[peterv]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/just_53_say_capitalism_better_than_socialism

Looks like that Socialism slowly occupies both US and EU and specific categories of the population (golden boys and girls)  are already benefit from it.

[Polpolion]

It's a shame it doesn't matter what American adults think. It matters whether one works better than the other or not.

[Herra Tohtori]

How stupidly set up is that poll and how stupidly it's interpreted?

Most people (I hope) have enough sense to realize that neither extremety works particularly well. Freedom of property is quite an important thing to all of us, so we need that from capitalism. But capitalism needs socialism to balance all the glaring issues it has.

Condensed:

The problem of capitalism is that it by definition prefers capital, meaning that majority of people end up in a ****ty position that is really difficult to get away from, which results in (you guess it) class society in one form or another.

The problem of socialism (particularly the revolutionary communist version and especially stalinism) is that everyone is equal, except the party leaders are a bit more equal than others... and the result is that everyone ends up equally ****ty (except party leaders who are more equal than the rest).

Historically, comparing both extremities is an exercise in futility because there are very limited amount of examples of pure capitalism and pure socialism. IMHO the days of unregulated capitalism ended when the first working conditions agreements were made, and socialism has been divided to revolutionary and non-revolutionary since it's inception. Well, revolutionary communism has historically not worked out too well (apart from Cuba and North Korea and (nominally) China they have just abandoned that model. And of course there's nothing social about North Korea, and there is no purely capitalist country in the world (although People's Republic of China might be pretty close, ironically enough).

USA is more socialist country than China.

You might want to take a look at countries that have successfully combined features of socialism and capitalism and how they compare with other countries.


TL;DR - There's no real way whatsoever to compare socialism and capitalism in a "which is better" competition. There are no examples of either.

[Goober5000]

The USA isn't acting particularly capitalist right now, which is probably skewing the impression.

[Mr. Vega]

You're right- The US has been a welfare state for the rich for a long time.

[Polpolion]

TL;DR - There's no real way whatsoever to compare socialism and capitalism in a "which is better" competition. There are no examples of either.

Which isn't to say that one way doesn't work better than the other, just that we'll never find out.

[Scotty]

I'm all for capitalism.  In an ideal capitalist society ( ), people rise throught their merits and abilities.  However, that's ideally.  What we have here is a mess.

As for communism, well, Einstien has a quote relating to that:  "There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of an unequal."

[The E]

I'm all for capitalism.  In an ideal capitalist society ( ), people rise throught their merits and abilities.  However, that's ideally.  What we have here is a mess.

As for communism, well, Einstien has a quote relating to that:  "There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of an unequal."

You forgot something: In an ideal capitalist society, everyone starts out the same way, and has the same chance to rise as far as his or her ability allows. Reality works a bit differently, unfortunately.

[Blue Lion]

The reason for this is actually kinda simply (in my opinion only!)

For years, the far right conservatives have labeled anything they don't like "socialist".

Clinton was socialist, Obama was (is?) tax plans, budgets, programs, it's all socialist!

Now the economy is in the crapper, the Democrats (aka socialists) are in power trying to fix it and things are going... alright? (reserves the right to change in 5 minutes)

So I think the reason for this socialist rise in the country is the far right who used it as a bogeyman constantly that now it's lost the sting it once had.

[Herra Tohtori]

As for communism, well, Einstien has a quote relating to that:  "There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of an unequal."

Yeah, and socialism does not equal communism. That's probably the most common mistake people make about socialism, it just starts ringing red alert in their heads... even though communism was just basically the revolutionary branch of socialism.

Basically, when socialism was constructed by Marx, Engels et al, some thought that it was simply not possible to enact the new ideas without a complete revolution of the system, that the capitalist pigs in control of every place would never let that happen.

Well, in Imperial Russia the bolsheviks (who thought revolution was necessary) won the internal squabble with mensheviks (who basically were proposing social reforms through legislative channels in the existing system), and the rest is history, and socialism become communism (and stalinism) for so long time that it was damn easy for J. Edgar Hoover et al to use it as the boogeyman much like the Bush administration used terrorism (with the exception that the threat of terrorism might have been slightly more real).

On the other hand, in places like Finland, social reforms did eventually happen without a revolution - although one was attempted; it also has many names and interpretations (independence war, liberty war, class war, red rebellion amongst others) but basically it did not end in communist revolution ("red" side "lost" more than the "white" side in that conflict). Despite this, social reforms were being done in Finland and they didn't end in the failed revolution (which likely would have also made Finland a Soviet Socialist Republic of Finland eventually).

So, it can be posited that the revolutionary branch of socialism is more of a failure than the non-revolutionary form that reforms the society through legal means.

It might not be a great surprise that a society based on violent change of leadership and social structures fails to last...

[Dark RevenantX]

Meh.  Benevolent Dictatorship > all.

[The E]

Culture-ish anarchy FTW!

[Vrets]

Down with the patricians!

Let the Struggle of the Orders (re)commence!

[peterv]

It might not be a great surprise that a society based on violent change of leadership and social structures fails to last...

French revolution? American revolution? Unless that what we are seeing now is their own failure.
(Also, in general, i agree with you)

[Scotty]

French revolution? American revolution?

The revolutions in all those African countries?  There are exceptions to every rule, though granted not many in this case.

[peterv]

Chinese Civil War? We are talking about more than 1/3 of the modern world already.

[Aardwolf]

French revolution? American revolution?

The revolutions in all those African countries?  There are exceptions to every rule, though granted not many in this case.

But the African countries have been at it for decades (on and off)

[NGTM-1R]

Chinese Civil War? We are talking about more than 1/3 of the modern world already.

To be fair, that was played out against the backdrop of the Japanese invasion in its opening parts...and a good argument can be made that the Communists won it because the Nationalists were fighting the Japanese. The opposition had already exhausted its resources and will to fight on a different opponent.

[blackhole]

Of course, all polls disregard the fact that 90% of Americans are mind-numbingly stupid.

[peterv]

To be fair, that was played out against the backdrop of the Japanese invasion in its opening parts...and a good argument can be made that the Communists won it because the Nationalists were fighting the Japanese.

It's a very complicated story. Don't forget that major parts of Chiang Kai-Shek's troops defected to the communists during critical batles of the war.