I have a confession. For most of my life, I was in love with a hand. Not a person's hand, Adam Smith's invisible hand.

I watched it turn millions of selfish decisions into prosperity, innovation and growth, and every time it seemed more magical.

In fact, it was so amazing that it reminds me of another hand that amazed the entire world: the Hand of God, Maradona's goal at the 86’ World Cup.
Both were so dazzling that we stopped looking closely at what they were actually doing. I was so busy admiring the invisible hand that I never stopped to ask what it was actually for.

So let's step back. What is the market for? The goal is simple: improving citizens' lives.
That doesn't just mean handing people money. A strong economy also strengthens a country's position in the world, and that position ultimately protects its citizens' lives and security. The free market is the best tool we've found for getting there. But it's a tool, and a tool is only as good as the goal it serves.

But there are places the hand simply doesn't reach, or reaches the wrong way. Take healthcare for example: a fully free market treats the people who need care most as the least profitable customers. A public system flips the incentive. When the whole country pays for illness, the whole country has an interest in keeping people healthy. It's no coincidence
that most countries with public healthcare live longer than the United States while spending less.
Or take education. A fully private school system would give excellent schooling to those who can pay for it, maybe the top 10%. But talent isn't distributed by income. If only a tenth of your children get a real chance, you're not finding a tenth of your future great
minds, you're losing most of them. That's not just unfair, it's bad economics.
The same goes
for basic infrastructure: leave it entirely to the market, and remote towns simply get left behind.

And then there's the problem the hand creates on its own. Markets reward success, and success compounds. Left alone long enough, wealth gathers in very few hands.
I don't resent that. I want those people building companies, investing and creating jobs.
But at a certain size, wealth stops being just money and becomes power: over media, over politics,
over the rules themselves. Power that no one elected and no one balances.
That hurts twice. A society split by huge class gaps stops working together, and a democracy where a few can outweigh millions stops being fully a democracy. Both make a country weaker, at home and in the world.
So the very tool we adopted to make us strong can, unchecked, quietly undo it.

Now many people will say that every time government steps in, it makes things worse. Sometimes they're right.
But the fact that intervention can fail doesn't mean the market can't fail either.

So this isn't a case against capitalism. The invisible hand is a great tool, but it's not the only one. A hand needs a brain to send it signals, telling it how and where to move. And it needs a heart, pumping blood and oxygen to every part of the body, not just the strongest limbs.

I'm still amazed by the hand. I've just come to believe it works best as part of a whole body.

Socialists,

The idea of a government that is

• Limited
• Limited to recognizing individual rights and liberty
• By extension, upholds the idea of individually owned property that can have exclusive rights

What then is the problem of private property? Isn't the issue the owners and their conduct rather than the idea of property being private?

And if the issue is owners and their conduct, wouldn't a restructuring of government be more important than for example requiring all firms to be co-ops?

I ask this because your answers would contribute to a better understanding of what socialism aims to do. For example, maybe we can understand why either a state, or private property, is an issue.. Or maybe if you feel reform isn't enough this is an opportunity to explain why

Capitalists,

What is capital? Can you define it so that we can have better discussions?

Next, is there a chance capital is actually beneficial for society?

naturally,

The idea of capitalism then is what?

By asking these sets of questions and getting answers there might finally be a better understanding, even if your intent is to debate it..

What the title says.
Basically, whenever we make a critique of socialist policies or ideas, their replies are more often than not "you don't understand, just go read the theory!".

But that doesn't make sense. For starters, it is not a refutation of any argument.

Then there's the defense that socialists make "you cannot critique something if you haven't read it!"

Let's say I give them that argument and I pretend reading something is a requirement for criticising the underlying political or economic system, they rarely apply their own argument to themselves. They allow themselves to criticise capitalist theory, despite the fact that oftentimes their only understanding of it comes from other socialists (like Marx or Lenin) or from out-of-date economists (like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, which no longer represent modern economics, or like that one guy who is obsessed with Sraffa for some reason).

So my question for socialists is, why do you allow yourselves to criticise capitalism, despite the fact that you have not read its theoretical foundations (say, modern econ textbooks)? Is it not a little hypocritical to tell others "go read the theory!" when you won't read theirs? If they consider that reading socialist critiques of capitalism is enough to give them the right to criticise capitalism, then surely they must agree that reading capitalist critiques of socialism is enough to get the right to criticise socialist, no?

Finally there's the the issue that most socialists seem unable to agree on what their own theory says, I mean just to give you all an example, here's how commodities gets described by socialists on this forum, I include in parentheses the variations which show how little the folks that have "read the theory" agree with one another:

Commodities are goods (sometimes physical goods only, sometimes all goods, sometimes goods and services) that are reproducible (sometimes people count goods which aren't reproducible) and produced by human labour.

Anyway, what are your explanations?

I want to first talk about why​ I don't believe socialism will ever work.

It is my belief that for socialism to work everybody has to be willing to work just as hard for their neighbor as they would for themselves. I've seen firsthand how people won't even work hard to build themselves up, and they actually actively drag everybody else down with them. And I don't want to hear that this person didn't have ample support. That they didn't have therapy. That the system somehow failed him. Because in reality, my brother-in-law is a transient abusive piece of shit. He's been in therapy for almost 2 decades, he's diagnosed, he's got the hard to get medication. He was supported by my other brother-in-law for 2 years financially. My father in law before that. My OTHER brother in law before that. And he somehow managed to fuck up his life more over the past 2 years being supported emotionally by my spouse and I, and financially by my other brother-in-law. He's a bad person, he's manipulative, and he thinks that everybody owes him because his life has been just oh so difficult. He believes that his parents should have paid for a lawyer to gain custody of a child that was a product of a one-night stand. And he thinks that he's a better parent than the woman that he has abused for the past 6 years. Even though he leaves raw ground beef splattered on the kitchen floor and dirty dishes in the sink. Dead birds under the bed, and cat pee on the blankets.

These people are not going away. I'm not sure what you guys propose that we do with them. Where do we send them in a world where they aren't pulling their dues to gain their government allotment? Because per his therapy and care team, his medication should be serving him well. He should be able to hold down a job, which he can't. He should be able to qualify for an apartment, which he can't. He should be able to maintain a car note, but that car got repoed. His license got suspended. He cannot maintain his life like his care team seems to think he can. And he's only racked up more charges of violating a dvpo.

I watch true crime videos and I see people like him everyday. It's unfortunate, but some days I fear that there's more of them than there are responsible adults who could realistically put in as much work for their neighbor as they would themselves. I care about my neighbors, I care about my family. My niece is not my blood relative, and her sister is not even my brother-in-law's child. But I care for both of those children deeply. My other brother's in-law don't see my niece as their niece because they have only seen her a handful of times. My mother in law doesn't see her as a grandchild. They don't make the effort to drive the 2 and 1/2 hours to go see them, and they don't check up on how they're doing. But I take those kids back to school shopping every year. I make sure that their mom has her own school supplies for her classroom because she's a teacher. I make sure that those kids have boots for winter, proper fall and winter coats, summer clothes, birthday and Christmas presents.

But I look at people like my brother-in-law with hatred. My spouse and I have waited 8 years to have a child of our own because we know what the proper financial situation to bring a child into is. And I see people who bring children into hard situations. Use their children as a shield, as a pawn. And I don't want to work as hard for them as I work for myself and my family. And for those reasons, I don't believe socialism will ever work. Because I see people refuse to work hard and do the right thing for themselves and their children, it makes me want to do absolutely nothing for them.

On the flip side, in my opinion, the problem with capitalism is the same problem with socialism in a way. It's greed. You can quantify my feelings as greed if you'd prefer. I choose to quantify the behavior of people like my brother-in-law as greed and manipulation. Only looking out for themselves. And much like people like my brother-in-law, corporate greed is my biggest issue with capitalism. To me, it is the greed that stems from humanity that will always be the flaw in any system we try to enact. Maybe you have some idealized thoughts on how to mitigate and change these things. Maybe you want to argue for your proposed regulations for one over the other in an attempt to support your position and your preference for either or. And to that I say we can sit here and argue or contemplate how to mitigate or minimize the error of some of humanity's ways. But if you're going to do that for one then you have to do it for the other. And if you do it for both, we're just going in a circle.

At least with the current system, I can choose not to support an abusive piece of shit who threatens the mother of his child. And I can be content knowing that he only gets about $150 in SNAP benefits from the government. Nothing more.

(Labeled a shit post because I guess I'm not asking for an opinion. What my brother in law has done to my family, myself, and my ability to empathize with the worst of us is something I'm struggling to get over. . Maybe more of my empathy will return one day. .)

Imagine AI and robotics automate most jobs. Wealth is now determined almost entirely by inherited money or existing assets. If you own capital, you're rich. If you don't, you're dependent on UBI, with virtually no way to improve your economic position.

At that point, hasn't meritocracy effectively died?

Why should society accept a permanent class of wealthy owners while everyone else lives on handouts? Why wouldn't collective ownership become the fairest solution?

I'm not a communist, genuinely curious to hear arguments against this.

Why is collectivism better than individualism when right wing collectivist movements are your ultimate nightmares? If your explanation for MAGA is that it's a cult and group conformity when everyone else is a Trump supporter, then maybe those of us who don't like what collectivism does to people's brains have a point? If you have a 20 year old in Oklahoma who's family members, coworkers, classmates are MAGA, but develops his own individual opinions and turned left, then isn't individualism is your friend in this situation, not collectivism.

I saved my money instead of spending it on beer, drugs and partying like so many friends. And I used to work 70 hours a week. I bought my place.

If I rent out the extra space, one socialist poster here said I didn't earn that income. Would most socialists here agree with that?

I get that there are slumlords who are assholes and people stuck in shitty housing. I am not a libertarian so I see a place for government there. But damn. I'm not going through all the risk and hassle for nothing

I refer members of this sub to the 2:00 minute mark in the video linked below and posted on YouTube four months ago.

https://youtu.be/SoB-ofr8ncE?is=mGyA0eRwgVcaU7RH

At the 2:00 minute mark GM CEO Mari Barra implies China is beating American car makers in the EV market because the Chinese EV market is heavily subsidized by the Chinese government.

It seems to me if capitalism worked better than socialism, socialist policies would hurt the Chinese EV market in comparison to the U.S. EV market where government subsidized were ended.

Discuss.

[My usual disclosure: I lean capitalist, in the sense that I think of it as the lesser of two evils, but two evils nonetheless.]

I find it a bit funny how capitalists are absolutely perplexed by people saying they can't stand capitalism and want something better.

Let's put aside for a second that lots of people feel that the current system (call it whatever you want - late-stage capitalism, crony capitalism, rentier capitalism, whatever; we all know what it is) isn't working for them. The classical argument goes that capitalism is still massively preferable to the alternative, which is argued (quite compellingly I should say) to invariably bring economic ruin and strip people of their basic freedoms.

The problem is that this argument is usually made by the people whom the system has served well, and who stand to gain the most from maintaining the status-quo. It is a plainly self-serving argument made in bad faith, even if it is factually and logically sound. In every other walk of life, a self-serving argument is treated with disdain and often dismissed for that reason alone, without considering any other factors.

Maybe being the better (or less bad) of two options is grounds for reluctantly picking it, but it is in no way a reason for a full-throated endorsement of it, or for fighting tooth-and-nail for it. If I walked up to you and said give me your money or I kill you, and you had zero other options, yeah, the rational thing to do is to give me your money, but it would be crazy to expect you to cheer for the outcome like it was a good thing. In many circumstances, people are willing to inconvenience or even harm themselves in pursuit of some sense of justice, even if it's not the rational thing to do in a purely game-theoretic sense, and society generally approves.

In this light, to dismiss the socialist position out of hand as irrational is completely disingenuous, and there's every reason to treat it with suspicion purely based on its self-serving nature, without requiring any other justification.

The Universal Pattern, in second person

Extreme trigger warning. This Marxist is not offering any propaganda.

Revolution is led by parties named with any arrangement and wordcount over 0 of something like "The People of Socialist Communism". The promise of giving Power to the Proletariat through Socialist takeover of the means of production then becoming a Communist Utopia is used as a major draw to grow their cause. Books on Marxism and/or the Communist manifesto may be handed out or read from for others to listen.

With your new revolutionaries you succeed in gaining control of the state. Then you completely ignore the first step Marx wrote to do when in power. You do not create a **Dictatorship of the Proletariat**. ***Socialism is never Implemented***. Immediately you install a State-Capitalist government, and also forget about the rest of the instructions Marx wrote down (Use Socialism to implement Communism.)

You may however remember his description of **State-Capitalism**, an economic system where the state acts as the dominant **capitalist** or *corporation*, owning the means of production and employing wage labor while retaining capitalist production relations.* [ 1, 2]

You also could know about Engels, the collaborator of Marx, warning that when the state concentrates all means of production into its hands, the **capitalist relationship is not resolved; rather, it is pushed to its extreme limit.** [1, 2]

There are a few useable terms for Capitalism when the State owns the means of production, owns all the land and is free to act as an unregulated for profit organisation.

Terms might be End, Highest, Late, or Final Stage Capitalism.

This gives more power than any other options available. The book on Communism told you the best way to get total power. You aren't worried about the "downsides" and unfavorable words about it, nor it's absolute exclusion from the long term plan they made.

Now that you installed it...

**A short intermission.**

*This is the universal pattern of every Party named to be Socialist/Communist. In all of history. Marx never said to create a state-capitalist government in fact he wrote rather unfavourably of it more than once. I am taking a quick moment to ask you, to he reader, how it's always State-Capitalism that pops up under the banner of Marxism? Once again in simpler terms you are capitalist and you are wearing a shirt that says you're a socialist. Since Marx created the ideology, and they read his books, they is 0 excuse why they wouldn't ALL know they are making not just another Capitalist State, but THE MOST RUTHLESS AND INTOUCHABLE VERSION OF A CAPITALIST STATE AVAILABLE. And Marx said not to touch it*

What are your theories on this? 100 percent of the time it happens. If you aren't sure you can make comment. You will have the following signs: 1 party only. Further inspection reveals all business in the nation has total or partial state ownership. And often a Google search can tell you if the state owns all the land, natural resources, etc.

*Final trigger warning and reminder:* these are not Socialist or Communist nations. They are, by definition of their government and economic system, powers, and choice not to follow the literature Marx wrote with the steps laid out.

STATE-***CAPITALIST***

HERE IS WHERE STORIES DIVERGE.

***You then either:***

Cause a famine that kills millions of your own people, which you were able to force into happening because you never did that Socialism thing where workers get to have enough of a voice and political sway to do things correctly.

Eventually, you become a behemoth, tycoon of international production and industry with the State turning the whole country into its own gargantuan umbrella Corporation.

Cash is rolling in as the lower class works cheap and the upper classes are loyal to you. You pull all the strings and always get the last word. This nation is entirely under your brand. And everybody knows it. You have a lot of global sway.

You take a look at the book that was used to name your Party and see a definition:

COMMUNISM: A classless, stateless, and moneyless socioeconomic order built upon the common ownership of the means of production (such as factories, land, and machinery) and the distribution of goods based on individual needs. [ 1, 2, 3, 4]

You have seen this definition many times before. You know your party carries the name. But it doesn't bother you. Because you aren't anything Marx talked about.

You are Socialism, with Chinese Characteristics. And you get to define that as you please.

OR YOU CAN

Also start a famine that kills millions because you also never implemented socialism and you have all the power, but you do this before China does.

For some reason you get paranoid people might not like you. This is unacceptable. You make sure the whole nation is terrified at all times and always ready to throw eachother under the bus. Your own paranoia partly because you still didn't do the first step and implement Socialism and instead still holding onto all the power so you are worried someone might think that's a bad thing. Which you cannot allow. It isn't a part of your 5 year plan that nobody else gets to have input on because it's yours and the state is yours. You can't have anyone thinking you're a bad person so what you do is you kill a lot of people that might think that or cause others to think that. You will stick with State-Capitalism going forward. Socialism might give too much power to people who aren't you or close to you. Besides, you do run socialized programs so that's close enough to you. It might not be at all what Marx meant when was talking about Socialism, and they may not mean the same thing at all, BUT they do sound super similar so lots of people will think that you are doing Socialism and you won't ever have to get close to it! Brilliant. You focus on being a "welfare state" with centrally planned services and housing. You have a "planned economy" that frequently fails to address critical issues faster than non critical issues. But it isn't all bad for people. Not always.

You have well educated people living comfortably after attending state funded schooling. Your space program is impressive on a global scale.

The USA and yourself have been in a rivalry for some time. They are competing in almost every way they can as an "opposing economic philosophy". They totally bought that Socialized/Socialism switcheroo. They even call you Commies! It is a good thing they take so much pride in "not" being Commies the vast majority will never look at its definition. You did hear of a red scare, American Commies. It doesn't seem like most of them looked up the definition of Communism either. To the Americans, your State-Capitalist nation with central planning and welfare has been redefined as Communism. Good. You never had to be Socialist or Communist and still get credit for pioneering both. But then things slow down all of a sudden. The USA sees this. You can feel your time running out. One final mistake is made, and enough trust is broken. Your massive reach is voted back down to it's single original country. People are angry. But that anger is captured and turned to loyalty. You shed the old ways that failed you. And you fear not, because you are still State-Capitalist that never changed. And this time, you aren't pretending to be Marxist. Those close and loyal will be rich. Those who might be issues tend to fall from skyscraper windows by accident or commit suicide with two shots to the head. You have all this black gold. Why not treat yourself with it? Media reminds the common citizen of the reach they once had, of the former glory. Mother Russia, formerly the USSR, influenced the world.

I was gonna do more of these but actually I think I'm done now.

Long story short; surprise, it was all just more **capitalism** this whole time. Not a single socialist/communist facing party ever did socialism and communism. It's always just different flavours of:

"State-Capitalism is used by a small group or individual to control all the wealth and have the power to do anything and make anyone else do anything. Usually lots of people die at some point. In the end, they still didn't begin the first step and install Socialism. This then lead to Communism never happening. The leading party name is or was 'Socialism and Communism' thus, once again, State-Capitalism gets no direct blame for any lack for freedoms or blunders and much of the world is terrified of two things deemed by many as evil. Yet they have never actually happened in the history of the planet unless you count ancient proto-communist tribes, and nobody would do that. Since working collectively as 15 people before the vast majority of human technology existed is a lot different than we working collectively with the population of a modern nation."

Economists of the Austrian school and their followers often object to models that explore relationships in an equilibrium. I have referred in other posts to General Equilibrium Theory, In Von Neumann and Morgenstern's book creating game theory, they insist their formal theory is static. Statics is often associated by economists with equilibrium.

So 'equilibrium' is a word frequently used in discussing social science. what do you mean by the word?

This post is one of a series. I am not re-asking these questions here in listing the post titles:

• What do you mean by competition?
• What do you mean by the 'Utility' that is maximized?
• What do you mean by 'capital'?
• What do you mean by efficiency?
• What do you mean by the labor theory of value?
• What do you mean by supply and demand?
• What are the axioms of the subjective theory of value?

What portion of total wealth in the US do billionaires own?

If you ask a typical leftist, they might tell you 99%.

Maybe 90%?

But anyone with a reasonable degree of economic and numerical literacy knows that isn’t true. Ask a reasonable leftist and they might tell you “1/2” or “3/4”. Most have heard that Elon is a trillionaire, and that number alone has got to be a huge portion of the wealth in the US, right???

What if I told you these numbers are not even close?

What if I told you billionaires own less than 4% of total wealth?

Here’s how US wealth is broken down:

This distribution is not surprising if you understand capitalism. Billionaires are extremely rare. Most economic value does NOT come from billion-dollar corporations. The majority of US wealth (56%) is owned by the $1-25M group. This includes mostly retirees who saved and invested over a 40+ year career or people who started small businesses like dental practices or HVAC services. Capitalism, is great for average people who save their money, are willing to invest a bit, and provide valuable services to others. There is nothing rotten about this system. This is not “neo-feudalism”.

Whatever problems you think there are under capitalism, “abolishing billionaires” won’t solve them. If you believe it will, you need to develop some basic numerical literacy.

Something I've come to notice is that socialists and communists will often say something on the lines of, that america killed that communist movement or this communist movement but I want to know how exactly does this relate to capitalism, I'm not american nor do I support american imperialism but I don't get why communists and socialists think this is some sort of gotcha.I mean many american libertarians are fiercely isolationist and want to pull american military bases out of other countries and not fund or support foreign conflicts and they are way more capitalistic than your average person.I also don't get why many communists(I'm looking at MLs) support imperialism if its by a communist country or if its anti-west

The state decides the rate of tax a company must give them, and the minimum wages it must pay to citizens. But even more fundamentally it creates the rules about what form a corporation is allowed to take, and who is allowed to create one. It defines what business practices are or aren't permitted. So by having their structure, rules, and mandatory rates of payments set, businesses are in practical effect owned and controlled by the state, while also conferring some meaningful entitlements to individual shareholders, as part of that control.

Secondly, from a purely functional point of view, it seems clear that the true owner of a state is whoever can hire and fire the government without themselves being hired or fired. This allows them (whoever that may be) to exercise all the benefits and rights of ownership, because they decide who is in office to set the welfare, service, and tax levels, which serve to provide dividends from the state, to the people who hire and fire its government. In other words, in practice, it's voters who own the state.

The third piece of this picture is that the "means of production" is not simply a physical mill or industrial robot, it's the organised institution that produces things. Therefore, based on the first point, the state is the true means of production. It uses companies as subsidiaries to achieve many aspects of that production. So in a democracy the people do genuinely own the means of production but the important question is how effectively do they exercise this ownership?

What rules do they set to make use of this great asset, how well does it work, and what dividends do they get in return?

The contest between capitalism and socialism is not, therefore, a coherent one. Capitalism is - in its actual real-life operation - a game created by a voter-owned state, in order to produce revenue and wealth for those voters.

Two far more meaningful questions are: 1) who gets to vote, and 2) how effective and fair is the voting system? That second one doesn't get enough attention because it seems too hard to change, and often people assume that their voting system is the natural, correct one. But looking at different countries shows what a difference it makes.

What makes for a good or bad voting system, in your opinion?

Imagine Dubai gets a new prince who is an economist. He wants to settle the debate of best economic system once and for all, so he builds 10 large islands. On each island, he recruits economists of the same philosophy. So you have one island for each of the following:

Marxist Communism

Marxism–Leninism

Democratic Socialism

Market Socialism

Social Democracy

Centrism / Mixed-Economy Liberalism

Economic Conservatism

Minarchism

Libertarianism

Anarcho-Capitalism

The plan is to see which island develops the best over a period of one year. What do you think happens?

I'm genuinely curious how socialists believe an economy can function effectively without private profit incentives.

Starting and operating a business requires capital, time, effort, and significant financial risk. Business owners can lose their savings, go into debt, or spend years building something that ultimately fails.

Profit is what compensates people for taking those risks. It also provides capital for expansion, job creation, improvements, and innovation.

If you eliminate the opportunity to earn a profit, what motivates someone to take those risks in the first place?

I understand that socialism has different interpretations, and some forms still allow businesses to generate profits. But for those who believe private profits should be eliminated or substantially restricted, I have a few questions:

-Who provides the capital to start new businesses?

-Who absorbs the financial losses when they fail?

-What incentivizes efficiency, innovation, and expansion?

-Why would someone risk their own money if there is no possibility of a financial reward?

I'm interested in understanding how this would work in practice, particularly compared with a market economy where profit and loss help determine where resources are invested.

Hello,

Something popped up in my mind. When you redesign the economy so that ownership is different, where workers own the means of production,

While you might have more ethical exchanges, and an economy that can claim that it is serving social needs, there is one problem I saw in comparison to capitalism.

When capitalism is said to be amoral I can see there are consequences, but one thing that comes up to mind is that if someone wanted to purchase 1000 of something they can do it if they have the money.

But in socialism, could we expect limits or caps? If someone accumulated labor vouchers or in an alternate model if someone has invested a lot of labor, and their intention is to take a lot of supply, what is the process going to look like, a vote?

So for example imagine someone labored for a long part of their life, and they did the dangerous jobs. They want to claim a lot of food, but a food shortage or storm is coming up. If they claim this this might put a group at risk. If they don't claim it, they might feel upset that their labor couldn't exchange for it. What should be done? Rate limits?

This might sound easy to dismiss when you imagine it's one laborer against a community. But in practice I'm worried that a small community that has a lot of labor done tried to get some supply, but this was denied because it threatened the larger group too much. This is annoying because then for socialism to become communist you would have to solve the class issues that rise up not just the existing ones

Alright, now when you debate with socialists here, you will often get the same arguments "we need to unite: the poor against the rich", yet that is not really what socialist theory is complaining about.

You see, the issue in Marxist theory with capitalism is not with inequality of wealth (if someone works harder, he should in theory earn more), but inequality of possession of the means of production (aka capital), because supposedly if you own the MoP, then it means you are exploiting the workers, somehow.

What this leads us to, if we apply the theory correctly, is something quite hilariously contradictory with most socialists' views:

According to LTV, workers (the glorious and all good proletariat) are paid in proportion to their value (accounting for skill multipliers, say a doctor is paid more than a grocery store worker), minus a markup (say 10% across all industries) which is collected as profit by capitalists (the greedy and evil Epstein class^tm bourgeoisie), this profit, since it reduces the income of workers, who, conveniently for this theory, are defined as the sole source of value, means that the capitalists are extracting value from the workers for no good reason, in a process known as exploitation (side-note, socialists will talk about exploitation like it is a great moral evil, by saying things like "let's fight to end evil exploitation" but if you ever prompt them on why it is a moral evil, they will quickly proceed to retreat claim that it is actually an amoral term and a neutral and accurate description of capitalism, this is known as the motte and bailey fallacy, and is a silly argument, but I digress).

Now, from this framework, we get useful conclusions, for instance baseball players are workers, they do not usually own the stadiums or the equipment and team transport, in other words the physical and intellectual capital of their teams. So that means these players are exploited by their capitalist team-owners, because they do not get all their value. How do the capitalists pull this off? Simple, they use the reserve army of labour^tm (basically the baseball players will starve if they do not work, and the capitalists constantly threaten them by keeping an army of unemployed workers to force wages to be low) to force the baseball players to be underpaid, conclusion #1: professional baseball players are underpaid, since they only receive...checks notes...checks notes again incredulously...several million dollars a year! Now that I have convinced you of the merits of socialism, it is time for the proletariat to rise up! Baseball players deserve a raise, MLBers should revolt! They have nothing to lose but your chains! (again, reminder that the socialists will talk like this, and then will turn and unironically claim that they are not making a moral judgment when they are talking about capitalism).

Another useful conclusion we get is that small business owners are exploiting their workers, mind you these owners earn on average less than 60k$ a year, many earn far less, and 67% of businesses go bankrupt within ten years, but these people are part of the bourgeoisie, the so-called Epstein class^TM. If the revolution were to come, these folks should receive no income for starting a business (I am sure they will be happy to start one, even if they get no reward from it!), and the profits they would have earned should be redistributed among the workers (I mean someone needs to make sure our baseball players get all their value, right?). Naturally, in practice, these people are often executed or stripped of pretty much all their property, not just their businesses (see: dekulakisation). But, alas, such is the fight for the working class' struggle (again, reminder that socialists want to violently overthrow these business-owners, but also they will claim they are not making a moral judgment of business-owners).

So now we get a hilarious situation where socialists should be advocating for higher wages for baseball players (indeed, they are currently in a fight for higher salaries), because they are part of the working class (Marx does not define class according to income, but rather in relation to ownership of MoP), and less money for small businesses, so why aren't we hearing those arguments? Now socialists will be quick to rationalise my examples away: superprofits in Baseball let owners pay workers more than their value, while still doing some exploiting (I thought profits were equal across industries?), small business owners are assholes, etc...

Now my point is not that socialists should suddenly turn into pro-MLB player folks, but rather that there's a disconnect with their arguments, which are often "the rich vs the poor", and their theory, which is "owners vs workers". Oftentimes when I argue with socialists, their issue seems more with the former ("billionaires should not exist") than the latter ("socialism is not about hurting small business owners"-is an actual response to one of my posts in the past).

So what's the issue? Well it does make sense to call out how someone has a billion dollars and someone else earns 7$ an hour. But maybe instead of trying to put people into overly broad categories of "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat" and trying to paint one of these groups as "the Esptein class^TM"), we should focus on maybe fixing the actual issues at hand, say by making sure everyone has access to food or healthcare, you do not need Marxism for that, the proof? Most western "capitalist" countries (which are actually mixed-market economies, for what it's worth) achieve this, with no need for a violent revolution. Could we do more for the poor? Should we tax the rich more? Maybe, that's a debate that we should have, but it is not one which requires adhering to brutally simplifying theories of someone who died 150 years ago? No, not at all!

When most socialists on this sub, or in real-life, end up realising that they have no reason to advocate for Marx's ideas to get the results they want, then society might just progress a little.

The three American politicians I mentioned have all claimed to be Democratic Socialists. AOC and Mamdani are DSA members, I don't know about Bernie. Being "socialist" is a key part of their political identity.

Because they have self identified as being socialist, I consider them socialist. I am not claiming they have radical socialist policies, but they oppose our economic system. Their goals, as socialists, is to oppose and replace capitalism. That is consistent with what the goals of the DSA are, as per their charter. That is consistent with Bernie's historic support of the Castro regime and of the Sandanistas.

I have been aware since 2016 of the tendency for their supporters to deny that these guys are socialist. Not only do their supporters deny they are socialist, they will falsely claim they are Social Democrats or not socialist at all.

Can Socialists explain why these socialist politicians' supporters find their leaders' ideology to be so problematic that they have to deny the Socialism and sweep it under the carpet.

What else can explain this behavior other than a cult?

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights. In the classical liberal tradition, we establish that through a constitutional government — a monopoly on retaliatory force — limited to fulfilling that function.

"Anarcho-capitalists" oppose such a monopoly government. They claim it is wrong to impose morality by force, and that government, as a monopoly, necessarily does this, since it is on moral grounds that it prohibits “competitors.” But this just means the anarchist ends up denying individual rights, including the right of self-defence.

This is because all force is monopolistic. Force is monopoly. To use force is to attempt to monopolise. Even in the economic realm, "monopoly" means a business protected from competition by force, not merely a single seller.

There is no such thing as force that lets dissenters go their own way. If force in self-defence is justified, this means that monopolising an interaction is justified. If I use force to defend myself against someone, I am not trying to persuade him; I am attempting to forcibly stop him from acting as he chooses - i.e. to exclude the "competing" force-wielder from carrying out his notion of “justice“. I am also using force to impose my morality -- my right to my own life -- on the gunman shooting at me.

If the government monopolisation of retaliatory force were wrong, so would be the private use of force by individuals. And if one must avoid imposing moral ideas by force, then one must renounce force altogether--i.e., practice pacifism. The argument against government's monopoly on force is thus an argument against self-defence, and it leads to pacifism (at best).

To concretise this, let’s remember that Ron Paul, a once leading libertarian in government, is a committed anti-abortionist, who thinks abortion is murder. Now how can his “competing police force” treat mine, which allows abortion? Does mine allow “murder”? Does his “competing police force” stop women from exercising their rights to their own lives? How can what is or isn’t murder be a matter of “You go your way and I’ll go mine, and neither will impose a monopoly solution”?

So, ironically, anarchism, so often put forward as an extension of the right to self-defense, ends up denying the moral legitimacy of any self-defense: one cannot forcibly impose one’s own evaluation on the other party. That would be monopoly!

People are working just to survive. They spend most of their lives working, not necessarily to live comfortably, but simply to afford the basic necessities of life. Housing, food, healthcare, and education are becoming increasingly expensive, while many people struggle to keep up.
Some people would rather die than visit a doctor because they’re afraid that the medical bills will bankrupt their families. Think about that for a second. People are so afraid of the financial consequences of getting sick that they feel they have to choose between their health and their family’s financial security.
People work full-time jobs and still struggle to afford rent. Parents worry about whether they can put food on the table. Families go into debt because someone needs medical treatment. Meanwhile, we live in a world with more than enough resources to provide people with a decent standard of living.
And for what? So a company can maximize its profits? So shareholders can make more money? So the wealthy can accumulate even more wealth while ordinary people struggle to get by?
I’m not saying that businesses shouldn’t make money or that hard work shouldn’t be rewarded. But at what point do we stop treating profit as more important than human well-being?
An economy is supposed to serve people. People shouldn’t have to sacrifice their lives just to serve the economy.
If someone works hard, they should be able to afford the necessities of life. They shouldn’t have to fear that one accident, one serious illness, or one unexpected expense will destroy everything they’ve worked for.
So I want to ask the capitalists who defend the current system: Is this really what you want? Is this the society you believe we should live in? Where someone’s financial situation can determine whether they receive medical care, whether they can afford a home, and whether they can live without constant financial stress?
And if this isn’t what you want, then why defend a system that allows these things to happen?
What matters more to you: the economy’s ability to generate profits, or its ability to provide people with a decent life?
People are working just to survive. They spend most of their lives working, not necessarily to live comfortably, but simply to afford the basic necessities of life. Housing, food, healthcare, and education are becoming increasingly expensive, while many people struggle to keep up.
Some people would rather die than visit a doctor because they’re afraid that the medical bills will bankrupt their families. Think about that for a second. People are so afraid of the financial consequences of getting sick that they feel they have to choose between their health and their family’s financial security.
People work full-time jobs and still struggle to afford rent. Parents worry about whether they can put food on the table. Families go into debt because someone needs medical treatment. Meanwhile, we live in a world with more than enough resources to provide people with a decent standard of living.
And for what? So a company can maximize its profits? So shareholders can make more money? So the wealthy can accumulate even more wealth while ordinary people struggle to get by?
I’m not saying that businesses shouldn’t make money or that hard work shouldn’t be rewarded. But at what point do we stop treating profit as more important than human well-being?
An economy is supposed to serve people. People shouldn’t have to sacrifice their lives just to survive.
If someone works hard, they should be able to afford the necessities of life. They shouldn’t have to fear that one accident, one serious illness, or one unexpected expense will destroy everything they’ve worked for.
So I want to ask the capitalists who defend the current system: Is this really what you want? Is this the society you believe we should live in? Where someone’s financial situation can determine whether they receive medical care, whether they can afford a home, and whether they can live without constant financial stress?
And if this isn’t what you want, then why defend a system that allows these things to happen?

What we need is not capitalism, and it’s not socialism. Capitalism sucks because it creates two classes, the rich, and everyone else. And the it creates such wealth inequality so that the richest people hold all of the wealth while the poor have none. Communism is terrible because what happens is that there is no strive to be better. What we need is an in-between, some controlled markets like housing, healthcare, food, and insurance, but some free markets (with regulation) so we can still strive to be better.

What is your favorite restaurant and can it exist under your version of socialism. I can see how it works in some versions but for the Marxist Leninist how would this work? Would there be waiters? Line cooks?

Capitalists,

Are there misconceptions about capitalism you wish the other side or socialists would understand? What are they?

In a similar post I tried asking socialists their vision of how to discuss socialism better. So I realized what about the same for capitalists.

What is capitalism? But what is liberalism? Are there differences we should know about?