Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

As one of the resident liberal capitalists, I agree.

Capitalism needs guardrails and checks to prevent the destruction of the environment, the trampling of workers, and the suppression of competition.

But, with those balances in place, I believe it’s a very good system.

I mean if you’re just looking at death tolls between Communism and Capitalism, it should be noted that by the same standards The Black Book of Communism uses to count “Deaths under Communism” means Communism has killed in its entirety (“rough approximation” of “around” 100 million) what Capitalism kills every couple years/decades.

They both suck.

@Background Pony #01F8
How would you define democratic socialism here?

@Latecomer
A democratic system where either directly or indirectly the economy is managed by “scoiety” and/or businesses are worker owned or managed by the government. It gets messy of course because you can have an economy where technically the businesses are owned by private ownership, but due to regulations they aren’t really privately run. In a capitalist society you could have businesses run as worker owned coops. I’m actually with Zincy on this, the two of us may disagree on what regulations are best, but I don’t believe in an Ancap society.

@Dustcan
These comparisons are a bit dishonest though. Communists like to muddy it by fitting in things like war deaths as deaths by capitalism. This is of course ridiculous since it implies war wouldn’t have happened without capitalism, additionally looking at raw numbers, when more countries have been capitalistic for a longer period of time, simply adding up numbers of deaths is a joke. If you really want to get a look at whether the systems are successful you simply look at the communist countries throughout history. The Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba, East Germany and Eastern Europe in general, North Korea, Somalia, etc. etc.

The problems are twofold, in the attempt to establish a Communist regime you set yourself up for a totalitarian regime, it’s practically made to end up like that. Second, the system practically requires oppression, this is why it fails at the macro level. The people not in line with the people’s revolution need to be corrected. Democratic socialists do reject a lot of this, but since we’ve never really given it a run we don’t know how this will be in practice.

Finally, the argument that those countries weren’t true communists is a total meme. You don’t get to define communism as a utopia then when it fails simply say it wasn’t communism because it was bad. It was bad because of the attempt to reach “true communism”.

@Background Pony #5208
It seems like that definition fits fuzzily between communism and capitalism. Can you give any actual examples?

@Latecomer
I can’t. I’m not aware of any democratic socialist countries. You’re right that it is fuzzy, personally I don’t recognize democratic socialism as it’s own thing. I see it as a rebranding of socialism. It gets fuzzy because of the way governments can run the economy. You can imagine a country claiming to be capitalist because most of the market is privately owned and operated, but it’s so heavily regulated that the government is indirectly running it. The hard part is most of the things I see democratic socialists wanting would work fine in a capitalist society. You can have worker owned companies in capitalism, you can have minimum wages and a social welfare system.

I mean that’s kinda the point. In every “Communism v Capitalism” argument the Black Book of Communism will eventually get cited, except the thing is filled with any excuse to bloat the number of deaths. Any war where one side was Communist gets added, starvation under Communist countries, poverty related deaths, etc. I mean, I’m all for that since I’m in no hurry to defend Communism’s, but just saying on the singular basis of death toll by the book’s own standard it doesn’t end well for Capitalism.

It’s best to argue on a different metric between the two.

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5 and 1/4 years. We’re almost getting impressive with these sentences for traitors.

@Background Pony #5208
I think it might be a matter of perspective. If regulations are seen as burdensome impositions to be kept minimal, capitalism - if they’re an essential balance to the rapacious nature of the market, social democracy. And there are other factors, like the governments willingness to give “handouts” or provide as tax-funded public services what might be sold on the market elsewhere.

National Divorce trending.

No the United States isn’t suffering a National Divorce Majorie Taylor Greene. If you want to explain this even further don’t use California as an example.

@Latecomer
The problem I run into with that is that regulations should always be kept minimal as to not become too burdensome, but people regularly disagree on what too burdensome is. Similar with how some tax funded services we have now could be handed by the market. I’m not saying people can’t disagree on the extents of all this, just that since it’s so fuzzy a person could say a country is a capitalist country, while someone else could say it is a democratic socialist country.

Wouldnt matter even if we were. If folks want to divorce they should be able to divorce. The state shouldn’t stick its dick so far into people’s relationships in the first place that divorce becomes odious.

@Background Pony #5208
I think if you personally focus on how burdensome regulations are rather than how rapacious unregulated capitalism is, it’s clear which side you’re on at least.

@Zincy
She’s talking about a National Divorce.

Something about a National Divorce sounds familiar to me, I can’t place my fingers on it but it sounds like a Civil War, something something something try to start the shit by blaming California.

@Latecomer
It would be clear where your personal bias is, but that’s not a way to define a socioeconomic system.

So where does this thread stand on “Communism v Capitalism” exactly?

in other news, Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of sex trafficking.

@CaptainXtra
When pushed the extremes they both suck.

@CaptainXtra
Communism is a shit system. Always has been, always will be, and the only place it belongs is burning in hell.

@lonewolf
And capitalism isn’t?

@Latecomer
I think capitalism is the cause of like 80% of all human suffering in the last 500 years. I think. Not sure about what the actual percentage is.

My position is well known and established.

@Zincy
What’s your position on Cuba?

@CaptainXtra
Isn’t the US under the misguided belief that it should own Cuba? And isn’t it true that Israel is the only country that agrees? Now I see why the US puts so much money into its military…

@Wiimeiser
I think it wouldn’t mind not owning it nowadays as long as the communist Castro regime (which many voting Americans fled from and hate) is not in charge amymore.