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Old 01-07-2015, 05:22 AM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,025,295 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa View Post
Socialism as a system doesn't work.
Scandinavia trashes your theory.
Quote:
It creates no incentives for productivity.
Neither does our system. The more you work the more the fruits of your labours are taken from you. Income tax is a tax on production and sales tax a tax on trade. The last two things that should be taxed.

Look at this documentary. Mainly about the Japanese economic system after WW2. They ran a wartime economy in peacetime to great success. When they moved over to our speculative system, they failed. They printed money and created a bubble which always busts. The uSA printed money in the 1950s and used it to buy European corporations and large companies making the USA very rich - a bubble which eventually burst. Governments deliberately create depressions.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY
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Old 01-07-2015, 11:03 AM
 
4,454 posts, read 4,589,107 times
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re:
'Capitalism as a system doesn't work either. Such "incentive for productivity" as a piece of bread/roof over one's head ends up in upheavals. "Great depression" is yet another indicator of capitalism's shortcomings; capitalism is doomed, unless it's volunteerely combined with socialism'

Perhaos we can say that both 'isms' are tailored each and are comfortable residing in the countries of Europe, the U.S. and Russia. Of course there are positives and negatives to both.

My argument has always been that the flaw in Russian socialism is the fact that their orientation to the implementation of democratic reforms in their state mitigates improvement to their economic status. The fear to implement holds them back in seeing appreciable headway in making the Russian quality of life better and more prosperous.

As to 'socialism in the U.S. unfortunately we have the history of looking at it from a different perspective...probably the not-invented-here syndrome and also looking at who was doing the so-called 'socialism'. It really wasn't t our 'friends' you know?
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Old 01-07-2015, 02:34 PM
 
Location: London
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The problem with capitalism is that the top few percent appropriate all the commonly created wealth, which should be used to pay for all common services. This can be easily stopped.
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Old 01-07-2015, 04:26 PM
 
Location: Iowa
3,316 posts, read 4,101,038 times
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The difference between capitalism and socialism, with capitalism the corporations control the government, whereas with socialism the government controls the corporations. Socialism works better in smaller countries that have a more capitalist past, with a highly educated population where 90% of the people prefer work over welfare. It never works well in third world countries trying to jump start a failing economy, capital must be built first, before socialism is introduced.

With socialism, it sometimes gets rediculous how much tax is added onto what we consider to be everyday items in America taken for granted, such as gasoline, automobiles, luxury/energy and sin tax items such as tobacco, alcohol, utility bills, can be outrageous in a socialist country, and dampen the overall economy severely if not kept in check.

One thing that would help the capitalist/socialist economy in times of distress would be to have all state/federal workers salaries and pensions "floating" with government tax revenue collected for any given year. If state revenue contracts by 10%, then salaries and pensions will contract by that amount for EACH state worker/benefactor check until the economy recovers. This reduces public debt while retaining public services, where cops and teachers do not have to be fired because of budget cuts. I think socialist countries benefit from having fewer lawyers.

So getting back to the fall of the USSR, I would like to condense the reasons into a short but plain and simple truth, they fell because the USA writes the songs that make the whole world sing, we write the songs of love and special things.....
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Old 01-07-2015, 06:46 PM
 
13,945 posts, read 14,835,246 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by erasure View Post
Absolutely not.
Whatever were the reasons behind the fall of the Soviet Union, the "nationalities question" was never one of them.
During the one and only free referendum in 1991 on the future of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority of people VOTED FOR preservation of the Union.

Soviet Union referendum, 1991 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Baltic countries ( Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania) wanted OUT of the union, because they remained de facto post-war occupied countries.
No matter what official propaganda would love you to believe, the Union of Soviet Republics (even if they were former "Soviet") was dissipated AGAINST THE WILL of their people. It was dissipated because the US government wanted this to happen. "Democracy" counts only when it serves American interests, not someone else's interests.
The Caucasus were no fans of the Soviets, the Soviets (Russians) had to invade Azerbaijan to keep them from violently rebelling.
Not to mention the entire eastern Bloc under the Soviets thumb fell apart spectacularly in about 4 months.
There was some resistance to the break up, largely in Belarus, and Ukraine, and a few of the Central Asian Republics, but by and large freedoms allotted by Gorbachav blew open the nationalism fermenting for 60 years.
Not to mention that The Baltic States, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova boycotted the vote.
Also the question was asked with a condition that there would be freedom for everyone, that reform never was realized, so it disintegrated.
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Old 01-07-2015, 09:57 PM
 
26,750 posts, read 22,271,337 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by btownboss4 View Post
The Caucasus were no fans of the Soviets, the Soviets (Russians) had to invade Azerbaijan to keep them from violently rebelling.
Russia itself was "violently rebelling" against the "Soviets."
Have you heard about the Civil war after the revolution?
Quote:
Not to mention the entire eastern Bloc under the Soviets thumb fell apart spectacularly in about 4 months.
That has got nothing to do with Soviet Union per se and nations that were living side by side in it.

Quote:
There was some resistance to the break up, largely in Belarus, and Ukraine, and a few of the Central Asian Republics, but by and large freedoms allotted by Gorbachav blew open the nationalism fermenting for 60 years.
Nothing was "fermenting" there. However by the end of the Soviet system the local "elites" decided that if their republics would go their separate way, somehow they'd be so much "richer" and "westernized" being away from Russia. This sentiment, however, was not shared by the "average Joe" of these republics, ( as the vote showed,) and these people were right. That's number one, and number two - there were no "large freedoms alloted by Gorbachev" as the Westerners would love to believe. It was carefully managed restructure of the Soviet system ( or so Gorbachev hoped.) And precisely the absence of "large freedoms" and Gorbachev's hypocrisy was the reason why people ousted him from power and replaced him with Yeltsin.
Quote:
Not to mention that The Baltic States, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova boycotted the vote.
The attitude of "Baltic states" towards Russia ( plus Western Ukraine) was a well-known fact throughout Soviet times, so there was nothing new there. It were the lands occupied as the result of the WWII, so quite predictable situation.
Armenians and Georgians always felt that they were more "deserving" and more "European" by nature than Russians themselves, totally forgetting that they owed their "Europeannes" to Russians, because historically speaking Russia was the country that saved them from destruction by their Islamic neighbors.
By now these two have learned how much Europe/USA are really *interested* in them.

Quote:
Also the question was asked with a condition that there would be freedom for everyone, that reform never was realized, so it disintegrated.
As I've said, nothing "disintegrated" on its own. The dissipation of the Union has been orchestrated by the US government against the will of the people who lived in that Union.
The "fermenting" state of relations between the races - the kind I see in the US, was not a case in the Soviet Union.
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Old 01-07-2015, 10:20 PM
 
26,750 posts, read 22,271,337 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by travric View Post
re:
'Capitalism as a system doesn't work either. Such "incentive for productivity" as a piece of bread/roof over one's head ends up in upheavals. "Great depression" is yet another indicator of capitalism's shortcomings; capitalism is doomed, unless it's volunteerely combined with socialism'

Perhaos we can say that both 'isms' are tailored each and are comfortable residing in the countries of Europe, the U.S. and Russia. Of course there are positives and negatives to both.
In all honesty I don't see anything "tailored" in today's Russia, other than cut-throat capitalism.

Quote:
My argument has always been that the flaw in Russian socialism is the fact that their orientation to the implementation of democratic reforms in their state mitigates improvement to their economic status.
Sorry I can't understand it.
Elaborate pls.
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Old 01-08-2015, 04:10 AM
 
Location: London
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mofford View Post
The difference between capitalism and socialism, with capitalism
Socialism is a capitalist system, Communisim is not. Such is the confusion in the USA.
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Old 01-08-2015, 04:29 AM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,025,295 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by erasure View Post
In all honesty I don't see anything "tailored" in today's Russia, other than cut-throat capitalism.
No. They have have moved to a form of fascism, where the corporations control and hoard the wealth. The top 1% are stinking rich while the rest grovel.

On the breakup of the USSR a team of economic advisers went there to guide them. The country was in great state to step up to the next step. No one owned anything. They told them not to sell common assets like land, natural resources, etc, and have all the "economic rent" (commonly created wealth) and revenue from natural resources pay all common services eliminating income and sales taxes. Of course the greedy at the top did not and wanted a USA type of system that meant they would be stinking rich and pull the strings of the politicians.
"Many of the workers in Walmart end up getting Medicaid, they get food stamps, they get affordable housing paid for by the taxpayers of this country while the Walton family remains the wealthiest family in America. If that is not obscene, I don’t know what is."
- Senator Bernie Sanders

"the Walton family's wealth equals the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families."

"The richest 400 Americans are worth more than the poorest 150 million Americans combined and those in the bottom 60 percent only hold 1.7 percent of the nation's wealth.
- Senator Bernie Sanders
If you think western capitalism serves all the people, you had better look in depth at the flawed system, and look hard. You are being ripped off big time.
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Old 01-08-2015, 04:43 AM
 
Location: Berwick, Penna.
16,214 posts, read 11,249,658 times
Reputation: 20827
Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
The problem with capitalism is that the top few percent appropriate all the commonly created wealth, which should be used to pay for all common services. This can be easily stopped.
They don't "appropriate" anything; great wealth accumulates wherever a new idea even a relatively minor adjustment to an existing one, creates demand, often with hype fashioned on Madison Avenue or in Hollywood.

If you don't think much of the folly, blame the fool, not the person who sustains his/her lifestyle via other people's short-sight (Unless, of course, that exploitation is sustained by the state's legal monopoly on the power to coerce.)

On the other end of the scale, you can get by one relatively little little wealth, if your tastes are simple and don't involve heavy demands on other people's time and attention.

There are other flaws in the system, of course; heavy demands through no fault of one's own (health care, for example) but the answer lies in risk management -- which can be administered by the private sector just as well, if not better, than the public (which has a natural inclination to bureaucratize and seek power, rather than efficiency).

The capitalist model is risky, but the socialist model is stagnant. I'll opt for the former and find my own path to security, thank you.
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