Communism vs. Capitalism

Give just those two choices I would pick Capitalism as being the most likely to reach its ideal at some point. Although ideal Capitalism would probably have a lot of the things that people where I live fear about Communism. And I mean some really minor things too, I was once in a sociology class where a dozen or so students got really pissed about the fact that fraud could be punished by the government.

If I could pick anything, I would probably go with some modern form of Socialism, obviously large Capitalist markets are unavoidable in anything remotely realistic but there are a lot of things I'd rather just be sure get done by someone than leave to markets.

Originally posted by Neo_Communist
Which economic system do you find most likely to reach the theoratical "Utopianism?"

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
How about the system that hasn't crashed and burned in every instance of its implementation.

Good luck with that one. Communism/Socialism doesn't work because people are greedy. Capitalism without restraints doesn't work either....because people are greedy.

Capitalism without restraints doesn't work either....because people are greedy.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
Good thing that capitalism has demonstrated the capacity to so efficiently allocate resources that it produces the highest standards of living in the entire world, then.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Actually the countries that are the highest living standards are socialist/capitalist mixtures.

exactly

-isms wont save us now

Originally posted by King Kandy
Actually the countries that are the highest living standards are socialist/capitalist mixtures.

except when it causes political cronyism and major market problems like those the world is experiencing now?

actually, your comment above about needing a system that hasn't crashed and burned is one I agree with 100%

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
Boom, baby, the free market wins again.

No...it doesn't. The term "free market" is an oxymoron. Markets are too easy to manipulate by those with the largest amounts of capital.

Like another poster said.....the countries with the highest standard of living are a mix of socialism and capitalism.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
And how many of those are Communist mixtures? None. Boom, baby, the free market wins again.

Markets are too easy to manipulate by those with the largest amounts of capital.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
And why is this? Because of government involvement.

Actually it's lack of government involvement. The financial crisis of 2008 likely would never have happened had the banks not been deregulated in 99.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
Actually it's lack of government involvement. The financial crisis of 2008 likely would never have happened had the banks not been deregulated in 99.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
So Jimmy Carter and the CRA that wormed its way through the loan process which categorized denying loans as "discriminatory" had nothing to do with it.

They had a lot to do with it. But the excessive risk taking of firms such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns far beyond what their corporate charters mandated had a much more direct impact.

Free trade isn't helping either. It's producing a steady drain of blue collar jobs from the wealthier nations and there aren't enough high skilled white collar and professional jobs to fill the void....even if the workforce were educated enough (which it isn't)

As much as I hate to sound like a Reagan Republican, the problem is the amount of regulations imposed on businesses. The costliness of operating a business in America is far greater than operating a business in Mexico. If the government were to deregulate the industry, you would see job growth in America.

But now you'll say, "Won't that make workers slave wages?" Yes, it will. Until the job growth creates a labor shortage, at which point workers can use their labor as a bartering tool to increase their wages and benefits.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
As much as I hate to sound like a Reagan Republican, the problem is the amount of regulations imposed on businesses. The costliness of operating a business in America is far greater than operating a business in Mexico. If the government were to deregulate the industry, you would see job growth in America.

But now you'll say, "Won't that make workers slave wages?" Yes, it will. Until the job growth creates a labor shortage, at which point workers can use their labor as a bartering tool to increase their wages and benefits.

Except that, historically, there have only ever been labor shortages for unskilled workers when something suddenly removed large parts of the population. These days its even less likely, since machines mean that we only need a fraction as many laborers.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
But now you'll say, "Won't that make workers slave wages?" Yes, it will. Until the job growth creates a labor shortage, at which point workers can use their labor as a bartering tool to increase their wages and benefits.

That is what "free trade" is for...finding cheaper labor elsewhere in the world.

Mix of the two: Social-Democracy.

there have only ever been labor shortages for unskilled workers when something suddenly removed large parts of the population.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
Citation needed.

Well I can't seem to find any shortages of unskilled labor that didn't relate to war, famine of plague. But, of course, that's rather circumstantial. On the other hand, proving that claim wrong should be pretty trivial, just find one instance where the economy outgrew the population so much that unskilled workers were in high demand.