free market context? Is that the "natural default"?
Sorry to repeat the questions, but the image must be made clear.
@freemo
The skill of that labor is also largely dependent on social, cultural, historical, economical etc. contexts!
When a person is born, he/she has no say in those contexts.
I wouldn't want a world where people are either left to die, or live in insufficient material conditions, just because some person of influence (who, by the way, has wealth that can feed entire countries) decides the former have low skill, therefore "low" value. Who would accept such a world? The answer is clear.