Forum Post: How To Make America Socialist And Get 100% To Go Along Including Republicans and Libertarians
Posted 12 years ago on April 21, 2012, 1:54 p.m. EST by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom
(3360)
from New York, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
HOW TO CHANGE SOCIETY AND GET 100% TO AGREE ON THE CHANGE
We can all 100% agree that we can never get everyone to 100% agree on how society should be organized.
You will never convince everyone to be Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or Socialist or Green.
And the whole concept of compromise is just as futile. The Right wants the opposite of what the Left wants. There is no room for compromise.
So what we wind up with are solutions that nobody is happy with. Republicans want a red society. Democrats want a blue society. But the only thing we ever get is a purple society. And nobody wants a purple society.
The whole system is ridiculous. We are all forced to live in a system that nobody wants. It doesn't satisfy anyone.
We actually live in a system where nobody wins!
So instead of trying to get everyone to agree on one monolith system that everyone has to live with, a much better solution is to just have multiple systems and give everyone the ability to choose which they want to participate in.
The Left can choose to participate in the socialist system, the Right can choose to participate in the capitalist system, and the moderates can choose the mixed system. Now, everyone wins.
Choosing the economic system you want to participate in should be as easy as choosing a cell phone plan. Just like you can have multiple, competing cell phone plans in a single geographic area, you should have multiple, competing economic plans in a single geographic area for people to choose from.
Choosing a different economic system shouldn't require you to move to another country or state. And choosing an economic system shouldn't mean you now have to force all your neighbors to participate in the same economic system you chose.
If we want a truly free country, everyone should have the freedom to choose the economic system they want to participate in. Nobody should be coerced into participating in an economic system they don't want; and, most importantly, nobody should be coerced into participating in an economic system that doesn't work for them.
We can have a country where you can choose to participate in a capitalist system and your neighbor can actually choose to participate in a socialist system. There is nothing preventing us from having multiple economic systems within the same geographic location.
And getting the country to adopt this should be easy. We will tell the Right, they can FINALLY have the EXACT economic system they want, but in exchange, you have to allow the Libertarians to have their anarcho-capitalist system, the Democrats to have their welfare capitalist system and the Socialists to have their system.
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WHAT ECONOMIC SYSTEMS SHOULD WE BE ABLE TO CHOOSE FROM?
There are essentially 4 primary ways you can organize an economic system depending on whether it is centrally planned or not and whether the means of production are privately or publicly owned: 1) Centrally planned socialist, 2) Market socialist, 3) Capitalist, 4) Mix of capitalism and socialism. If people want to participate in one of those economic systems and there is enough of them to support an entire economy, they should get their own economic system.
I know we have enough people in this country who would choose to live in at least 3 of those systems. So Americans should be given the choice between 3 different economic systems.
We could have a capitalist system which satisfies the desires of the conservatives, tea party, and libertarians of the Republican Right. This system would have minimal regulation, minimal or no taxes and full privatization. Roughly 40% of the population currently views this system positively. All of them are currently forced to live within a system they don't want.
We would also have a market socialist system which satisfies the desires of the Left and progressive wing of the Democrat party. In this system all businesses are democratically owned and controlled. There would be no privatization. Total income would be paid out to workers based on how hard you worked - to each according to their labor - so there would be minimal income inequality. Roughly 30% of the population currently views this system positively. All of them are currently forced to live within a system they don't want.
And we would also have a mixed economy with some capitalism and some socialism for all the rest of the people. This would satisfy the Left wing of the Republicans and the Right wing of the Democrats.
I do not think there is sufficient support for a centrally planned socialist economic system. But I could be wrong.
Of course there are many different variations even within those four categories. So there will still be democratic debate within each system in determining precisely how the system will work. But the differences between two conservative capitalists or two socialists are insignificant compared to the differences between a capitalist and a socialist.
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HOW IT WOULD WORK
The way it would work is you would just simply choose the system you want to participate in. Most cities would have a mix of all systems. So if you chose the socialist system, you might live next door to a neighbor who has chosen the capitalist system. And the companies in the city would be a mix of socialist and capitalist businesses.
If you were socialist, you would shop, dine and work at the socialist companies. And if you were capitalist, you would shop, dine and work at the capitalist companies. But just like an American can buy stuff from China, each economic system will trade with each other. So some of the things socialists buy will be from capitalist companies and vice versa. It would be treated just like imports/exports are treated today.
Initially, all cities would be a mix of all systems. But this does have some drawbacks since each system would then have to share common economic infrastructure like roads, water and police. So some future cities would likely be developed that were 100% socialist or 100% capitalist in order to better work with their economic system.
In order for an economic system to be viable it must be large enough to produce nearly everything on its own. Each system must be able to produce its own food, energy, raw materials, capital goods, consumer goods, transportation, medicine, education, electronics, housing, entertainment, communication, etc.
The US is so large that it can easily be broken up into 3 separate, viable economic systems. The US GDP is $15 trillion. If each system was an equal size, they would be $5 trillion per year each which is still larger than every country except China. They would still be larger than Japan, Germany, Russia, UK, Australia, Canada, etc.
Even if one of the economic systems was small, say only 10% of the country, that would still amount to $1.5 trillion which is still larger than countries like South Korea, Spain, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Norway.
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HOW TO BUILD THIS NEW SYSTEM
Since nearly every company in the US is currently privately owned, in order to make this idea work, we would need to build the socialist alternative. The socialist system would need to buy thousands of privately owned companies and launch thousands of new companies so that they have their own self-supporting economic system.
That would obviously require a substantial economic investment. But we have the money to make that investment. And since building the socialist system would finally enable conservative capitalists to live in their unregulated, fully privatized, zero-tax economic system, I believe they will be willing to back the plan that enables us to build the socialist system.
Let's say 1/3rd of the country wanted to join the socialist system. That would be a $5 trillion economy. In order to buy or launch enough companies to produce $5 trillion per year, you need to invest roughly $10 trillion. If you launched the new economic system over the course of 5 years, you would need to invest $2 trillion per year.
$2 trillion is a lot of money, but it would not be that big of deal to generate that kind of money through Fed loans and taxes. If half came from taxes, we could generate $2 trillion with just a 6.5% tax.
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WHY MOST WOULD BACK THIS PLAN
I think everyone would be willing to pay an additional 6.5% in taxes over the next 5 years in order to get the opportunity to finally live in the economic system they want. And this would only be a one-time investment to get the new system off the ground.
Certainly all the people on the Left who want to join the socialist system would be willing to pay the extra taxes for the next 5 years in order to build their system.
But I also think even those on the Right, including the most radical libertarians, would be willing to pay an extra 6.5% in taxes over the next 5 years to build a socialist system because in return they would be able to live in their capitalist nirvana forever without ever having to pay for another tax or socialist idea again.
Currently, the Right are NOT able to live in a Right system. Our current system is 30% socialist, has high taxes and vast regulations. This plan gives them the opportunity to finally live in a Right system with no or minimal taxes, no or minimal regulations and no socialism.
Our country will never, ever become the kind of country the Right wants to live in because we have a substantial Left population and they will never become a member of the Right.
So the Right currently has a zero percent chance of building a Right society. This plan offers them the chance to finally get to live in a Right society because it no longer depends on them converting the Left to the Right's ideology (an impossible task).
In order for them to get their Right society, they don't have to run political campaigns or get anyone elected or fund more think tanks or fund more propaganda media campaigns, all they have to do is agree to pay an extra 6.5% tax over the next 5 years to help build this new system.
The same goes for the Left.
So it is a win, win for everyone. Everyone would finally be free to live how they want.
What do you think?
This is interesting. I have never considered that I should have a civil right to choose the economic system I participate in. Personally, I like the idea. However, I see one fatal flaw in your premise that those of the 'right' would buy into this wonderful idea of personalized economical choice. The fatal flaw is this - the economical prowess of the right is built on the foundation that the few can exploit the labor of the many in order to build wealth. If people were allowed to opt out of their system, then who would be left for them to exploit in order to make their riches?
Those on the right are a lot of things, but they are not foolish. They already have exactly the system that they want. It is not my intention to come across negative about your idea. I favor the idea actually. Rather, I am highly cynical of the motivations of our right-leaning political friends to sincerely entertain any challenge to the status quo.
I actually do not think the right is that cynical. I think they firmly believe their system is superior and people would willingly choose it because it will give them better opportunities and a higher standard of living.
I think they are wrong. I think capitalism would never survive if people had the freedom to choose a socialist system since you will earn a lot higher income without the income inequality and it is more humane since it works well for everyone.
I never said I think the right is cynical. It is I who am cynical of the right. I think the right is full of bullies. We all know how, deep down inside, bullies are really afraid. They cover their fears through coalescing power and coercion. Why do we supposedly live in a free country and yet must bow to a dictatorship, accept a wage slave and other atrocities in order to obtain employment? With those factors in mind, I do not see how they would willingly allow the people they want/need to bully around to opt out. I think they will meet any ideas to live in a different manner with the same old response. If you don't like the way things are, go live somewhere else. Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly concur with your other conclusion that given a choice, capitalism would go by the wayside.
I disagree with your claim that the Right would not go for this. Here is why.
Their response of, "if you don't like the way things are, go live somewhere else" is a response to people on the Left forcing them to live in a Left system. They don't want to live in a Left system. So naturally, that is their response.
But I am not proposing that the Right be forced to live in a Left system.
Currently, the Right are NOT able to live in a Right system. Our current system is 30% socialist, has high taxes and vast regulations. What I am proposing is the opportunity for them to finally live in a Right system with no or minimal taxes, no or minimal regulations and no socialism.
Our country will never, ever become the kind of country the Right wants to live in because we have a substantial Left population and they will never become a member of the Right.
So the Right currently has a zero percent chance of building a Right society. What I am offering them is the chance to finally get to live in a Right society because it no longer depends on them converting the Left to the Right's ideology (an impossible task).
In order for them to get their Right society, they don't have to run political campaigns or get anyone elected or fund more think tanks or fund more propaganda media campaigns, all they have to do is agree to pay an extra 13% tax (there are ways we can actually do it for half that) over the next 5 years to help build this new system.
If I was a tea partying member of the Right, I would take that deal in an instant.
It does sound like a win-win situation. I know I find the idea enticing. America 2.0.
"choose a socialist system since you will earn a lot higher inome without the income inequality and it is more humane since it works well for everyone." I would like you to name one country that fits this description in human history. Maybe I'm wrong but I cant think of one socialist system that worked.
You are not wrong. There were never any countries that were fully socialist. But nearly every country has some socialism and those socialist companies work as well, if not better, than capitalist companies.
If you look at the US, they have NASA, NIH who does most of our medical research, military, DARPA, colleges, schools, hospitals, garbage collection, fire, police, they are mostly well run companies that contribute to our progress at least as much as capitalist companies do.
Norway has more socialism than any other developed country and they have the most productive workers in the world by a very large margin. Worker productivity in Norway is $80/hour compared to $65/hour in the US.
The question of who would be available to be exploited cuts both ways. Who would pay for the public assistance programs in the left system? The high earners won't want to participate in that, so the left system will end up with all of the welfare recipients but none of the taxpayers. How is that supposed to work?
By left system are you referring to the socialist system?
If so, there is no tax on the wealthy to pay for the poor in a socialist system. Since everyone is guaranteed a high paying job, you don't need welfare programs. There are no poor.
Where would the money come from to pay for all of those guaranteed high-paying jobs, if all of the rich people aren't participating in that system and aren't paying taxes into it?
In a socialist system, workers aren't paid from taxing the wealthy.
The total income in the economy is simply allocated to each according to their labor. Income is allocated according to a plan where differences are limited to just what is necessary to get people to do difficult jobs and give their maximum effort.
In the US, GDP is $15 trillion. So that means we have $15 trillion in income to allocate. That $15 trillion would be divided among all the workers according to the compensation plan. If the top earners got paid 4 times more than the bottom earners, everyone would be paid from $115k to $460k. It has nothing to do with taxes.
How are you 'allocating' everybody's income without taxing people? What is your fictional government's revenue stream, if not a tax base?
All companies are publicly owned. So for the sake of understanding how income is allocated, think of the economy as one large company that generates $15 trillion in revenue. That company is going to use its $15 trillion in revenue to pay all its workers. It will pay out that $15 trillion according to a plan that the workers democratically approve and since workers are getting paid to each according to their labor, the law will limit differences in income in that plan to only what is necessary to get people to do difficult jobs and give their maximum effort.
So the revenue stream is the sales every company generates.
Well firstly, the socialist side would only have $7 trillion. Half of US GDP. And that's assuming that they're as productive as the capitalist side, which is not necessarily assured.
Secondly, GDP is not the total of all revenue generated by all business in the country. There are three different ways to measure GDP and that's not one of them.
Thirdly, once your socialist government pays the entire revenue of every company in the whole country to the people, and then doesn't levy taxes, where is it going to get money next year to pay people? If I get paid $460k per year and I invest $100k of it, then I just took a big chunk of money out of circulation. So how will I get paid the same the next year if everybody is doing the same thing?
One of the ways to measure GDP is called the income approach which is just adding up total income:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdp#Income_approach
So GDP is a measure of the total income paid out per year in the economy.
All the income that gets paid out eventually gets spent. The income you spend is new revenue in the economy which is used to pay you income again.
Money constantly circulates in the economy. Every dollar gets paid as income then spent at companies which they use as revenue to pay you income again. This cycle constantly repeats forever.
It has nothing to do with taxes.
Even the money you invest gets spent by the people you made the investment with.
Keep in mind, however, that you most likely would not invest your personal money in a socialist system since you cannot earn a return from it. You can only earn income from labor.
But we still need to invest. So the money banks use for investment comes from whatever the natural savings rate is in the economy. Not everyone spends 100% of their income as soon as they get it. The money that is not spent is available for investing.
If the natural savings rate is too low, the central bank will just levy a sales tax on business. This will enable the central bank to take a percentage of the revenue of each business and add that to the total investment funds.
I think we have gone over this dozens of times in the past.
But you can learn more about how a socialist system works in this post:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/1-replace-capitalism-with-democracy/
"All the income that gets paid out eventually gets spent." Not true. The money that people save doesn't get spent. So if I save a third of my income, and everybody else also does, then the entire system will have a third less money the next year. That's going to lead to a spiral, because people will be more motivated to save their money this year if they think that they might earn less next year.
You're also continuing to ignore the issue of inflation. If incomes range from $115k to $460k, then $115k will become the new poverty line. A soda from a machine will cost $10, unless the government sets prices on everything. Dozens of people have pointed this out to you in the months that you've been repeating this guaranteed income for all idea.
When you save money, that saved money gets loaned to somebody else as an investment. That somebody else will spend that borrowed money. So all money will be spent.
If everyone saved a third of their income and everyone wanted to continue working full-time, then a third of GDP will be spent on investment. That is not going to happen. But if it did, that would be the result.
You don't understand GDP, you don't understand how money circulates, you don't understand savings, and you don't understand investment, what makes you so sure you know anything about inflation?
If all we did was increase the minimum wage to $115k, that would cause inflation. But that is not what we are doing. We are also lowering the top pay from hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to just $465k. The amount we are reducing the top pay is exactly equal to the amount we are increasing the minimum pay. The net result is no increase in price on average. This is math 101.
If you have a $15 trillion economy and you only pay out $15 trillion in income, it is mathematically impossible to have inflation. How is the economy going to inflate beyond the $15 trillion if only $15 trillion is being spent? It can't. It is impossible.
If dozens of people who were clueless on geology 101 told me the earth was flat, I wouldn't believe them either.
Wow.
Wow, what?
"The net result is no increase in price on average."
You're hilarious. You really do seem to believe what you're saying. Thanks for the entertainment. Good night.
Yes, I do believe in math.
$15 trillion = $15 trillion
The only way to inflate a $15 trillion economy is if you had more than $15 trillion to spend.
Paying out $30 trillion in income in an economy that only produces $15 trillion in goods and services would cause inflation.
But paying out $15 trillion in income in an economy that produces $15 trillion in goods and services would not cause inflation.
I don't know why you find it so difficult to grasp how inflation works.
You know, this already happens, but every time the left-wing gets together and creates a decent place to live, the right-wing then flood in and ruin it.
That is only because no country ever gave its citizens a choice between multiple competing economic systems. If a country was socialist, it forced all of society to comply with its socialist system, including the right-wing who have no interest in socialism.
If a country had both socialism and capitalism, the right-wing can just choose the right-wing system, without having to convert the entire country to its right-wing ideology.
Choosing an economic system should be like choosing a cell phone plan. Citizens should have a choice.
Only if we could get an anarchism section, but oh wait, we wouldn't leave the rest of you guys alone anyway (as soon as we heard about some insanely stupid and inhumane event, which is inevitable if the other three sides are stuck with different variations of the same shit we have now, we'd be piling over the boarder to protest) :)
What I am advocating here is the ability to have different economic systems. Anarchism is the absence of government, so that would be something completely different. We would not be able to have an anarchist section unless the entire country went anarchist or a part seceded.
Well, how about this, you guys just slice us off a chunk (which must include NYC, actually come to think of it, we'll need the entire northeast, pacific northwest, and Cali, you guys can quibble over the rest) :)
Yeah, and the Red state in the middle who get all a huge economic support from the Blue states can learn to live on their survival rations!!!
So you guys get the good parts and we get the rest? lol
You guys still get Texas, the midwest (plenty of fertile farmland), Alaska (with all its resources), and the south. But I'm a reasonable guy, so I propose a concession. We'll take the independents (and you guys can have our political partisans), and then it's only a three way split. The socialists can have the northern part of the middle of our country, the conservatives the south (so they won't have to move) :)
Because Socialism is so great. Let's not forget about the defaulting of the Euro and horrible shit storm of their economy's.
Europe is a predominantly capitalist economy, not a socialist society. There are no recessions or depressions in socialism. They only happen in capitalism.
Well if it only happen in Capitalim then why is our currency not defaulting and our economy on the brink of a complete and utter collapse?
Our economy is on the brink of collapse because it is a predominantly capitalist economy.
Like I said, there are no recessions or depressionss in socialism. They only happen in capitalism.
Ya but it's pretty obvious by looking at Europe now that an entire currency can default from it.
That is capitalism, not socialism.
Link please that says socialism never has a depression or recession. Not YOU saying it but firm proof.
You don't understand socialism and capitalism if you don't understand that you cannot have a recession in socialism.
In socialism there is zero unemployment. You are guaranteed a job.
Recessions are caused by unemployment. People lose their jobs and don't have money to buy good and services. The lack of buying causes more businesses to fail which increases the unemployment which causes even more businesses to fail, which creates even more unemployment, etc.
Recessions and depressions are not caused because we ran out of materials or ran out of energy or ran out of labor. It is because the system we use for matching consumers with producers is idiotic.
Without unemployment, recessions wouldn't happen.
No link. Epic fail. Remember you just saying it does not count. You arent an expert and you do not have credibility. Without a link, EPIC FAIL. Please provide peer reveiwed research that proves your point or accept EPIC FAIL. If you dont provide links, please edit all your posts.
Do you need a link to the scholarly proof that 1+1=2 also?
The business cycle is the product of an unplanned market. This is a basic, fundamental economic fact.
You should probably get a better understanding of how the world works before you commit to promoting a particular worldview. People are taking advantage of your ignorance.
"Under a communist system, there is no business cycle since all economic activities are controlled by the central planners. Indeed, this lack of a business cycle is often cited as an advantage of a command economy."
-Dr. F. Steb Hipple, Professor of Economics, East Tennessee State University
http://faculty.etsu.edu/hipples/fpvsmp.htm
1+1=11
lol
Another EPIC FAIL. The Soviet Union couldnt even feed itself with any of its centralized 5 Year plans. They had to buy grain from the good ole USA.
EPIC FAIL.
So now that I made you look ignorant about what the business cycle is, you want to change the subject and show your ignorance about imports?
Since the US cannot power itself and has to buy energy from places like Russia, would you also consider the good ole capitalist USA an EPIC FAIL?
Perhaps you should educate yourself on the way the world works before you commit to being a cheerleader for the system that is exploiting you.
I just couldn't help. The absolute stupidity of this post compelled me to reply.
For one you failed to differentiate between political and economic systems
Capitalism, Communism and Socialism are economic systems while we talk of left or right or liberal we are talking about political systems. You mixed them up.
You can go to church everyday and still detest the pursuit of profit. You can be an atheist and yet whole heartedly love the pursuit of profit (eg. Bill Gates and of course your truly)
So considering you want a mix of 3 political systems and 3 economic systems, your proposal would necessiate the existance of 3x3=9 Americas.
Also since 3 economic systems, these would necessarily mean different fiscal and monetary policies (I hope you know what those terms mean, else you can always google). And to have independent fiscal and monetary policies, you would necessarily need independent currencies. Therefore your plan calls for 3 different types of American dollars. Great.
Genius. You really should write a book.
Now the other problem in your grand scheme of dividing the country is - who is gonna pay the national debt? The govt need to service interest payment on it's bonds and bills, so your 9 different Americas have to decide how they are gonna do that.
Suppose you cross that hurdle and divide the country into 9 pieces, each piece will have a GDP of approx $1.5 trillion. As you have pointed out, it is still higher than quite a few countries. But then the reason the US is a super power is because of it's economic might. 9 countries with $1.5 trillion economies is not the same as 1 country with a $15 trillion economy. China will make a short work of these 9 countries.
There goes all your leverage at the UN, World Bank and IMF.
Now about your proposition of buying out privately owned companies - where is the money for that going to come from? Debt for sure, debt over an above the already $15 trillion. Find out the market cap of the top 10 largest companies (by market cap) in US. It would run into a few trillion. Now imagine the money needed to buy say 1/3 rd of all companies - it's a number with a hell lot of zeros, and certainly well above the $10 trillion you conjured up out of thin air. Unless you have some genius idea as to how to raise that kind of debt that I don't know. Enlighten me.
And say you were able to raise that kind of debt, it would lead to another recession, sky high interest rates, a highly undervalued currency and many other perils. Socialism FTW.
"The absolute stupidity of this post compelled me to reply"
Your personality must be a hit at parties.
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"you failed to differentiate between political and economic systems...we talk of left or right or liberal we are talking about political systems"
If you spent more time learning than trolling, you would learn that economics is short for political economy. Deciding on an economic system is a political decision and people on the left want a different economic system than people on the right.
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"So considering you want a mix of 3 political systems and 3 economic systems, your proposal would necessiate the existance of 3x3=9 Americas"
I do not want 9 different systems. I want 3 different economic systems: capitalist, socialist and a mix between the 2.
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"who is gonna pay the national debt?"
Everyone would still have to pay the current debt since those are old obligations. Each system would make its own decisions on whether to take on more public debt in the future.
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"There goes all your leverage at the UN, World Bank and IMF."
If you are interested in paying to maintain the world's superpower, you have the freedom to do that. That's the beauty of this system. You get what you want.
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"where is the money for that going to come from?"
I mentioned a 13% tax over 5 years as one way.
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"certainly well above the $10 trillion you conjured up out of thin air"
Stock prices are public information that is easily accessible. Look at yahoo finance or google finance, not thin air. The market cap of the entire NYSE is $11 trillion. Do more studying and less trolling.
I think you're right in the sense that clearly the current political system is not working at serving most people. But I wonder how much people are aware of that? And seems very difficult to bring about a change of the extent you are suggestions, but it would be good! Maybe a more practical solution is to go back to a more 70s concept where smaller communities work together to offer an alternative and work at being as independent from the capitalist system as possible. Such actions have been happening in France for example, where a network of people work with a voucher exchange system: 1hr 1 voucher whether you're a doctor or a house cleaner or a plumber - the govt hates it because it can't be taxed!
The 18% that are currently underemployed and the 50% who are living in or near poverty certainly know the system is not working for them.
Every libertarian and conservative completely disagree with our current economic system. And every liberal or progressive or socialist disagrees with our current system.
Giving people the ability to finally live in their ideal system would appeal to nearly everyone. And I think most would be willing to make a small investment to make it happen.
A smaller community would not be a solution. You cannot run a modern economy in a small community.
I am a liberal but I donot 'completely disagree' with the current econ system. And I am pretty sure neither do conservatives. Sure different people have different opinions about certain aspects of the economy, but other than OWS, no one in their right minds completely disagrees with the economy.
And what you really do not understand is that there is no 'ideal system' that satisfies everyone's needs or agrees to everyone's opinion, however asinine that opinion may be. And that is why we have a democracy where the attempt is to reconcile differences instead of demaning a seperate state whenever there are any differences.
"I am a liberal but I donot 'completely disagree' with the current econ system. And I am pretty sure neither do conservatives"
You are living in an alternate reality.
Liberals want the exact opposite of what conservatives want. They don't agree on anything.
"And that is why we have a democracy where the attempt is to reconcile differences instead of demaning a seperate state whenever there are any differences."
So why not in the name of democracy force everyone to get the same cell phone, cell phone plan, car, house, clothes, size tv, furniture, video game console, ad infinitum?
Democracy is about empowering individuals, not conforming everyone to the collective. People should have the freedom to choose their economic arrangement just like they choose their retirement plan or cell phone plan or anything else.
Choosing a high-risk economic system like capitalism, where there is a good chance you can fail but a small chance you can do spectacularly well, should be no different than choosing high-risk stocks.
You should have the freedom to choose that if you want and the freedom to choose something different if you don't want the darwinian, sink-or-swim lifestyle.
You want to divide the US into 9 countries and it is I that lives in a alternative reality. Right.
And where did you link democracy with everyone having the same cell phone? What a nut job.
you think choosing a economic system is the same as choosing a cell phone? Are you high?
As Darwin's theory of evolution is about survival of the fittest and not about choosing anything. For more info on the theory of evolution I suggest you read "The Blind Watchmaker"
So your argument against this idea is "Right", "What a nut job", and "Are you high". When you come up with something a little more substantive, feel free to comment again.
Actually there was a lot of substance in it and also in my previous posts but I guess it could not penetrate that trick skull of yours or may be you are unable to read (Did you manage to get through high school?). Eitherway, I am really sorry for my attempt to reason with you. Pardon my foolishness.
Deciding on a economic system may be a political decision but the economic system is only a part of the whole political system. There are staunch atheists like myself who detest the religious dogma of the right and yet have firm faith in capitalism. And you can find many more permutations and combinations.
Sure everyone would pay for the debt. But would everyone agree to pay equally. The left may very well claim that the Bush era resulted in this debt and therefore they should service more of it or similar objections. Considering the two sides right now cannot agree on far smaller issues, I don't see them agreeing on this.
You get your leverage at UN or WB or IMF because of the size of your economy. A smaller economy cannot get that kind of leverage.
Yes your 13% tax. For one I am not sure how everyone will ever agree to that. Secondly, with the kind of debt you want to take on, the economy would hit another far graver depression and a 13% tax increase in those circumstances would be suicidal.
the figure for NYSE is actually close to $14 trillion. And that does not include NASDAQ which is another few trillions, albeit less than that of NYSE. And this does not even include the unlisted companies, various funds, and even the small enterprises. But let us assume it $10 trillion for your satisfaction. Even at that figure, you increase US debt by 67% over the present $15 trillion. What will happen is that this eextra $10 trillion will need a far higher coupon rate for investors to buy it and therefore your debt servicing becomes that much more difficult. Good luck
I would have asked you to do some studying but I know a lost cause when I see one. So instead I will, for the amusement of all , implore you to post more of such stuff. Keep it coming homie.
2- They already agree on it. Everyone currently contributes to the debt whether they like it or not.
4- If there was a 13% tax, there would be no debt. I think every socialist would be willing to pay a 13% tax in order to get the chance to live in a socialist system. And if I was a libertarian, I would be willing to pay 13% for the next 5 years in order to finally get the libertarian society I want.
If I am a libertarian and make $100k per year, I am currently paying $30k per year in taxes. So I can continue to pay $30k in taxes for the rest of my life.Or I can pay $13k more in taxes for the next 5 years so that socialists can launch their system in exchange for me being able to reduce my tax bill from $30k to $0 for my remaining 45 years. Making a one-time $65k investment in order to save $1.3 million or more in taxes is a no-brainer that anyone would see is a good deal.
5- The $10 trillion is not to buy every single company. It is to be used to buy enough companies to produce $5 trillion in revenue since the goal is to make 1/3rd the economy socialist. Paying 2 times earnings is a reasonable price to pay for a company. You can raise that $10 trillion with zero debt if you charge a 13% tax over 5 years.
Everyone does so because they are all part of one single country. Once there are seperate country with seperate jurisdictiion and politico-economic climate things could get out of hand, and easily so.
You think. Are you majority? I don't think so. Unless you do a nationwide poll of a sufficiently large sample to claim with 95% confidence that 'everyone will', your opinion is as good as mine.
And by what yardstick is 2 times earning a reasonable price to pay? Suggest you to get a basic idea of how to value companies
Choosing your economic system would be no different than choosing a cell phone plan or a company to work at or an investment plan.
People only "get out of hand" when you force people to participate in a system against their will, like what we do in our current system.
The stock price and revenue of companies is readily available. Just go to finance.yahoo.com. You will see companies average roughly 2 times total revenue. And public companies are more expensive than private companies.
have u written the book yet? it should be fiction (I might wait for the movie but I will definitely watch this) And there should be a war at some point, also I thought we already had this system? Just depends on your wealth status doesn't it?
What book? What war?
We currently do not have the ability to choose to participate in an alternative economic system. We have one system and everyone is forced to live by it. There is no choice.
what do I do with my husband if he and I don't agree? - Can we still be married or will there be laws against inter-economic relationships?
Can people with different cell phone plans be married? Or who work at different companies be married?
Of course they can. Married people can choose different economic arrangements too.
Just as long as you don't have bi-economic babies you will be OK. We wouldn't want the gene pool to be polluted.
haa haa - yes that would be bad what would we do with them? Could we abort ? wait that can only happen before the age of 2 right? If they are bi -economic they might make an allowance for partial death and take out the bi-economic half of the brain before it has a chance to fully develop it's policies, only I'm not sure who would pay for it ...
Although we don't know the price of private companies, we do know the price of public companies. Their market cap is the price of all outstanding shares of stock, so it represents the current market price if you wanted to become the sole owner of a company and buy every share of stock.
You will find that the market cap of companies runs less than two times revenue on average:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
When you add in the premium you have to pay to get stock holders to sell and the retirement of some of its debt, a company that does $1 billion in revenue will cost you roughly $2 billion. And private companies are less expensive than public companies.
"You will find that the price of companies run less than two times revenue on average. If a company does $1 billion in revenue, its market cap will be roughly $2 billion."
I am not sure how that conclusion was drawn from that list. Market cap has a lot more to do with earnings, profit margins, and future growth potential than revenue. Revenue doesn't mean all that much because it doesn't factor in the expenses a business has, which can vary tremendously between different types of industries.
Individual companies are priced based on earnings, among other things, not gross revenue. But on average, that price will be roughly 2 times gross revenue. And what we are trying to figure out here is how much it will cost to buy companies that generate $5 trillion in gross revenue.
That is just not true though. Look at the list that you link to. Of the first 10 companies, how many of them have a market cap 2x revenue?
In fact, not a single one of the first 10 for which data is available even have a market cap that is higher than revenue. They all have a market cap lower than revenue. And if you continue down the list there is no discernible pattern whatsoever between revenue and market cap.
Revenue is fairly meaningless when valuing companies. You can have huge revenues and not turn a profit. A lot of companies have huge revenue but actually lose money. Valuing a company based on revenue also completely ignores its capital structure, like how much debt compared to equity it has.
To calculate the cost to buy a basket of companies that generate $5 trillion in revenue, you would simple get the sum of their market caps because the market caps have already taken everything like earnings, debt, growth, etc into account.
Private companies are much harder to value because those things I listed above are not made public. Just knowing their revenue tells you nothing. They could be losing money or loaded with debt and the revenue would still be high.
You are missing the point of what I am trying to say.
I am trying to make the case that buying companies that produce $5 trillion is going to cost roughly $10 trillion. I'm not trying to say the best way to value a company is to look at gross revenue.
I am supporting my $10 trillion claim by showing that the market cap of companies are less than 2 times gross revenue.
Of course, if we knew which companies we would buy, and they were all public, we would know the price. But we don't know what companies would be bought. I am only speaking in general terms to get the basic idea across.
As I mentioned, private companies generally cost less than public companies.
I understand what you are saying, your assumptions are just wrong.
I would think, based on the data that you yourself produced, that the cost would be far less than $5 trillion. Actually look at the list. The market cap is generally always LESS than revenue, not less than 2 times, but outright less. Often much, much less. Very few companies have market caps higher than revenue, let alone 2 times higher.
There is absolutely no way you can even make an educated guess as the value of a private company based solely on revenue. It is impossible, there is little to no correlation. Your own data shows that pretty clearly.
Make sure you sort them by exchange and look at NYSE. You may be looking at another exchange.
I used to be an investment banker. So I used to do this for a living, pricing companies and bringing them public.
We would likely spend $10 trillion making this happen.
There is absolutely no pattern whatsoever regardless of how you sort it. Again, actually look at the chart and compare the market cap to revenue and you will see no pattern. In fact, by my quick count, 27 of the 40 NYSE companies from that chart have a market cap that is actually less than revenue, sometimes significantly. I mean just look at the numbers.
I have not done the math on those stocks. But I am pretty sure the market cap is not much less than their gross revenue like you say. However, what I am claiming is that buying companies for a socialist system that do $5 trillion will cost you $10 trillion and that the market cap is less than 2:1.
I wrote this when trying to explain that:
"You will find that the price of companies run less than two times revenue on average. If a company does $1 billion in revenue, its market cap will be roughly $2 billion."
Clearly those sentences contradict each other somewhat. That is not what I meant to write, and so I can now understand why you are not understanding my point!
What I meant to say is this:
"You will find that the market cap of companies run less than two times revenue on average. If a company does $1 billion in revenue, its price will be roughly $2 billion."
A lot obviously goes into buying a company. It is more than just the stock price. You will have to pay a premium over stock price to get them to sell and premiums average roughly 50%. Plus, you have to pay off their debt if the company is going into a socialist system. So my rough estimate is that it will cost you 2 times gross revenue.
It is a good idea in practise but I think a new even more devited class system would appear. In every system you have people who need supported and exceptional people who can support many others. If they each choose opposite systems one would excel well the other fails, which would lead to unavoidable conflict. I believe a capitlist system with socialist values mixed in is the only answer. Put the nessesities to modern life in the hands of public corperations so no one profits and anything else people may desire in the hands of those with the ideas and drive to provide it.
I think people on the Right would choose a more Right system and vice versa, but it is not accurate to say that the Right are exceptional and the Left are not or vice versa.
Pretty good, actually.
A few points, though. Why can't all the initial buy-in for the socialist system come from the people who want it? There's tons and tons of money in the left, although my guess is a lot of the richer celebrities would rethink their economic ideas if the system they were buying into would levy an additional 13% tax on them. Altruism is fun and all where other people's money is concerned, with their own money most people are less altruistic.
I think you are drastically overestimating the number of people who actually want a zero-tax economy. Not having a military is not a very common sentiment among the right wing, and there are very few anarcho-capitalists who think a private military would work.
Correct me if I read this wrong, but this theoretical socialist economy plan sounds more like an excuse to raise taxes 13%. Not having an overbearing force taking the product of your efforts away is the natural order of things, not the other way around, so why not fund the left economy voluntarily?
Just a few thoughts
If the new socialist system had to pay for the launch of their economy all on their own, the cost to them would be 3 times the amount. So they would have to pay a 39% tax if they funded it over 5 years. That is not practical. You could cut that down substantially if you paid with more longer term debt, but debt that large may cause inflation.
So you might be able to make the financials work if the people who wanted to launch the new system paid for it all themselves. And certainly that would be ideal because it would make the adoption of this idea that much easier.
However, I think it is fair for everyone to contribute because everyone is benefiting. For example, building the socialist alternative would enable the Right to build a more libertarian economy with substantially reduced taxes.
The Right will never get the kind of economy they want because there are too many people on the Left that don't want a Right economy. So paying an extra 13% in taxes over the next five years to help build the socialist system would be worth it for them because it enables them to finally get the economic system they want.
You would only pay the extra 13% in taxes over the first 5 years to help build the socialist alternative. After the 5 years, everyone can adopt whatever tax rates they want.
If the Right reduced their tax rate to 5%, then they would only pay a total of 18% in taxes during those 5 years which would actually be less than what they pay now. So it would still be a better deal than what they are getting now.
Of course, we still have to work out our existing obligations like social security and debt. So there would be a bit of a transition before we can have truly independent systems competing against each other.
Just out of curiosity, do you even consider it a remote possibility in the future, should such a plan be enacted, of changing the economy you personally participate in? And, how would it work, if someone did decide to switch? A person couldn't go their whole life without paying for health care, and then switch when they got sick.
Also, why not ramp up the socialist economy slowly? I don't understand why all the tremendous funding is needed from people who aren't going to participate. I don't like paying for things I don't use. Even with the best of intentions, I think your idea is more saleable to people without the huge initial outlay of funding.
Also, your talk of the system not working for anyone, in my opinion, misses the mark. It works extremely well... for the rich. That's why nothing ever changes, it works great for the rich and that's that. The rich don't want a socialist society, because the public-private partnership makes them more money. They can lobby the department of defense to buy their overpriced war toys and no one pays the kind of attention to their salaries like they would if they were government employees. The rich don't want a libertarian society, because they use market regulation to keep their competition down. Everyone knows regulatory compliance is many times greater at the small level than it is at the corporate level. That is why the system stays the way it is; exactly where the rich want it.
"do you even consider it a remote possibility in the future, should such a plan be enacted, of changing the economy you personally participate in?"
Absolutely. I would choose whichever worked best. But I am near-100% sure it would be the kind of socialist system I advocate.
However, I think capitalism would work far better than it does now if it had to compete with a socialist system.
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"And, how would it work, if someone did decide to switch? A person couldn't go their whole life without paying for health care, and then switch when they got sick."
You would probably have to make a multi-year commitment, no different than what you do with a cell phone plan. If a person switched only because they got sick, I am sure you can work out some kind of penalty system so that it still remains fair.
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"Also, why not ramp up the socialist economy slowly?"
An economic system can only work if it produces all its own goods and services. Each system must be able to produce its own food, energy, raw materials, capital goods, consumer goods, transportation, medicine, education, electronics, housing, entertainment, communication, etc. Otherwise, it is really just the system it is buying all its goods and services from.
So you can't ramp up a socialist system slowly. You either have a socialist system or you do not.
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"I don't understand why all the tremendous funding is needed from people who aren't going to participate."
Everyone is going to benefit. Everyone is now going to have a choice of economic systems.
If you were a member of the Right, would you be willing to make an investment over the next 5 years, via extra taxes, in order to finally have the economic system you want? Think of all the money people pay to political campaigns, think tanks, media, etc. to try and convince the Left to adopt Right policies. You would no longer have to do that. Now you have an investment that is guaranteed to be successful.
As I think this through, there are ways to make the launch of a new system much cheaper. And if you make it cheap enough, then only the people joining the new system could pay for it.
A third of the economy will come from publicly owned businesses that you would not have to pay for (like government schools, police, fire, hospitals, etc.). So now you are down to a 9% tax. Many small businesses may find it beneficial to just join the new system. That may shave another 1% off. And you could perhaps finance half which would shave another couple of percentage points.
So the socialists might be able to fund it entirely themselves with a 5% tax. That certainly would be do-able and I think most people who would want to join such a system, would gladly foot the bill and pay the extra 5% in taxes. That would of course make it that much of an easier sell if getting this new system was free to everyone else.
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"It works extremely well... for the rich. That's why nothing ever changes"
I agree. But the rich do advocate for more Right policies. So they think they would be richer if society was more Right. So I don't think they would necessarily be opposed to such an idea. I think they would welcome the idea of just letting the Left have their way so that the rich can have their way.
But the rich do make up a minority. And the idea of letting the Right get their way and the Left get their way would be popular on both the Right and the Left. So even if they oppose the idea, they may not be able to stop popular support for it.
Since this idea has never been proposed before, it is hard to judge what the reaction will be.
One significant problem, like with insurance, people may tend to "choose" the least personally expensive system at any given time. Using the example of medical care: If I don't need any, I may "choose" to live is the system that only requires me to pay what I need it. However, when I need major surgery, I will choose to be part of the system that provides it to everyone at little or no cost. By gaming the system in this way I never end up paying for it.
Like a cell phone plan, you would probably need to commit to a certain amount of years within the system you choose to prevent that sort of thing.
Solution are very simple., Just Nationlize oil companies,electric companies,eduction,health,and transportion For start
How would that benefit all the people who do not want to live in a socialist system?
you thinking like you selling product and u give choices to cusumer it does not work that way.,
But... creating tangible separations in ideology with separate economic systems encourages recession.
Recession creates borders. Borders create wanting of that you don't have.Wanting creates war.
Force and coercion creates borders and wars.
Choosing your economic system is completely voluntary. If your system is failing you, you can switch to a different system without having to move or cross a border or wage a war.
I suspect that more people than you think would opt for working in a capitalist system.
Many people want to own their own business, and are not interested in sharing decision-making with some committee of others, or in being controlled by the state. They're also interested in making more than the equalized socialist wage. Note that this doesn't mean they're out exploiting others -- it might be a small, one-man, two-man business.
Many other people are quite content to collect a paycheck, and let someone else worry about running the business, making the decisions and dealing with the many stressful things that go with running the show. And they believe, with some justification, that if they are particularly talented or hard-working, a capitalist system will reward that.
The other big problem you'd run into is that in any large-scale socialist system where you've got a guaranteed -- but limited -- income and health care, a pretty large percentage of the population always turns into freeloaders. That was a serious issue in the Soviet Union -- people didn't give a shit about working hard because it all really did pay the same. And when the UK had the dole in full force, a surprisingly large percentage of the population was perfectly content to sit in a crappy little council flat and collect a meager little government check and not go to work, ever.
Workers' cooperatives are legal right now in this country. I used to work for one of them (I was a cab driver for a cab company that was owned by the drivers' union). It doesn't solve all of the problems you might think it will -- you've still got to turn a profit if you want to pay people and provide benefits, and you've still got to deal with deadbeat employees and taxes and all the rest. The company I worked for nearly went broke being run by the drivers, and ended up hiring professional management to run the company anyway. If they hadn't done that, the whole thing would have gone under. There's a reason that workers' cooperatives are rare, and it's not because anyone is stopping them from forming. It's because it's very difficult on a practical level to make them work. Most people either don't want to deal with the hassle, or don't know anything about running a business, and getting a workable, profitable consensus on running a business from 50 or a hundred people is a challenge to say the least. Try it sometime.
I don't advocate worker co-ops.
And your understanding of what socialism is (and what happened in the Soviet Union) is completely off.
But putting all that aside, shouldn't people who want to work in a real capitalist system, with limited or no taxes and regulations and complete privatization be free to choose to participate in that system? I think they should.
Do you think the Right will ever be able to convince the Left to abandon their Left ideology and join the Right to build a completely private, tax-free, unregulated economy? I don't think that will ever happen.
So why don't we have a system where the Left can choose to participate in the Left system and the Right can choose to participate in the Right system?
The Right can then have what they want. And the Left can have what they want. Everyone wins. You don't have to convince anyone to change their ideology.
Well, an obvious problem with two systems is, who pays for common infrastructure like roads, parks and municipal services like fire protection, sewers and policing? That is, after all, the basic function of government, and what taxes are for. You'd have to either have two sets of roads, or deny people access to them depending on whether they had contributed to their upkeep in the form of taxes or tolls, and fire departments that only go to certain houses. That's very inefficient at best, completely unworkable at worst, unless you could physically segregate the two groups into separate geographic entities that could then work out their respective solutions to these sorts of problems in isolation.
I don't think that people will necessarily be changing their ideologies en mass, but the reality of being stuck in the same boat, so to speak, requires as a practical matter that both sides hold their noses and accept some degree of compromise from principle in order to keep society running at some minimal level.
I'm curious -- what's your theory of what happened to the Soviet Union?
I address the issue of common infrastructure in the post.
Infrastructure only makes up a small part of what government does so different systems can share the same city. The socialists may have a different way of paying their share than the capitalists do, but a city that shares infrastructure would not be ideal. So some future cities would be purely capitalist or purely socialist.
People don't need to change their ideologies. People are already largely in disagreement over how the economy should run.
The Soviet Union was not unproductive and people were not all paid the same like you said. Income inequality was a big issue and the country developed faster than any other capitalist country in history.
Most of its gains were lost when it went capitalist. Poverty and corruption were rampant. It took 15 years of capitalism just to get back to where it left off with communism.
The problem with the Soviet Union was that it was undemocratic, had little transparency, had little accountability, was a command economy instead of a market economy and lacked modern accounting and management practices.
Trotsky, the founder of the Russian Revolution, talked about how it was no longer a socialist country once Stalin came to power and wrote a letter about how America is completely different than backwards Russia, so just like capitalism would be completely different in America than it would be in Russia, socialism would be completely different in America than it would be in Russia.
The letter gives good insight into how Russia was just giving socialism a bad name and it was written by the founder of Russian Communism:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/trotsky-on-what-a-socialist-america-would-look-lik/
Re the Soviet Union. it was marvelously unproductive given its industrial base and the educational level of the people. There were constant shortages of virtually everything, and the quality of Soviet goods was famously poor. The average person lived in very poor conditions. And when the communists fell, the country was virtually bankrupt.
You're certainly right about income inequality and lack of democracy, but that's part of my point -- the people in charge ran it for their own benefit and got fat while screwing everybody else.
Russia has never really gone capitalist. It's the same old strong-man system with a different name, and the fatcats are still getting fatter at everybody else's expense. Putin's no capitalist, he's ex-KGB. That says it all.
Your characterization of the soviet union is just not accurate. Russia was one of the poorest countries in the world. It was a backwards, medieval, peasant, feudal, completely undeveloped and completely uneducated society. It went from that to a super power in a few decades. Their standard of living increased exponentially.
why don't we reassign the property to the people?
we could everyone a$50 a day to stay out of trouble drawing the income off property tax or non-primary residences,
the entrepreneurs would have to work an innovate for the peoples money
And why, pray tell, would the entrepreneurs be be willing to do this? I doubt you could pass and enforce a law making them do so, and the entrepreneurs I know certainly aren't going to do it for free out of some selfless desire to benefit society. They're trying to make a lot of money for themselves.
because the people will have money to give them
or for that mater,
anything that is not the same or opposite of what these fools want
I didn't understand your comment, could you rephrase?
before there are two side to an issue.
what issues are to be addressed are chosen
I think there is a language barrier. I still don't understand what you are saying! :)
maybe, misspelled a homophone
that's gonna turn to mulch in babble fish
What is your native language?
english
what's yours
Mine is also English.
What you wrote are not correctly formed sentences. So it is difficult to understand.
missed a comma
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if a proposition proceeds the subject,
a comma is placed in front of the subject
so the subject can be easily found
They are also missing periods. But the problem is not just punctuation. You are also not forming complete sentences.
really, I thought it might be a mater of complex subject
"what issues are to be addressed"
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The statement appears complete to me, and I find the challenge ingenious
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An issues must first be addressed to have two side.
So what's your story? What do you do for a living?
LOL
cabbage
gizelumpick
Called new party >Republican Socialism then you will have all Tea party will join
I didn't understand your comment, could you rephrase?
to get the tea party to go along with socialism we need to creat A new party we call it Republican socialism .,do`nt forget they are half way socialist.,or we take them on trip to diffrent countries so they could see other countries how they live
I think if tea partiers don't want to participate in a socialist system, they shouldn't have to. They should get to participate in their tea party system. And socialists should get to participate in their socialist system. And everyone should be free to change the system they are participating in without having to move to another state or country.
Changing economic systems should be as easy as changing cell phone plans.
Confessing I do not know much, but out of what I have learned about Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism I tend to side with Jacque Fresco's Venus Project and the Resource Based Economy. It's quite brilliant yet simple at the same time.
Unfortunately, it is so simple, it is completely unworkable. Requiring everyone to live in those white igloos and making work voluntary and everything free is just not a workable system.
You need money to run an economy otherwise people will demand far more than you can produce. You need to pay people in order to get enough workers. And people should have the freedom to spend their money however they want. People should be able to buy any kind of house they want.
Plus there is no mechanism for putting people in positions of power. The allocation of resources is almost entirely subjective. Who makes those decisions.
Jacque does not really understand economics. Whenever he is asked who makes the decisions he says people who have technical competence. What he doesn't understand is that people of technical competence will not agree on everything and you don't need technical competence in order to have an opinion on to how to allocate resources.
It's hard to change a system. The Arab Revolution and Occupywallst has allowed the people to regain some faith in their ability to change the world. One way to raise awareness is culture jamming. Is it effective? Does it have a future? Is neo burlesque part of it? Debate tonight at Jalopy Brooklyn http://nycal.mayfirst.org/node/4969
everyone is free right now.. you must have two sides but three would be better to balance everything so nothing goes this one way or this other one way but meets in the middle. you type people continually disregard human nature. no matter how you want to split things up.. there will always be fighting and discourse this is human nature. the economics we have are perfect if there was no money in politics.. if the rich were patriotic instead of greedy, if there were no sense of 'superiority' between different type people. but that will never be no matter if you parcel it up into 75 different economies. those traits would still exist within each parcel leading to the same fighting and discourse.
"everyone is free right now"
Free to do what? Liberals and socialist are not free to live in a liberal or socialist society. Libertarians or conservatives are not free to live in a libertarian or conservative society.
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"there will always be fighting and discourse this is human nature"
The differences between 2 liberals pales in comparison to the differences between a liberal and a conservative. Liberals will agree on the vast majority of policies. Liberals will agree on almost zero policies with conservatives.
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"the economics we have are perfect if there was no money in politics"
Our economic system does not work. Eliminating money from politics won't fix the economic system. It eliminate the 18% underemployed and won't raise the standard of living of the 50% who are in or close to poverty.
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"that will never be no matter if you parcel it up into 75 different economies"
A new economic system will only be created when a sufficient number of people want it. The amount of people has to be large enough to support an economic system. So you can't break it up into 75 different economies.
And you cannot compare the differences between 2 conservatives with the differences between a conservative and a socialist. It is not the same.
but you cant eliminate these people either. if you succeeded in this endeavor.. you would still be at war with those that want to take it from you. and there will always be those that want to take what ever you have that is worth having, then what? you have to become like them in order to keep what you have. its human nature. it will always be this way. if the people would just get the government under control everything would be fine. and the only way to get that done is to get money out of government.
There is no war! A liberal cannot take what a conservative owns and vice versa. I don't know what war you are referring to. Sure the systems will compete with each other. But that is good. The best system will win the most people.
There is absolutely no way a conservative will ever be fine living in a socialist system or a socialist will ever be fine living in a capitalist system. Your claim is bogus.
And so long as you have money and free speech, you can never get money out of government.
Customized economies for all...hmmmm
Actually, it's a lot easier than one thinks. Just start building the economy you want around yourself...
A single person cannot build an entire economy. An economy requires millions of people working in a common system to do the thousands of different tasks necessary in producing the goods and services found in a modern economy.
It starts with one. One seed makes at tree.
Surprise yourself, and see what you can do yourself, and what you really don't need to buy. Maybe start with a garden, See what you can sow, and see all that you will reap. Share it with your friends, and see what your friends give back. That is the start of an economy.
I'm suggesting stepping away from consuming corporate goods, get it elsewhere, or making it yourself, or figuring out how to do without. Not modern, but its a start....That is revolution.
I have no interest in giving up my modern lifestyle. For me, what you describe is a step backwards.
I can grow the occasional salad that I eat but I can't grow any real food or electronics or cell phones or internet access or computers or cars or clothes or movies or anything else I consume.
Try starting a business... I'm sure you can think of something. And if for nothing else a little side business puts a little extra change in your pocket, and you can save on taxes big time. At least eat somewhere other than at a national food chain or shop at places like Walmart I suggest. There are local proprietors that offer similar which will be only too happy to have you as a patron. I mean like how do you plan to invoke your ideal social-political system? Certainly, you don't expect it to come about by some sort of democratic decree?
Truth is if we as a society want to get out from under the 1%, to have a more socially equable and just society, there have to be some sacrifices made on the part of individuals, in terms of life style adjustments, or at least consumption practices. Basically, if one embraces what the 1% corporate world offers, one then also intrinsically supports it.
At least give it a whirl. I think you'll find the simple life, is also the good life; and coming to that realization is not going backwards.
If I'm a socialist or a libertarian, I'm not sure how starting a business or shopping at a particular store is going to enable me to live in a socialist or libertarian system. I don't understand your point.
I also don't understand what living a simple life has to do with the economic system.
Since 100% of the people on the Right want to live in a Right society and 100% of the people on the Left want to live in a Left society, I think we can use the political process to create a society where we have multiple economic systems for everyone to choose from so everyone can simply choose the economic system they want to participate in.
Your right. After reading back over my comments I now see I was just showing my prejudices by advocating how I do like to live. Ok, so I am into the simple life, and prefer to avoid supporting corporate institutions, but that does not mean everyone is. (Living simply undermines the present prevailing consumer oriented economy which exists in the U.S.A.)
But what got me started was this idea of using the political process to achieve change in our economic system. Problem is nearly all our politicians have been bought off by a .01% oligarchy which tells them what to do. We the people in reality have very little say in what our government here in the U.S.A. does. If you don't believe me, actively get into politics for a while, and you'll find out. Our political system will not allow an economic system other than the one that currently exists. If we were to advocate changing over to a multiple type economic system in which people can choose through the political process, irrespective of how certainly great such a system would be for everyone, we would first have to change the political system, and that cannot be achieved by merely voting or otherwise participating in it.
But the good news is our U.S.A. is a very large country, sufficiently rich, and relatively undeveloped and unpopulated when compared to most other countries in this world. That gives us the opportunity to move around, and live at a long leash from those who govern over us. Thus we can individually live the way each of likes to live while observing only a few bounds. We already have the option of which you speak in a sense, and to a degree. We can live in the economy of our choosing right now; today. We can live as socialists, as libertarians, or whatever else we may like to live as. We do not have to wait for any politicians or anybody to tell us; we simply start living it. (Why am I thinking about that bit of advice Dorothy got from the Wizard?)
I think the idea is a great utopia, but in reality it would never work. How would these separate economies be set up...by creating new regional political entities along blue/red state lines? Intermingled? I think this was just further the balkanization of the political process at this time. To those of all political persuasions...let's work together..do the right thing as a team that future generations would look up to rather than act from a place of ego, greed, ignorance and short-sightedness that is so rampant now. This is how are founding fathers got it done in the 1700's and we can too....
No. What I am proposing is to put an end to the idea that your geographic location determines your economic system. There would be no balkinazation. Most towns, cities, and states would have all 3 systems co-existing side by side. Some citizens and businesses will be part of the capitalist system, some part of the socialist system, some part of the mixed system.
There is no working together in our current system. Not everyone wants the same thing. It is impossible for someone who wants to eliminate government and taxes to agree with someone who wants to increase government and taxes.
Just like there is no benefit to forcing everyone to wear the same clothes, there is no benefit to forcing everyone to work within the same economic arrangement. People should have the power to choose whatever arrangement they want.
The founding fathers got things done by employing slaves and giving all the political power to white, wealthy men. I want to do the opposite of what the founding fathers did. They are not role models.
I have to wonder about this...
You're already JEALOUS that some people are doing better than others. What happens when one of these three "nutty utopian societies" starts doing better than the other, based on plain economic outcomes? You gonna declare war on the prosperous one?
Just askin'
You nailed it. I'm not just jealous. I'm JEALOUS. Allowing people the freedom to make their own economic arrangements is jealousy, I mean JEALOUSY.
So if capitalism, socialism and mixed economies are all "nutty utopian societies" than what would qualify as not utopian in your universe?
Yes, I will declare war on the prosperous one. I am pro poverty. I am against prosperity. My goal is to prevent society from developing wealth.
There is no utopia. Get used to it.
Just because we can't build the perfect society doesn't mean we can't significantly improve our current society.
Now that's a revolutionary concept.
There's no utopia, so why try? Why imagine it?
Just get used to it.
We should certainly try. But the main problem remains the humans.
Yeah, stupid humans. If only they were........?
What? Super humans like corporations?
Show 'em some love, instead of your unrelenting negativity.
Stop thinking of them as asses.
Actually, I believe a cellular anarchism would work best. Autonomous cells would interact with other autonomous cells at different levels with no central government or state.
Each autonomous cell would be free to choose whatever its general assembly decided, providing it did not interfere with the function or autonomy of other cells.
The confederated cells could form a national police, armed forces, etc with contributions from all. What I'm proposing is actually a modified anarcho-syndicalism with the emphasis on unions minimized, but I believe this bottom-up type government using autonomous cells would work and could please everyone.
Only by dividing the nation geographically could that work. If you did that I could agree.
We don't need to divide the nation in order to give people different cell phone plans or retirement plans, we don't need to do it for different economic plans.
An economic system is just a common economic plan that everyone agrees to.
However, some future cities would be built that are exclusive to one system so that they do not have to share common infrastructure with other economic systems.
Which means dividing the country. And I can agree with that. It's time to stop this farce that the Left and Right can agree on anything.
Yes, it serves no purpose to force people to participate in something they don't want when we can easily give people a choice!
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Me and 99% are sleeping giants was a term used in pearl harbor as long as you don't piss down my back well that's what's happening just wait' the anger inside will spread to the streets then we'll have the real voices speak and take our god damn country back!!! By Force!!!!!
What I propose in this post will make it so that nobody will ever have to resort to force to get their country back. Everyone can freely choose whatever economic arrangement they want just like you choose cell phone plans.
You don't understand animal instincts in humans and that's how crooks make money most people are honest the 99% who are getting reamed from the dishonest 1% Only way to get the lions dinner if your starving to death is to kill it Period!!
Nobody has to kill anyone in order to be able to choose their own cell phone plan or retirement plan or clothing style or car type. People should have the same freedom of choice in their economic system.
Absurd, try again.
It is absurd to think liberals will ever agree with conservatives.
It is absurd to think forcing conservatives to live in a liberal society is better than conservatives living in a conservative society and vice versa.
How about we just go back to 1860, like the Conservatives want to, and let the South secede, then they won't have to associate with folks that aren't like them. They can restart slavery again, and all of the fun stuff that goes with it. Of course, some of the Bubba's will have to be the slaves because the black folks will have moved up North, and back East, and out West to places That are, you know, civilized??
Ya'all can just go to church, and have cotillions, and socials and I don't know what all. And you won't be forced to tolerate a soul. Wouldn't that be nice? And Mary Ellen can get one of those coat hanger abortions in Nawlins. It will be just grand, you know that it will. And those guys with the sheet robes can come check your medicine cabinet every night for, well, you know, those pills.
Oh and read the post just above my previous post. It's from your Mom, whatthefffff .
I think all your ideas in that comment are terrible.
I think the Right should be able to participate in a Right economic system and the Left should be able to participate in a Left economic system without having to move or secede.
And I think people should be able to freely choose any system they want regardless of where they live. I don't think you should have to convince an entire geographic region to participate in the economic system you want and I don't think that geographic region should have to secede.
We don't need to segregate people based on their economic system. The Left should be able to live right next to the Right.
You can't have two economic systems operating in the same geography. Nor can you have two systems of government. You are going to prohibit behavior that others believe is right and moral. When you put them in jail do you think they won't notice?
If you give two minutes of actual thought to the consequences of what you are advocating, you will take your posting to another site.
You can choose to work for a company that is part of a network of "socialist" companies that provide a common income allocation plan, that always guarantees you a job, that guarantees you a pension at retirement and the banks in this network offer mortgages at 0% interest.
And your neighbor who thinks he is going to be super rich works for a company that is part of a network of "capitalist" companies. His pay depends on how well his company does. He has no guaranteed pension and he makes a lot less than the workers in the socialist system, but he is convinced that he will eventually become a billionaire with the launch of his internet idea and since he pays no taxes, it will all pay off in the end.
What do you not get?
Who do you think is getting thrown in jail?
Your scenarios don't fit anything in the real world that I can think of.
Nor do the fit anything that anyone is advocating, in a serious way.
Nor is it interesting.
I don't claim this idea exists anywhere. It does not.
I don't claim other people are advocating this idea. From what I know, nobody is.
It is not about interesting. It is about making society work. Forcing the Left to live in a Right society does not work. Forcing the Right to live in a Left society does not work. And forcing people to live in systems they do not want is completely unnecessary.
Then session, or excision, as I posited, seems the only practical solution?
I am not advocating for secession!
We will still have 1 country with common political rights (like freedom of speech and equal protection under the law). But the government will just completely get out of providing economic services (like education, social security, health care, etc.).
We can have different cell phone providers without breaking up into different countries. And if a cell phone company decides to join a group of companies in order to provide common schooling, health care and retirement plans, why do those companies now all of a sudden need to secede?
So, how do I get my individual rights back, like freedom from unwarranted wire taps, searches and seizures, freedom of choice, clean water, air, etc. ?
Equal protection for blacks, women, gays, atheists, short people and union members? And all of this decided by the oligarchs? Pshaw, you're joshing me.
Wire taps are political issues. I am not suggesting that we have multiple political systems. I am suggesting multiple economic systems.
Clean water and air are economic issues. And blacks, women, gays, atheists, short people and union members all have the same political rights. However, they may not have the same economic opportunities.
The only solution to that is to give them all a choice among different competing economic systems. If the conservative, libertarian economic system is not serving women or blacks well, the socialist system will be working hard to make sure it does so that it can win them over.
That is the benefit of competing, alternative economic arrangements.
Minorities would probably do better in a Left system than in a Right system. So let's give the Left their system and give the Right their system and give minorities the free choice to choose the superior system.
If you don't want oligarchs making decisions, then choose the socialist system instead of the capitalist system.
Currently, nobody has a choice. We are all forced to live with a system nobody wants.
The oligarchical system is the system we have now. Regulated capitalism is a system has been tried to a greater and lesser extent, various places and times, here and elsewhere.
Deal with land, standards, commerce. I don't think you can handle the geographic issues. I and I can't c\get my head around it right now I have other issues to deal with.
"Workers can't operate in multiple systems simultaneously, nor can suppliers, customers etc."
That is not what I am suggesting. You will only work and buy from the companies that are part of the system you joined.
There will be some trade between systems, but it will be limited and treated similarly to the way imports/exports are treated now.
.
"It has been tried multiple times here in the US. Can you find any tangible evidence that they ever existed"
I don't think this idea was ever tried here in the US. And it was never implemented in any country that I am aware of.
If we did it, we would be the first to offer its citizens the true freedom of choice.
An economy is is just a network of companies that produce and distribute according to standard protocols (like private ownership of firms and market allocation of goods, services and income) and offer some level of common benefits (like healthcare, school and social security).
There is nothing that is preventing us from having different networks of companies that operate according to different protocols and that offer different common benefits so that you can choose to participate in whichever network you think will work best for you.
Competition works. Monopolies do not. If economic systems had to compete against each other for participants, we would know what works best. Imposing the same economic system on everyone is no different than imposing the same computer manufacturer on everyone. It will have no incentive to work well because the customers are forced to use it regardless of how it performs.
Oh, monopolies work. They work very well for the monopolists. That has been, and is being, demonstrated time after time. It imposes its part of the system on its customers, suppliers, employees and everyone involved in any way. An oligarchy is a monopoly of a few players in a market who form a cartel to act together for their common benefit, sharing the ill gotten gains, keeping all other competitors out, and acting only for their common "good,"
Economic systems can compete only when they are separate. Workers can't operate in multiple systems simultaneously, nor can suppliers, customers etc.
You can try to start another economic system right here and right now. It has been tried multiple times here in the US. Can you find any tangible evidence that they ever existed, except in histories? How about in other industrialized countries?
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You niave fool!
Do you have any actual arguments or just ad hominems?
interesting idea just reminded me to much of 1984
interesting comment just reminded me of the horror movie friday the 13th
cool way to be a dick
maybe you could ask me how it relate to 1984
cool way to have an adult conversation
maybe you could ask me how it relates to friday the 13th
Sure how does it relate
If you randomly throw out a book of fiction without explanation, I am going to respond with a random movie of fiction without explanation.
If I remember you correctly, you are an ignorant (you don't know how to compute average), pompous (you think you are going to be a millionaire CEO engineer), prick (you think poor people should die because they are failures and deserve what they get). I don't like you, would rather not debate you and many others here feel the same way.
hahah hahah i laugh at all that
I point to 1984 because it reminded me of the three dominate powers that ruled the world and the different levels of living with in each city its was a very relevant idea.
i said interesting idea because it was it is interesting idea. i don't disagree with it but if a realistic model it could be realistic
I would love to meet you anytime so please visit Purdue or ill visit and we can have a nice pleasant chat over coffee or something message me if you want my email that offer is open to anyone here
I dont think im going to be a millionaire it think i will be a major influence in a company and maybe CEO. It is a goal and it is good in life to have a goal.
If there was just one publically owned / non profit store in the economy, the whole capitalist market system would collapse !
How would greedy markets possibly compete with a non profit store ..
I would not say that just eliminating the profit margin would put all competing companies out of business. That may be the case with insurance since insurance is similar to a utility.
But for other industries, capitalist companies can easily out compete non-profits by offering a better quality good or service.
"But for other industries, capitalist companies can easily out compete non-profits by offering a better quality good or service."
I will need an example to understand your intention with this statement.
If you love the iphone, and a for-profit put out the iphone and a non-profit put out a nokia with windows mobile, you are going to choose the iphone.
Profit only makes up about 10% of the price. If Nokia became a non-profit, they still would not put Apple out of business.
speaking of cellular airwaves, ..what if we had non -profit public airwaves? something similiar to public highways? where we buy a car , licence it and are free to drive on any highway. We could buy a cell phone , licence it and freely use public airwaves .. of course towers would be built by tax payers .. just as highways .. ..and than we could choose iphone or nokia [ to drive "] Cellular business make billions without any competition it seems .. a non profit publically owned airwave would put them right out of business .. BILLIONS of profit ..
Would it be fair for an adult who rarely uses their cell phone to have to pay taxes to build the infrastructure needed to support the bandwidth necessary for teens and others to constantly text and surf the internet?
Bandwidth can be regarded as a utility. And you could still have fee based access instead of a tax. What would you say the benefit to that would be?
We are free to drive on any road. Would you want to pay a user fee on all roads you drive on?
The idea of a government run communication system would be similar to government run health care. It's a great idea!
Please consider the billionaires making profit on cell phone use and tell me they are not way over charging.
We do pay user fees to drive on the road. Roads are paid for out of a gas tax. So the more you drive, the more gas you will use, the more you will pay towards roads.
Health care is a completely different product than anything else. Healthcare is something nobody wants and it is something nobody voluntarily buys. Nobody chooses to purchase cancer treatment the way they choose to purchase a cell phone.
It is unfair to require cancer victims to pay the entire cost of their care and let the healthy people pay nothing. So I think health care should be purchased differently than every other product.
I don't think there is anything wrong with a public option in any good or service and I think the public option can perform better than private firms if they are run well. But I am not sold on a public monopoly. A public monopoly has the potential to perform far worse than private, competing firms since its monopoly status gives it limited accountability.
Your argument was about paying a tax for something you use very little. My response was. We use roadways even if we use them very little we all have equal access. The tax collected on fuel by someone driving one mile per day compared to the driver driving one hundred miles per day. They all have equal access to all roadways.
With a medical system everyone has equal access to that to.
To think a public monopoly would perform poorly? I look at the highways and I see a very well developed system. A few cell phone towers would be quite simple in comparison.
Well for one a non profit enterprise cannot exist. At the very least you need to plough in a portion of revenues back into the business for it to expand or buy new equipment or hire new people etc.
Also non profit and publicly owned are two very different things. An org can be non profit and yet privately owned (like NGOs) and vice versa.
Take China or India, they have a lot of publicly owned organizations who churn out handsome amount of revenues and profits. Publicly owned airlines, oil companies, mining companies, steel companies , insurance etc. And yet their economy hasn't collapsed in more than half a century and these publicly owned companies co-exist with privately owned companies that aggressively pursue profit. And the average worker isn't making a beeline to join any of these companies, they prefer the private sector which pays way better but also demands better work ethics.
Also these countries has co-operative stores too. An example would be railway co-operative stores in India run and owned by employees of their railways and the profit goes back to these employees and the employees also get discounts if the shop in these stores which non railway employees don't. There are also co-operative banks.
And yet the economy hasn't collapsed.
Looks like, contrary to you alias, you don't observe anything at all.
A non profit enterprise can surely exist when all costs are covered. Why should the consumer pay an additional profit above cost?
Why were the insurance companies so dead against Mr Obamas nonprofit health plan?
They werent. They continued to lobby him during it. Their stocks all went up. And continue to go up. They have no need to control costs, and are going to get an assload of new customers. Who on earth would oppose that?
I would love for Obama to award me 30m new customers.
BSBS
Show me a stock from the big four that is down since DC decided to award them all these new customers?
Show me one insurance company that supported health care reform.
Humana stock doing fine, guaranteed profits coming up: https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:HUM
Aetna doing well, https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:AET
United, the biggie, is back to all time highs https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:AET
They all did. That's why the stocks went up. And thats why they continue to dump money into washington.
Of course they have to make it look like they are against it, they certainly cant come out and say "Holy shit, the gov is giving us more customers?!! Fuck ya!!"
A merging with the gov is WAY better than a true free market for big corporations. They no longer have to worry about competition. They got the golden pass.
Like Ive said before, either go single payer, or remove the gov 100%. But this piece of legislation is the most corportist slap in the face the country has ever received. I voted for the guy. And this is the worst case scenario of anything he could have done.
Why did Obama remove the nonprofit public option?
The same reason they always screw us, they are more concerned with corporate profits than serving the public. Sure, they blame the other party for it, get the base all riled up against Republicans and Democrats, depending on which "side of the isle- how fuckin dumb is that" we sit.
He's a nice guy, he's smart and well spoken, which is a nice change of pace from the last idiot.
But this was a screw job for the ages.
Your argument doesn't add up.
How so?
If insurance company's supported the Obama healthcare reform, why did he drop the nonprofit option, who was against if not the insurance companies?
I must of misread it, sorry bout that.
Do we really need to discuss why insurance companies would be against that? I mean, at this point it should be without saying, right?
But they got their way, and then some.
Ofcourse the insurance companies were against that part, thats why its gone. He had to make a choice to side with us or side with them. He chose them. Just like the Dems and Reps always do. Sure, they keep it close, and give us a few crumbs every now and then to keep some believing, but its always corporate profits over people. Hence OWS.
I would say that GE and BigPharma were probably very against it too.
Well read back. I asked why they were against the nonprofit plan, you said they weren't ". Now you say they were. ?
Next question , why were they against it ?
Usually non-profits take in a profit that they deem "necessary"...United is the the worst with this. Salvation Army is pretty good.
Bottom line is people want to be rewarded when they put in the extra work to deliver something superior.
These people are utterly devoid of economic realities:
Everyone could live the Good Life - a life where you have real freedom to spend your time doing what you want and money is no object - if we enact these 4 policies:
CITIZEN DIVIDEND: Use a portion of income taxes to just simply pay us a $40,000 yearly Citizen Dividend instead of sending it down an unresponsive government sinkhole.
FREE CREDIT: Eliminate interest on all consumer loans from mortgages to credit cards which eliminates your biggest expense, cuts your mortgage in half and puts an end to the biggest rip-off in the history of commerce.
FULL AUTOMATION: Use existing automation to eliminate 70% of all jobs and make working a job optional so we can spend our time doing activities more rewarding, more productive and more worthy of human effort.
FULL TRANSPARENCY: Make society fully transparent by requiring full disclosure of all private and public sector information and data in a central database so you have the same level of access to an organization's data as its CEO gets.
I want some of what they're smoking!!!
I am against everything they stand for. I only use this name as a joke. I am with you. I want people to lead the bad life, not the good life.
I am against efficient government, against cheap homes, against automation (people should only be allowed to use hand tools), and against transparency.
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no one is going to volunteer to pay extra taxes. No one.
I disagree.
If I was a socialist, I would certainly be willing to pay more taxes to live in a socialist system.
Liberals today want to pay more in taxes and they are not even getting their ideal system in return. So they would be willing to pay more in taxes.
And if I was a tea party republican or libertarian I would be willing to pay extra taxes in order to finally get to live in a libertarian, completely tax free, fully private economy. Today, I have zero chance of living in a libertarian society. So this would be an extraordinary opportunity.
Liberals today dont want to pay more taxes. Where did you get that idea? They want other people to pay more taxes ie "the rich". If they wanted more taxes on themselves they would be arguing for across the board tax increases, including higher taxes on the rich. They arent.
Your idea is a fail.
Liberals are willing to pay more taxes.
But the reason why they are calling for an increase in taxes on the rich is because the rich currently pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. They pay just 15% on capital gains and unearned income. Everyone else who works pays up to twice that.
Do you know that on your tax return there is a place where you can actually offer to pay more taxes than what you owe, as a gesture of good will? And the amount pledged rarely exceeds a couple million dollars, per year? I would think liberals would have made use of that a heckuva lot more than a couple million dollars in an economy of $15 trillion.
Liberals are FAR less charitable than conservatives per Nicholas Kristof, a very liberal opinion columnist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html
Liberals even give less BLOOD! So please offer an apology and declare yourself to be wrong, because if liberals were more generous, there would be more signs of their generosity right now. You are wrong, just fess up.
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! You were wrong. WRONG!
You are delusional if you don't think liberals would be willing to pay an extra 13% in taxes over the next 5 years in order to build a socialist society.
It depends on what you mean by socialist (the word has so many meanings at this point, I can't keep up).
I define it as public ownership of the means of production. Obviously there are probably a million different ways you can run an economy where the means of production are publicly owned, but I think they would rather live in a society where they debate the structure of a socialist society than the structure of a capitalist society.
30% of Americans view socialism positively and 60% of liberals.
Right, but you can't underestimate the allure of what people perceive as quintessential Americana, of which capitalism is a vital component. I do agree, worker ownership of the places they work at every day (and spend 1/4 or 1/3 of their lives), is an ideal solution (although I'm not sure about the idea of "public ownership" of everything). What does public ownership even mean, how would it work, etc.?
It's easy to conceive how we could start co-ops or other forms of worker owned/managed enterprises (grocery co-ops, healthcare co-ops, local services, even small to mid sized manufacturing). This would fit into our existing economy without any real risk of disruption (and if it works as conceived, it should only enhance our fortunes). Innovative, people friendly solutions also exist with alternate forms of banking (which could conceivably include existing banks, particularly credit unions and community banks). In other words, there's a variety of tangible things we could all do (and are beginning to do) to move in this direction, and (importantly) test and refine these ideas.
Worker owned companies, where revenues are divided among the owners of that company only, is capitalism, not socialism.
Socialism means the company is owned by everyone, not just the workers. So the revenues it generates are divided among everyone, not just the owners.
The way that would work in practice is individually run banks would use public funds, which come from whatever the natural savings rate is, to invest in individually run companies. And the total revenue generated by all companies would be allocated based on a national compensation plan where differences in income were limited to only what was necessary to get people to do difficult jobs and give their maximum effort. That plan would then be approved by a worker vote.
Having worker owned companies would maintain all the current inequalities of our current system. Plus workers, as owners, would now be subject to financial risk.
The kind of socialism I advocate is described here:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/1-replace-capitalism-with-democracy/
While we need considerable investment in our society, we don't need more top down schemes (where exceedingly more power and authority becomes more and more consolidated). It's reasonable to think our public policy could do a much better job of promoting worker owned enterprises (for instance, 42,000 factories have closed since 2000, there's a good place to try an experimental approach). It's reasonable to think cooperative movements could be successful (particularly in urban areas). It's reasonable to think we could accomplish robust financial reforms, mechanisms allowing for more participatory democracy, and many other things that can change our trajectory.
It could be true that once we have a society where worker ownership becomes commonplace, we'll try to push the envelope further. But the blunt instrument approach has never worked well. It's always turned ugly, sloppy, occasionally brutal, inefficient, and in some cases, dysfunctional in every way we can imagine. So it seems to me that this is not a reasonable approach.
This is why I like anarchism the best, "flexibility" :)
I agree. I do not advocate centrally planned, command economies.
Economies need a mixture of small and large companies.
I did not make any claims about anyone's generosity. Paying taxes is not an act of generosity.
Liberals don't want a few people to pay more taxes. They want everyone to pay more in order to fund public programs that benefit all of society. One liberal paying extra would not be fair and would not provide enough money to fund the programs they want the extra tax to fund.
Give it up. You're wrong.
Disagree all you want. I know human nature. 13% is a huge chunk of cash to just give to socialists. Never, ever happen.
You don't know human nature.
If I am a libertarian and make $100k per year, I am currently paying $30k per year in taxes.
So I can continue to pay $30k in taxes for the rest of my life.
Or I can pay $13k more in taxes for the next 5 years so that socialists can launch their system in exchange for me being able to reduce my tax bill from $30k to $0 for my remaining 45 years.
Making a one-time $65k investment in order to save $1.3 million or more in taxes is a no-brainer that anyone would see is a good deal.
Sorry but no one will invest an additional $65000 on the promise of zero taxes. They will want an immediate return.
lol. You have no clue how investing works either.
Nobody, except for you, is going to pass on an investment that returns 50% per year backed by the government.
how is it backed by the government?
It is the government that taxes you. It is the government who is going to stop taxing you. We are talking about something the government is doing.
If it is tied to a lying corrupted government they will.
Obviously.
US Treasuries are the safest investment in the world. So the US government is trusted more than any other government or business in the world to make good on its financial obligations.
It is absurd to say people won't go for that deal because they don't trust the government to hold up their end of the bargain. If they reneged on their deal, you can take them to court or just refuse to pay your taxes.
This is about as safe an investment as you are going to find.
You put way too much faith in these institutions....
US Treasuries are an absolute disaster. They dont even keep up with inflation. We can always pay em, because we print money whenever we want. The gov loves taking people money and paying only a couple interest points while the money devalues by 5-7% per year. Who wouldnt like that?
There is no negoitating with governments. Go ask Charles Hess about what happens when you try to use taxes as a negotiating tool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Hess
You put way too much faith in your paranoia.
The reason why treasuries pay so low is because they are the safest investment in the world. The less the risk, the less interest the investment pays. So it is proof that they always meet their financial obligations.
We cannot have a rational conversation if you do not understand the difference between 1/3rd the population not paying taxes because they made a legitimate, legal, enforceable agreement with the government that enables them to stop paying taxes and a single tax protestor who does not have an agreement with the government who stops paying taxes because he doesn't agree with the law.
The 1/3 will still pay their taxes. They are already screwing your SS by not increasing it with the rate of inflation, I dont see anyone making any noise about it.
If I thought the sheep of the country cared, I would take it seriously. They dont.
And like I said, if I owned a printing press, I would be a very safe person to lend money too. But you dont make anything on treasuries when you consider inflation. Its a net loss, Guaranteed. And the main reason they are extremely low now, at all time lows, is very telling also.
What are your thoughts on their all time low payouts? Reasons for it?
This comment makes no sense. If the government made a deal where you no longer needed to pay taxes if you contribute to building a new economic system, that is a legally binding agreement that the government will have no choice but to honor.
No, the reason treasuries pay so low is because Ben Bernanke keeps them artificially low to induce people and businesses to take on credit. They aren't.
Do you realize how much the Asian tigers have cut in their purchase of US treasuries and auction? They're slowly trying to get out of them and investing their money elsewhere. That's why the government is printing like crazy and telling us there's no inflation - they don't count food and energy costs rising. In other words, they're lying to pad statistics.
BTW, a rational conversation is not your will to have everyone agree with you. Learn economics. Then it will be rational.
US treasuries are just paper. What good do they do you if a loaf of bread costs you $100.00 ?
Exactly, and their main purpose right now is to be so low that it forced people into the market
The Feds renege on obligations all the time! You cantsue the government unless they agree.
They have never defaulted on their financial obligations. And yes you can sue the government.
A clue for you too..... why do you think our troops are in countries providing cover for large financial groups, and against the will of the people and the actual greater good, while they harvest resources from those lands and mine their precious metals?
June 5, 1933 Library of Congress. The terms of that Chapter 11 have not been met and cannot ever be met. I beg you, or anyone, to show me where this debt instrument has ever been discharged.
Of course you can sue "the government" even if they don't agree, have you ever done it? Even tried suing a mere judge when you have incontrovertible evidence proving malfeasance with criminal intent?
You can right now buy any publically held cmpany quite easily. There is nothing stopping you. I dont see why you dont know this. Bank of America sell for about $8 a share. If 5 milion socialists want t buy B of A they can. You can easily buy Sears today, its ready to collapse. Why not do that, cut out middle man profits, put a cap on profits and buy Sears and B of A?
Yes, much of the investment would be spent on buying public companies. As I mentioned in the post, you need to purchase existing companies and launch new companies. Most of the companies acquired will be publicly traded companies.
The socialist system can be funded just by the socialists, but it would be far more difficult. It might be impossible. They would need to triple their investment amount. It would cost 40% of their income which few people can afford. Perhaps that can be offset by taking on debt.
I do think it is fair for the capitalists to pay part of the cost because they will benefit financially from this as well. They will no longer have to pay taxes. So it is worth it to invest 13% more taxes today in order to eliminate having to pay 35% in taxes forever.
Get real. No one is going to agree to be taxed so someone else can own a company. Honestly, do you ever talk to people and interact with them?
If I am a libertarian and make $100k per year, I am currently paying $30k per year in taxes.
So I can continue to pay $30k in taxes for the rest of my life.
Or I can pay $13k more in taxes for the next 5 years so that socialists can launch their system in exchange for me being able to reduce my tax bill from $30k to $0 for my remaining 45 years.
Making a one-time $65k investment in order to save $1.3 million or more in taxes is a no-brainer that anyone who understands math would see is a good deal.
Honestly, are you able to do math or do you not understand the concept of investment?
What you're saying is actually surprisingly easy to accomplish. We already have separate systems called "states". All we need is more state power and less federal power to give power to the people.
We are already almost there with two great examples. California and Texas are two large states with Cali representing liberals and Texas representing conservatives.
Of course . . . Cali is going bankrupt and Texas is thriving . . .
California commands about 13.3% of our national GNP, whereas Texas accounts for 7.9% (and New York rounds out the top three at 7.6%). California has more people than Canada. So Texas has a long way to go before it rivals California. Moreover, compare the poorest states to the richest states (in terms of wealth per capita). All the wealthiest states are in the liberal northeast, whereas all the poorest states are in the conservative south. Yes, Texas has had some good luck lately. Tons of military spending (base expansions) over the last decade, somewhat of an energy boom, etc., but it still doesn't compare to Cali.
The major hurdle is making private companies public. You need investment money to do that. Whether it was all done in 1 state or spread throughout the entire country is arbitrary.
The problem with a state going libertarian or socialist is that not everyone who lives there will want that. So you are right back to the same place we are today where some people are forced to live within an economic system they don't want. You could move out of state, but that is incredibly inconvenient and is only marginally better than telling someone they can move to another country if they don't like the economic system.
I think the ideal scenario would be for people to choose their economic arrangement without having to move. Then we would really see which system is the superior system.
So you want massive change with little inconvience? Are you for real? How would you convert a third of the economy without huge dislocations? Be sensible.
You are missing the whole point of what I am proposing.
The whole point is to be able to choose an economic system without having to force others into the economic system you want. The whole point is to give everyone a choice without having to move to another part of the world.
Converting an entire state to socialism or libertarianism is no different than converting an entire country to socialism or libertarianism. In both instances you are forcing others into an economic arrangement they don't want.
I undertand your point. Just star buyimg up publically held companies thru the stock exvhange. Its very si,pe. Why dont you embrace that?
We don't need to convert an entire state to a single economic system in order to buy publicly traded companies.
Look:
First of all... No absolutes exist, ever. Fact.
What you describe both already exists, AND is itself redundant. To itself.
"mixed economy?"
Anyhow. we presently live in a system just as you describe, and increasing the rate of government buyups will ultimately result in a state capitalist takeover of the entire globe; a return to the dark ages, followed by mass genocide and utter mayhem, pandemonium, and total bedlam.
"Look:
First of all... No absolutes exist, ever. Fact.
What you describe both already exists, AND is itself redundant. To itself."
You might want to learn how to put together a coherent sentence before you call someone a fool.
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"we presently live in a system just as you describe"
We do not. Libertarians do not have the choice of living in a libertarian economic system. And socialists do not have the choice of living in a socialist economic system.
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"increasing the rate of government buyups will ultimately result in a state capitalist takeover of the entire globe"
I did not say govt should buy up every company on the globe. If 33% want a socialist system, they would make 33% of the private companies public.
The kind of socialism that I advocate is not like the state capitalism found in the ussr or n korea or cuba. You can learn about what I advocate here:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/1-replace-capitalism-with-democracy/
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"a return to the dark ages, followed by mass genocide and utter mayhem, pandemonium, and total bedlam."
With nearly the entire world capitalist and most of the world in poverty and half of America in or close to poverty despite being the wealthiest country in history, capitalism has already given us a return to the dark ages, followed by mass genocide and utter mayhem, pandemonium, and total bedlam.
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We have gone through times in our past where different currencies were in place, even a time when dual species currencies competed. The result was a great deal of inefficiency... and it was still capitalism. Having multiple economic systems running simultaneously would only be an even higher degree of inefficiency.
It's basically a segregationalist answer to the problem... economic apartheid.. separate but equal.... never works.
In Germany, many cities have micro-money to complement the Euro for local spending....
In the US as well. But that micro money, at least here, is not convertible to the US Dollar... that would be illegal.
The world currently has several different currencies and it works just fine. It does not cause inefficiency. Conversion rates are done by computers and it is completely unnoticeable to producers or consumers when they trade internationally.
We also have socialist companies like police and schools running simultaneously with capitalist companies. That does not cause any inefficiencies either.
Since you will never get everyone to agree on a system, it is only fair to give people choice. Choices work. Forcing everyone to comply lock-step with a monolithic system that nobody wants clearly does not work.
Having people choose their economic arrangement is no more apartheid than having people work at different companies or invest in different retirement plans or eat at different restaurants.
Do you consider our current system economic apartheid since we have everyone segregated into different companies?
Should we also force everyone to believe in the same religion? Wear the same clothes? Drive the same cars? Live in the same houses? Eat the same foods?
"The world currently has several different currencies and it works just fine. It does not cause inefficiency. Conversion rates are done by computers and it is completely unnoticeable to producers or consumers when they trade internationally."
Sure it does. That's part of the benefit of being the worlds reserve currency as the dollar is.... conversions are made to the dollar and it costs to do that. Computers for conversions aren't free, its going to cost to make transactions between currencies, lessening the value of the currency you hold. A few percent on small transactions doesn't hurt much, but on much larger transactions a few percent is a great deal of money to lose through conversions.
"We also have socialist companies like police and schools running simultaneously with capitalist companies. That does not cause any inefficiencies either."
Public sector 'socialist' companies like police do not compete with private sector jobs or markets. You are proposing different systems that will compete with each other for market shares, especially if they are going to conduct trade among the groups.
"Do you consider our current system economic apartheid since we have everyone segregated into different companies?"
The question is a very poor analogy since we operate under one system and the different companies operate under the very same system. How can we have separation in your example if they are one and the same, apples to apples?
"Having people choose their economic arrangement is no more apartheid than having people work at different companies or invest in different retirement plans or eat at different restaurants."
Sorry I don't see it that way.
"Computers for conversions aren't free, its going to cost to make transactions between currencies, lessening the value of the currency you hold."
That is wrong.
It doesn't cost anything to convert 1 currency into another.
"Public sector 'socialist' companies like police do not compete with private sector jobs or markets"
Wrong again.
UPS competes with USPS for both jobs and customers. Private schools compete with public schools for both jobs and customers.
We also live in a world where countries regularly import and export with each other and that system works just fine.
"The question is a very poor analogy since the different companies operate under the very same system"
If you are going to use the benign definition of apartheid as just separation, then having people separated into different companies is just as much apartheid as separating people into different economic arrangements or separating people into different investment funds or different cell phone plans.
"Sorry I don't see it that way."
So do you want to force all socialists into a capitalist system? Or do you want to force all capitalists into a socialist or a partly socialist system? Which way do you see it and why is it fair to force people to organize themselves into arrangements they do not want to be a part of?
"That is wrong. It doesn't cost anything to convert 1 currency into another."
You don't travel much I take it. I have, so from a travel site:
"Getting euro in the United States is expensive. It can cost you 3-10%. Exchanging money at exchange counters, hotels, shops, and restaurants is expensive. It can cost you 3-10%. When exchanging money the only thing that counts is how many euro you get for your dollars. Exchange bureaus play games with words, "No fees", but a terrible exchange rate. The international exchange rate is easily found in the paper or on the Internet. You will never get this rate; it is used to transfer millions of dollars. If you withdraw money from an ATM (bankomat in Italy) you will get an exchange rate 1% off the international rate. This is the best deal you will get. Check with your bank on fees they charge for each withdrawal and to make sure they haven't added on any "conversion" fee. You will not be charged a fee to use a bankomat by an Italian bank, only your bank's fee. Exchanging dollars at a bank will involve a small fee (buried in the exchange rate). Exchanging traveler's checks will involve an additional fee. Banks are not very convenient to exchange money, opening hours are short, lines can be long, and paper work takes time."
Looking at the systems as you are forced in to one or another is a mistake. If you like a purely socialist system, you can find a socialist country, no one is stopping you, same with a capitalist one. People can make choices.
I would like to see a hybrid system here, and laws can be written to make one.
When I accept an international order the conversion is done for free automatically at whatever the prevailing exchange rate is even for orders less than millions of dollars. I don't doubt you can find a place where they charge a fee. But it can be done for free and nobody has to pay a fee.
Saying different currencies is inefficient because a computer has to calculate the exchange rate is like saying having different prices is inefficient because computers have to calculate order totals and how much change a customer must receive when they pay at the register.
So since you want a mixed economy, we must have a mixed economy and everyone who doesn't like it must move to another country? lol
How about if you don't want to live in a country where you have the FREEDOM to choose the economic arrangement you want, without having to move to another country, then you can move to a country that has 1 monolithic system that everyone is forced to live under.
Nothing in business is done for free automatically. The cost of conversion is then calculated in the price and transparent to you. It doesn't mean that the cost doesn't exist. How do you think George Soros made billions in currency exchanges?
Democracy: when the majority where you live agree upon what the system will be like.
Soros doesn't make his money by collecting a fee from converting currencies. He makes money by betting on whether the value of 1 with go up or down relative to another.
Democracy means people power, not majority vote. So it would be more democratic to allow people to live under whatever economic arrangement they wanted than to force 49% to live in a system they did not want.
I don't understand how you think it would be better for you to live in a socialist system when you want a mixed system just because some people voted for it.
You shouldn't be forced to live in the home you don't want or drive the car you don't want or eat the food you don't want or wear the clothes you don't want or operate within an economic arrangement you don't want.
There is absolutely no benefit to forcing the entire world into an economic system that most don't want.
"Soros doesn't make his money by collecting a fee from converting currencies. He makes money by betting on whether the value of 1 with go up or down relative to another."
I never said he made money buy collecting conversion fees... pretty condescending.
"Democracy means people power, not majority vote."
I disagree with this definition as well. It's obvious we don't see eye to eye on much, especially this multi-system plan. Why don't we just agree to disagree.
"I never said he made money buy collecting conversion fees"
Yes you did.
You said, "The cost of conversion is then calculated in the price and transparent to you. It doesn't mean that the cost doesn't exist. How do you think George Soros made billions in currency exchanges?"
You said Soros makes his money through the cost of conversion!
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"I disagree with this definition as well"
The term democracy comes from the Greek word δημοκρατία (dēmokratía) which means "rule of the people". It does not mean majority vote or even voting at all.
We elect presidents in this country without a majority of votes. Nobody would say that is undemocratic.
Not even the act of voting makes a society democratic. A society is democratic only when power rests with the people. Voting is just one way of exercising that power.
A person has far more power when they are able to decide what economic system they will participate in than would from just merely voting for one.
"I never said he made money buy collecting conversion fees" Yes you did. You said, "The cost of conversion is then calculated in the price and transparent to you. It doesn't mean that the cost doesn't exist. How do you think George Soros made billions in currency exchanges?"
Those are separate ideas, one talking about how the difference valuations of money are already considered, like if you buy canadian products using Canadian dollars, there is roughly a 30% increase in the ticket price over using US dollars.... then I asked you about Soros... these are problems that arise when not talking face to face.
"We elect presidents in this country without a majority of votes. Nobody would say that is undemocratic."
That is done because the election process in this country is not a true democracy, but rather a democratic republic. Our votes elect representatives to the Electoral College, who then decides who will be President. It is not democratic.
If you want to be socialist, just move to a socialist country. You cant combine the 2.
There are no socialist countries that I would want to live in. But even if there were, I would rather not have to move to another country in order to get a different economic arrangement.
That is like saying why give people choices in house designs or food. If you don't like the house design or food here, move to a country that has the house design and food you want.
You are hilarious. You want socialsm, but there isnt a socialist country you would live in. Hmmmmm? You must not like socialism.
guess you didnt read the post about the RIO summit. thats the exact plan of the UN!
I did not read the post about the RIO summit. They want to do what I wrote about here? They want countries to give citizens the ability to choose their economic system? Do you have a link?
no they are devising a plan for the future that they intend to force onto everyone that will include wide spread poverty, no choices, and there fore everyone will be forced to "Wear the same clothes? Drive the same cars? Live in the same houses? Eat the same foods?" becuase they will only be getting what is handed to them through social welfare nets.
http://thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/11600-un-seeks-new-powers-to-remake-world-at-rio-sustainability-summit
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Socialism is the exact opposite of what every real American should want. Socialism is big government giving everyone everything that they need.
Since you are a real American and against socialism, shouldn't you have the freedom not to participate in our unamerican, big-government, socialist system?
Our current system is 30% socialist with extensive regulations and high taxes. If you think the economic system would work better without that, shouldn't you have the freedom to choose to participate in the system that doesn't have that?
What I am proposing is a way for capitalists who are against socialism to be able to work in a purely capitalist system.
The biggest problem I see is that very few in America see any value in actually producing anything other than paper instruments and keyboard entries.
Anything much outside of that requires work and skills which are valued much less than the white collar positions most here seem to revere and seek.
This is why America never minded production jobs being sent out of this country.
What does the jobs people want to work have to do with them being able to choose what economic system to participate in?
May I quote you in order to answer you?
"In order for an economic system to be viable it must be large enough to produce nearly everything on its own."
When this, as well as providing durable goods and "things" for the rest of the world, happened in the United States, years ago, more than 80% of those "working", actually worked producing and manufacturing.
What you claim to be very important for your proposed scenario cannot happen with 50% running around being paper magicians stealing from those actually producing or entertaining with song and dance.
People want to work. And if the only job opportunities available are manufacturing jobs, those are the jobs people will do.
Consumers decide what jobs are available. If they spend their money on song and dance, we will need more singers and dancers. If they spend their money on manufactured goods, we will need more manufacturing workers.
Not all people want to work. If you dont know that, your system is foolish. Most everyone's ideas would work if all people were ambitious and hard working. In fact, lots of people lack drive and ambition and you do not account for that at all.
Nobody wants to slowly die from starvation because they don't want to work.
Not everyone is ambitious and hard working. But everyone wants to work.
No they dont. I am sorry but you dont know human nature. Lots of people dont lke to work and others will do only the bare minimum. Thats the whole issue with socialism and communism.
You are clueless.
So "lots of people don't like to work and others will do only the bare minimum" in socialism and communism.
But that is not true of people in capitalism?
lol
You need to take break from the Kool-Aid.
EPIC FAIL, again. Socialism and communism depend on everyone working with equal effort, you say so yourself. Capitalism does not.
Again, EPIC FAIL.
I never said that.
In socialism, you get paid based on how hard you work. To each according to their labor. The people who don't work, get paid nothing. The people who work more difficult jobs or put in greater effort in performance based jobs get paid more than those who do not.
You are woefully ignorant of economics. You need to get better informed about the world you live in. You are being taken advantage of.
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The only way your idea could work is to divide the country geographically by these systems. And I would support that.
Dividing the country would defeat the purpose of what I am proposing. You should be able to choose your economic arrangement the same way you choose an investment plan. Your geographic location shouldn't determine your economic system any more than it should determine your retirement plan or the style of your furniture.
If you go by geography, it would be completely arbitrary and you would have to force all the people who live there to conform to the economic system. It would be no different than what we have now where people are forced to live within an economic system they do not want.
Then you doom your system to insignificance.
How so?
An economy of $5 trillion with 50 million workers would be pretty significant. It would be the 3rd largest economy in the world.
How do think you could get enough power, to define new jurisdictions, when you haven't admitted what we suffer is special-interest socialism, where central funding is about to crash? Do you think you could get any control at all, somehow?
I don't know what you mean. I need to admit that we suffer from special interest socialism in order to propose an idea? Maybe you can re-phrase your point?
The four-level US and inferior jurisdictions are infested, with corporate agendas, to misuse central funding, for actually illegal media, including to profiteer, at surveillance, fraud on court, inflated prison industry, and wars, incited by either oppositionality to communism or illegal support, for the zionist invasion of Palestine. The drug war with suppression of biomass media supports the oil cartels' and war cartels' profiteering, to violate RICO. Sue and save existing jurisdictions, or redefine jurisdictions, upon collapse of existing jurisdictions, which could happen, given the widespread contamination of all media, affected by the proliferating cartels, street gangs, and prison gangs. Conspiracy against civil rights of citizens is evident. Fix it, or find a new one.
I think if the people organized and demanded that we have a choice between economic systems, that is what we will get.
We'll get a CRASH, dawg. Soon, too!
Socialism is not about a new economic system. It is about overthowing economics as we know it as all economics really is is a way of explaining how capitalism works. No capitalism no economics. Indeed if there still is economics that is evidence that capitalism has not disappeared no matter what the system calls itself or what it is called by others.
Socialism is the public ownership of the means of production.
Economics is not a way of explaining capitalism. It is the study of how we produce, distribute and consume goods and services. The only way to get rid of economics is to get rid of the economy. We would have to stop existing in order to do that. So we will never get rid of economics.
In a sense Marxism is based on a moral economy, but certainly not political economy as it is commonly understood. Marx's magnum opus is subtitled "a critique of political economy" that is he was criticizing economics as a science, which, he argues in that text, is specifically bourgeois, is specifically related to capitalism and meanless outside of capitalism. It is not that opression does not take place in pre-capitalist formation, but rather that it is not exploitive in a capitalist sense. Opression in pre-capitalist class societies is direct, as the relationship between slave and master and it is unmediated by money, markets or the extraction of surplus value. Since the laws of motion of a capitalist society would no longer function in a classless post capitalist society, then in any meaningful sense there would be no economics at least not in the sense that it is intelligible as a modern social science. Exchange would not be based on the extraction of surplus value and markets but rather, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Indeed, were that not the case and economics in a classical bourgeois sense continued to function, by definition that would not be a socialist society but still within the realm and framework of capitalist political economy.