This observation seems to hold true no matter the time or place:
"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."
The combine of government/corporate control of information isn't so great either.
“Interlocking directorates, revolving doors of personnel and financial stakes and holdings connect the corporate media to the state, the Pentagon, defense and arms manufacturers and the oil industry.” [0]
People move to places with economic opportunity. That _tends_ to be places with free speech, but look at how many people move to places like Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
The total number of job opportunities in two countries over the span of the ~50 years they have been major oil producers is necessarily less than the number of opportunities available in an entire continent + one of the largest nations in the world over a period of centuries.
Almost 90% of the UAE’s population consists of migrant workers. The U.S. can’t get anywhere near that. Since people flock to countries with free speech, then the UAE must have extremely free speech laws. QED.
Of course this is as wrong as your original claim because seeing where people migrate is not a reliable indicator of whether their destination has “free speech” or not.
> You have a choice with that. Corporations cannot stop you from publishing your own blog.
Indeed, in America both myself and Rupert Murdoch are free to start a news media operation. I’m sure the journalistic merits of our respective works (and not how much capital and media connections we each have available to us) will determine our success in the free marketplace of ideas.
Of course state-run media will tend to publish propaganda in support of the government, but media is not a binary choice between Pravda and Fox News/MSNBC. It is naive to think that the current media landscape consists of each individual rationally selecting articles from all available blogs and news sites - we get most of our news from the places that have money to publish/research/advertise their stories, which is almost always (in the U.S.) done by private corporations.
Many articles about current events found on news aggregators such as HN tend to be by these sources not because of some hidden conspiracy but because these are the stories with the most visibility.
People complain of shadow bans, the amorphous algorithm pushing links away from the front page, comments getting eaten, and all sorts of supposed control on Hacker News every day.
How much advancement was because of a corporation? Versus some engineer/scientist that just got a 5% bonus that year, while the discovery netted billons.
The factories that lifted billions out of poverty weren't created by the scientist that got a 5% bonus. They were created by corporations. Things could be better. They're better than ever before though.
Money is inanimate, it can't actually do anything by itself. It takes labour and resources to realize an idea, and money is one way to control how labour and resources should be directed. This is why money (capital) equates to power.
As a result, under capitalism, those with more capital have more power to generate more capital, leading to a feedback loop that concentrates capital.
They are ruled by an avowedly Marxist (state-capitalist) government, who have lifted hundreds of millions from abject poverty, in the largest economic miracle of our lifetimes.
I'm not saying it was pristine. But you make an extremely poor case against Marx, or the negative effects of US imperialism on the global poor.
Practically all of Chinas economic growth was after and due to economic liberalization that welcomed corporations into the country. China is easily the best example of how much more economically effective markets and property rights are than central planning and state owned everything. Their dumbass government literally starved tens of millions of people because of their ill advised central planning attempt
I'm rather a fan of the BBC and not aware of anything particularly equivalent to it in the US. I have certainly seen the immense degradation that private ownership has had on the half century journalistic career of my mother however - she's extremely skilled as a reporter, but is basically reduced to a few soundbites between songs and commercials and a few weekend shows that I suspect are to fulfill an FCC mandate.
NPR has gotten worse in the last decade I'll give you that. PBS has always seemed unbiased to me. PBS newshour is easily the least biased new program in the US.
Modern capitalism has a lot of socialism in it. Socialized fire dept, sewage, roads, police, in most cases socialized healthcare, in the US they socialize bank & auto corporation losses whenever there's a recession, etc etc.
Fire departments, police and roads aren't "socialism". They are not the means of production and are not industry in any sense other than a desire to lay claim to successes that socialism itself doesn't possess.
Healthcare is most definitely producing goods. People will consume it much over their needs if it is free. A fire department or police are not, people will not call the fire department for the fun of it, only if there is fire.
That said, healthcare is definitely a troubling one because its interests do not align particularly well with a profit-driven model. It should probably have some kind of halfway model to discourage overt usage while ensuring people get healthcare in the scope they need it even if they have a bad financial situation. I don't have a good answer for it.
If only there was some sort of organization, beholden to the people by democratic election, which was obligated to protect and provide what does not particularly align well with a profit-driven model (military, roads and public transportation, fire & police services, sewer and water systems, GPS and weather reporting), to provide this other thing that does not align particularly well with a profit-driven model... hmm...
everywhere it's been done universally and not under/defunded for electoral reasons, the combined economy of scale/standardization, removal of $100Bn+ middleman industries and cheap proactive preventative care saving on expensive emergency treatments more than completely negate the "people going to the doctor for funsies" cost
I was speaking on behalf of the US in this instance, I do not believe the US GOV is capable of pulling a working public healthcare program for their scale.
Yeah... if it wasn't for examples around the world of "publicly owned" healthcare being absolute dog shit.
IE: the VA.
The VA is publicly owned healthcare for our nations heros and how are they treated? They kill themselves in the parking lot waiting to get treated.
Look at any public option around the world and you'll see okay results to start with... with long wait times, rationing, lower outcomes, etc as it ultimately fails.
I wouldn't wish the VA on my worst enemy and you're blind - purposely or religiously - if you don't see the massive problems with systems like it.
People don't run from Socialist/Communist countries because they are successful. Quite the opposite.
> Yeah... if it wasn't for examples around the world of "publicly owned" healthcare being absolute dog shit.
> IE: the VA.
My family's experience with the VA has been better than private healthcare. I am not a veteran, so I've been paying ~500 premiums for awhile to get a similar level of care to the veterans in my family. They do live in California and Minnesota, which are considered liberal states.
I stay away from the VA for all the reasons listed above. You could argue it's better than nothing but the fact remains that on aggregate private is better unless you are healthy (AKA: don't need it) and only care about free (aka: better than nothing).
Doesn't take too much googling to see that the VA suffers all the halmarks of why to not trust Government owned and operated options. And it's not getting any better with the current dysfunction of the government due to poor leadership from the top down and deep division as people ignore facts and history to support a religion that says socialism is good - despite the facts.
So again... I wouldn't wish the VA on my worst enemy even if you know a couple people lucky enough to not be fucked over by Uncle Sam.
Yeah a lot of these government programs do bear the hallmarks of 40 years of management dependent on people sworn to defund, dismantle and obstruct any efforts to improve or reform them, who promised their constituency they were dysfunctional and whose (re)election campaigns depend on failing programs to hold up and point at.
Would you invest in a company where half of the board was filled by people who swore that the very existence of companies like that was immoral bordering on tyranny, and that they were going to shrink the corporation down to the size where we could drown it in a bathtub? That sounds like a stock with a pretty poor long term outlook.
The religion right now kind of goes the other way: Government by democratically elected representatives is evil. Government by autocratic CEOs beholden only to an elite group of investors is good.
It's weird seeing so many (former? ostensibly?) freedom loving people suddenly swearing things like the country is going to die unless we take the right to vote away from people and give it to property (landowners).
"sword to defund, dismantle and obstruct" Which begs the question: Why is that a bad thing? Look at all the programs that are grossly mismanaged, underperform, destroy rights, etc. Look at the ever increasing public debt load for those programs with those problems. Look at the ever increasing tax demands as layers and layers of more taxes exist to punish those who do and reward those who do not.
"would you invest in a company" would you invest in a company who has no rewards to improve and instead is literally rewarded for being stagnant AND who controls a vertable army to enforce being part of the company? IE: The IRS that has hired tens of thousands to "get the rich" ( not really the rich... just the middle class which is the hardest hit by increasing taxes and enforcement of massive tax hikes)
"it's weird seeing" I'm a middle of the road person so you trying to strawman me into being a blank supporter of untrammeled CEOs isn't going to stick. Government must exist but it should be small enforcing reasoanble rules on companies which should also be small. The majority current federal government shouldn't exist (IE: the Medicaid/Medicare Ponzi Scheme) and a fair number of large corporations should be broken up (IE: blackrock, microsoft, etc).
No one says "give voting rights to property"... but people like you seem to think that states like CA should control the rest of the country out of sheer numbers. Idaho shouldn't be controlled by CA and vice versa. If the federal gov wasn't an overgrown cess pool we wouldn't have the do-or-die elections where corrupt pieces of shit like Joe Biden controls way more than any President should control. If we had limited government then the leadership choices would be what they were 40 years ago.
Complaining about Freedom loving is also funny from someone who's ostensibly supporting Socialism/Communism. Those are the literal opposite of freedom loving as the only way those work is authoritarian dictatorships. The literal goal of socialism is to enslave the population based on 50%+1vote leaving the other 49% of population controlled. And again, this is based on historical evidence of what happens when Soc/Com gets implemented: Destruction of freedom.
There's tons of reasons why America isn't pure democracy and why it's a representative republic at the federal level. And it's not to give rights to "land"... it's to keep voting rights with those who deserve it - locals - and to limit the rights of the federal government to steal rights. All you have to do is look at the largest purveyor of disinformation during the "covid pandemic" to see the US government and why it can't be trusted with that much power. and why anyone who wants that much power in the hands of the federal government is ignorant of history and reality.
Hint: Those are capitalist countries with strong welfare policies. AKA: "democratic socialism". Capitalist infrastructures with tax and spend policies (until it falls from the weight and starts declining - IE: Austerity measures to cut programs when promises outstrip the money available)
Last I checked a serious conversation relies on understanding what Socialism is. Welfare states aren't Socialist countries.
Just like the US isn't a capitalist country because they don't have a private military. If all you see is black and white, you'll miss all the good stuff in between.
The US isn't PURE capitalism. no one claims they are - and nothing about capitalism dictates that EVERYTHING has to be "private". But the US is absolutely a capitalist country.
Military? not socialism. Neither are police or fire departments. so "but military" doesn't carry any real point.
And those countries? still aren't socialists countries. The US not having "private military" doesn't change that.
This isn't "black and white". This is "socialism is failure based on 100+ years of historical evidence". This is logic and evidence. As I said, those are capitalist countries with strong welfare policies. This is also basic definition of socialism which isn't "the government does stuff".
The impulse to quantify like this is always fascinating to me in positions like this, as if the only thing a person can muster for a rebuttal is an appeal to some kind of vulgar, assumed utilitarianism. Where are the true believers anymore? Can the ultimately existential nature of humanity really only be of the form "worse-than/better-than"?
People treat the whole world as if they are choosing the right laptop!
OK, here's a non-utilitarian answer: People really like owning and controlling their own stuff. (I suppose you could make that a utilitarian statement, by saying that "really like" means "valuing", but I think it's much deeper than that. It's pretty deep in human nature, from what we observe in almost all societies. So one could say that communism is literally contrary to human nature. You might be able to make it work, but you need different humans than the ones you have.)
This is what I always go back to, if it's so good for people, just do it voluntarily. Organizational problems only get worse at scale. And if people can't be convinced to take part in doing it voluntarily, rather than forcing others to take part, then how is it even going to work out anyway?
They're the exact same except socialism is a more "watered down" version.
Definitions:
> Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a wide range of economic and social systems which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.
> Communism is a political and economic ideology that positions itself in opposition to liberal democracy and capitalism, advocating instead for a classless system in which the means of production are owned communally and private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed.
In practice "Communism" means Leninism and its descendants, or occasionally revolutionary Marxism in general. No one reasonable would ever use it to refer to the likes of Olof Palme.
not in effective results. two sides of the same failed coin and both full of the same failed promises (promises made with different reasons but still the same promises).
Sloppy thinking is supporting either after 100+ years of proof that they fail on every level.
"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."