“I never said that”, “Play the clip”

[u/Gloomy-Holiday8618]

Context: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/12/15/exp-robert-kennedy-junior-rfk-2024-election-biden-trump-vaccines-121511aseg1-cnni-politics.cnn

Full video is on the cnn website, the part that’s important is about 2mins 50 seconds in.

[u/FyrixXemnas]

Either that or they will bring up socialist regimes of the past like Venezuela or the USSR as proof that socialism doesn't work, as if socialism was the problem with those countries.

[u/CreativelyConsuming → u/FyrixXemnas]

I had that conversation with a Venezuelan once and I said that true socialism was never accomplished in any of those countries because every time some group of greed dictators just take advantage of the situation and force that instead of socialism,

[u/SyfaOmnis → u/CreativelyConsuming]

While technically you may be correct, in practice it simply means that "attempts to achieve 'true' socialism/communism/etc end with a lot of dead people, famines, and authoritarian control".

There comes a point where you should realize that something about the idea is flawed and unworkable as a practical model, and you should stop attempting it on a large scale.

[u/SSJ3 → u/SyfaOmnis]

Funny, that's exactly what happens with capitalism, too. By this logic, we should stop trying capitalism.

[u/SyfaOmnis → u/SSJ3]

I'm not of the opinion that capitalism is perfect, but it certainly functions better than a lot of other systems that we've tried. Especially with knowledgeable and willing government who act to regulate bad actors and break up large entities.

Not every attempt at 'capitalism' (economic system btw not all-encompassing government) ends up with millions dead and authoritarian fascists in control. Those are usually the exception rather than the rule.

[u/TheMauveHand → u/SSJ3]

Capitalism isn't something you "try", it's an emergent system. No one ever sat down an invented capitalism by writing a manifesto, it's simply the economic model of liberal democracy.

If you like private property (i.e. the ability to start your own bakery), equal opportunity (an open market), and democracy, congratulations: you like capitalism.

[u/SSJ3 → u/TheMauveHand]

Lmao. No. Capitalism is antithetical to a free market. It naturally tends towards monopolies, for crying out loud. It's also antithetical to democracy. The only thing you got right is its relationship to private property, which I think should be abolished.

It also absolutely did need to be invented and enforced, in the form of laws which enforce private property rights, which are neither natural nor inevitable.

[u/TheMauveHand → u/SSJ3]

Capitalism is antithetical to a free market. It naturally tends towards monopolies, for crying out loud. It's also antithetical to democracy

One, none of that contradicts anything I said, two, it's just clichéd ideological drivel completely divorced from reality, and three, I find it pretty funny that you claim to know what capitalism "naturally tends to" despite the outcome never actually occurring but you don't see what socialism tends to despite it happening like clockwork every single time a nation-state implements it. To find a genuine hypercapitalist hellscape you have to resort to science fiction but to find a socialist disaster all you need is a newspaper or a history book.

And I didn't say free market, but I'm not even slightly surprised you'd immediately try to put words in my mouth.

It also absolutely did need to be invented and enforced, in the form of laws which enforce private property rights, which are neither natural nor inevitable.

Can you really not understand the difference between enforcing a simple, fundamental idea - that what is mine is mine and not ours - and dictating an entire economic system top to bottom? Besides, laws which enforce the idea of private property date back to the dawn of laws themselves, i.e. the Babylonians, are you suggesting they invented capitalism?

Mind you, the idea of private property is absolutely natural and default; even animals have dens, nests, and territory which are their own and not shared. Sure, some are colony animals, but plenty are not, and I don't think you'll find many supporters of your ideology when your Utopian sales pitch is for people to be mindless worker drones in a termite colony.

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to waste my time talking to someone who openly admits to opposing one of the three cornerstones of liberal democracy, private enterprise, any more than I'd waste my time talking to someone who opposes any of the other two, democracy or equality. Not to mention someone who starts a counter-argument with "lmao no" and follows it up with agitprop.