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[EuchreJack]

In this tread, I hereby declare that Capitalism is GOOD and Socialism is BAD.

You may now lodge your objections to these statements.

Eh, more title shenanigans. While most posters seem to like attacking capitalism and promoting socialism, the topics seem linked.

EDIT: Sadly, I can not be an impartial OP.  I actually own a business.  Socialism would take that away from me.  Thus Capitalism is GOOD and Socialism is BAD.

[MrRoboto75]

Must be why the US falls behind on every reasonable metric over any first world socialist country.  Education, life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality...

What do we beat them on, incarceration rate and military spending?  Sheer number of aircraft carriers by a literal order of magnitude?

[EuchreJack]

Population and accurate numbers are probably higher than your average socialist paradise.
Your argument could use more specifics.
C-

[MaxTheFox]

Population and accurate numbers are probably higher than your average socialist paradise.
Your argument could use more specifics.
C-

Population is irrelevant to quality of life, by that logic China and India are paradises. And what do you mean accurate numbers?

I have no reason to support large-scale capitalism, because I know the chance of me ever owning a large corporation is astronomically low and I'd benefit more from socialist policies even if they axe that minuscule chance.

[MrRoboto75]

Population and accurate numbers are probably higher than your average socialist paradise.
Your argument could use more specifics.
C-

Highest GDP in the world and you'll accept utter mediocrity from it.  It's alright even if we can't make top 10, not like we had the resources or anything.

[hector13]

Will you answer my question in this thread? :p

[martinuzz]

Socialism: All people are screwed.
Capitalism: but some are more screwed than others

[McTraveller]

Unfounded statement without first meaningfully defining "good" and "bad".

Even without that, though, I'd say that both capitalism and socialism have beneficial and detrimental components.

Education, life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality...incarceration rate...

These are not things directly rising from economic systems, but rather a combination of economic, cultural, and political systems.  Some of them have a stronger economic link than others.

Of course, those that think the US is purely capitalist or that any "first world socialist country" is purely socialist are incorrect in the first place.  All these countries have a mix of both aspects.

Also remember: statistics never lie, but they can be made to say whatever you want.

[Svarte Troner]

"Socialism is when government does stuff, and the more stuff it does, the socialister it is. If it does all the stuff, it's communism." - Carl Marks

[Maximum Spin]

Must be why the US falls behind on every reasonable metric over any first world socialist country.  Education, life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality...

... dude, none of these are actually true once you disaggregate. Do you really know so little about statistics? Pick just about any nationality you like, people from that nationality do better in the US than outside it. This is why, btw, despite its supposedly great educational system, the richest people in China go to great lengths to get their kids into American schools.

The US isn't a capitalist country anyway, of course. It's a mercantilist country, just like China.

[Frumple]

Must be why the US falls behind on every reasonable metric over any first world socialist country.  Education, life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality...

... dude, none of these are actually true once you disaggregate. Do you really know so little about statistics? Pick just about any nationality you like, people from that nationality do better in the US than outside it.

That's a wildly shit metric to use, though, and I'm not sure why the blazes you'd turn to it. Of course people able and willing to move to another country are largely going to do better than their less capable or fortunate peers, the same results probably comes regardless as to what country they move to. You're saying fuckall about the relevant national capabilities and everything about the capabilities of a specific demographic that manages international travel

[Svarte Troner]

Before we embarrass ourselves arguing over whether the US having the biggest military and police force ever makes them the most socialist country in history because those things are funded with taxes and socialism when govermint pay for thing, I would urge all who come to comment herein to take a looksee at the socialism wiki article. Especially the first sentence: "Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership."

If you really want to go down this dark and winding road, I think some terms are gonna have to be defined and their definitions agreed upon unanimously (pinned to the first post maybe) or everyone is just going to be talking past each other, arguing with strawmen, like every other internet conversation about socialism vs. capitalism.

[EuchreJack]

Will you answer my question in this thread? :p

At this point, you'll have to re-ask it.  But yeah, I'll see what I can do.

[hector13]

Shaq retired from basketball in ‘91 ‘cause of AIDS-related issues. no he didn’t the internet lied to me!

Capitalism can’t self-correct btw. Remember the the financial crisis in ‘08, and how the banks were all like “lol, too big to fail” and asked for fuck tons of government money? What was self-correcting about that?

...that was socialism.
Capitalism would have been to let the banks fail.
Thank you for proving my point.

What point was that exactly? That the better system, capitalism, would have allowed the banks to fail, meaning that - unless you have a mattress full of money somewhere - you effectively lose the ability to function in society: you can’t get paid unless it’s cash in hand, you can’t pay for anything unless it’s cash in hand.

This would have happened in at least every major nation in the world. Catastrophic global depression, at minimum.

So, to amend my question, what has been self-corrected in this specific example?

[EuchreJack]

Frankly, your "question" isn't a fair question.  You give an example of an incident where no self-correction occurred, then ask me how it was self-corrected.
So, no self-correction occurred due to the government bailout.  Although arguably, Capitalism funded the politicians that implemented the correction.

Note, if the system had been allowed to self-correct, then everyone with less than $100,000 in the bank would have been covered by their FDIC insurance.