Except the foundation on which practical Capitalism can actually exist.
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Can you think out of the box: show that Capitalism REQUIRES Socialism :D
- Thread starter harrytrader
- Start date
Except the foundation on which practical Capitalism can actually exist.
Quote from Maxprofit$:
Socialist policies often create monopolies anyway, by government owned firms, by restrictive laws that make new creation of firms harder, by unions making hiring more complicated so they can keep their jobs and high salaries, by professional organisations trying to maintain scarcity in their field of expertise....
Yeah well the free education & healthcare arent bad perks. There are plusses and minusses in the socialist structures. It depends on the focus of the ones in charge, sometimes they are scum and sometimes they have a real drive to uplift the country.
Quote from Bolts:
Well I guess you could use the US govt breaking up AT&T or their treatment of Microsoft as examples. I think they both show characteristics of socialism, even if in America we happen to associate that sort of thing with Teddy Roosevelt and the right.
Bolts, we need to distinguish betweens approaches to the management of resources, and the function of government. We suffer from "fabian" or "creeping" socialism in this country. Private ownership protected, but government control over private property is achieved by progressive fiat regulation -- in effect, property rights are subsumed by the government. It's a dismal state of affairs and the net effect is that private enterprise breaks all the sweat and beaurocrats can claim the spoils almost at will.
I have to take exception to the statement about the open heart surgeon and the mechanic.
First I will admit my bias. I always chuckle to myself when people think that paralegals can do what lawyers do and real estate agents can negotiate contracts. These understudies can get somewhat compentent with experince but what the public does not know does not hurt them until they lose a lot. As a realtor and a lawyer, I promise you that if you spend a few bucks to have an experienced lawyer look at your deal. There is a very strong chance you will save money.
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But I will address the point. MY wife is a nurse practioner. with 11 years experience and a grad degree. Some hospitals allow her to function as a doctor. The nurses report to her and she makes decisions. She and a few of her collegues have been working like that for so long they make good "doctor" decisions most of the time. When they go to other less advanced hospitals they even know more than some of the doctors. She even has some collegues that are smart enough that they should have been doctors. And some of her confident collegues sort of think they are doctors.
That is until something goes wrong. That is where a doctors training across the many doctor disciplines makes a difference.
It is when things are outside the norm that you need talent, education and experience.
First I will admit my bias. I always chuckle to myself when people think that paralegals can do what lawyers do and real estate agents can negotiate contracts. These understudies can get somewhat compentent with experince but what the public does not know does not hurt them until they lose a lot. As a realtor and a lawyer, I promise you that if you spend a few bucks to have an experienced lawyer look at your deal. There is a very strong chance you will save money.
---
But I will address the point. MY wife is a nurse practioner. with 11 years experience and a grad degree. Some hospitals allow her to function as a doctor. The nurses report to her and she makes decisions. She and a few of her collegues have been working like that for so long they make good "doctor" decisions most of the time. When they go to other less advanced hospitals they even know more than some of the doctors. She even has some collegues that are smart enough that they should have been doctors. And some of her confident collegues sort of think they are doctors.
That is until something goes wrong. That is where a doctors training across the many doctor disciplines makes a difference.
It is when things are outside the norm that you need talent, education and experience.
Quote from Maxprofit$:
Socialist policies often create monopolies anyway, by government owned firms, by restrictive laws that make new creation of firms harder, by unions making hiring more complicated so they can keep their jobs and high salaries, by professional organizations trying to maintain scarcity in their field of expertise....
Think of medicine schools quotas and how hard it is to become a doctor. Like you really need that 95% average grade in school to tell someone he as the flu. A 80% would do as well. A car mechanic could be better than a bookworm to perform open-heart surgery since it is something that ask for good hands agility above all else.
Bad example. Physician scarcity exists to limit health care expenditures by govt. Once it was supposed that more physicians would mean more competition & lower prices. Didn't work out that way - health care costs skyrocketed. We now know that each physician, PA, NP is a cost center and creates health care expenditures! So, by limiting # of physicians created limits overall health care expenditures, as 50% of health care is paid by medicare/medicaid.
Its significantly more complicated than that, but inappropriate to post on this thread. I think your conclusions are ill conceived.
For any advanced profession that requires extensive education at significant expense (law, medicine, CPA,MBA, Ph.D.) & deferment of wage earning potential for many years, credentialing must be in place to protect these individuals' ability to recoup their substantial investments. Yes, you could allow immigration of doctors, lawyers, and accountants from other countries to depress prices, but then the degrees of these individuals wouldn't be worth the paper they are printed on and there would be NO incentive for anyone to acquire extra education in a traditional setting. Then, the educational complex would fail & the US university system would be dismantled. That's self-defeating.
Especially since all those blokes would probably end up here asking what stock they should buy with the $10K that their dad left them in his will.
"Bad example. Physician scarcity exists to limit health care expenditures by govt. Once it was supposed that more physicians would mean more competition & lower prices. Didn't work out that way - health care costs skyrocketed. We now know that each physician, PA, NP is a cost center and creates health care expenditures! So, by limiting # of physicians created limits overall health care expenditures, as 50% of health care is paid by medicare/medicaid. "
What you are describing are the dynamics of beaurocratic management insentives. IN a free market which we are not even close too, more doctors all else equal would equal more competetion and reduced fees.
WHen a third party is paying such as medicare, the insentives and market dynamic is destroyed. This creates "rationing" behavior such as limmiting doctors.
That is what we are suffering from in this country.
Govt. regulation snowballs, as one regulation creates a problem, 10 more regulations are needed to fix that problem, ect ect. it never ends untill the system nears the breakingpoint and a critical decision must be made.
What you are describing are the dynamics of beaurocratic management insentives. IN a free market which we are not even close too, more doctors all else equal would equal more competetion and reduced fees.
WHen a third party is paying such as medicare, the insentives and market dynamic is destroyed. This creates "rationing" behavior such as limmiting doctors.
That is what we are suffering from in this country.
Govt. regulation snowballs, as one regulation creates a problem, 10 more regulations are needed to fix that problem, ect ect. it never ends untill the system nears the breakingpoint and a critical decision must be made.
Quote from chasinfla:
The idea of "philosophical capitalism" is a waste of everyone's time.
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Right, but pragmatically, some sort of governance of capitalism is necessary to avoid the development of monopolies. It's common sense that without governance we would get the following economic evolution:
Capitalism - Monopolism - Plutocracy
Democracy would be supplanted by Plutocracy ( effectively, a collusion of monopolies )
Rule of Law without government involvement? Not possible. Who would enforce the law? Also, whoever could afford the best/most lawyers would Rule by Law. Government constraint on capitalism is necessary to the survival of freedom. Constraint is control; control is an element of ownership. What exists in the U.S. and in other western economies is a hybrid - a blending of tendencies to private and to community ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Neither capitalism nor socialism exists independently in the economies of the West. The location of the equilibrium point between the poles, capitalism and socialism, is the true crux of the matter. Too much capitalism, we drift into monopoly ( take a look at how Microsoft toys with the law! ); too much socialism, we diminish the drive to produce.
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socialism hijacks and holds hostage by force human creativity..
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If the economy is 100% socialism-saturated this is probably necessarily true. Who controls absolutely the economy controls everything else ( we get Stalin, Mao ), but as the degree of saturation lessens, the amount of freedom increases. Some degree of socialism is not a discouraging thing; consider the presence of a socialist element in an otherwise capitalist system an extension of the American checks-and-balances approach to power.
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It produces nothing.
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Hyperbole.
Quote from CoolTrader:
The title of this thread should be changed to: Capitalism requires Democracy, which protects the interest of most people. Capitalism without democracy can become a disaster.
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, than aristocracy or a monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence and cruelty."
John Quincy Adams - sixth President of the United States
Democracy in itself is an old system and we are ready for something else. What i don't know. But it should be a system where the leader as even less power than the elected president have in the present system. It's about reduction of powers invested in a single individual. None should have too much.
Establishing a market for votes. Ok i know that couldn't work. But it as one property, the individual who REALLY wants a law or something to pass could buy votes, those who don't really care could sell them. In the present system, the guy that does not care as the same weight as the one who thinks the issue is crucial, this is a flaw.
What is everyone view of socialism? As soon as it involves a law or a government it is socialism?? If so then the other way around is not capitalism, it's anarchy. I think socialism first and foremost is about redistribution, and the 1000s of good and bad ways to do it. Capitalism still need a government to provide public good (security etc), intervene where there are externalities (like pollution) or any other kind of market inneficiencies and make laws to protect people rights and make the system stable, there's still no trace of socialism in any of that.
So the question should be, does the sytem require any form of redistribution?
Establishing a market for votes. Ok i know that couldn't work. But it as one property, the individual who REALLY wants a law or something to pass could buy votes, those who don't really care could sell them. In the present system, the guy that does not care as the same weight as the one who thinks the issue is crucial, this is a flaw.
What is everyone view of socialism? As soon as it involves a law or a government it is socialism?? If so then the other way around is not capitalism, it's anarchy. I think socialism first and foremost is about redistribution, and the 1000s of good and bad ways to do it. Capitalism still need a government to provide public good (security etc), intervene where there are externalities (like pollution) or any other kind of market inneficiencies and make laws to protect people rights and make the system stable, there's still no trace of socialism in any of that.
So the question should be, does the sytem require any form of redistribution?