Political Economy

Capitalism is the best form of socialism

Libs do not understand that if you want a big middle class with a fair distribution of wealth, try capitalism. Only in free market America do we have a such large middle class with a comfortable lifestyle. Believe me, the middle class and even the poor live a relatively cushy lifestyle.

  • Capitalism is the best type of social justice there is.

Look at China or Poland, the middle class is raising not because of socialism but because of capitalism.

capitalism socialism
Socialism does not produce a middle class like this. Only when people are free to act on their own enlightened self interest does the pie get bigger and all live better.

I am an expert on Eastern Europe and post socialist economies as I have lived here a good part of my adult life as well as studied economics. Under socialism there was no middle class. Yes there was a lot of equality on paper but in reality it was some sort of surreal grey dream, not good.

If you look at the Gini coefficient of counties, a measure of wealth dispersion, you will say America has unequal distribution of wealth and in Easter Europe there is a more flat distribution. Well there are lies, dam lies and statistics.

The reason is everyone is/was poor and then you have the elite. Moscow and Russia is a great study of this. You have people living in small blocks of flats and the super rich. But the Gini coefficient shows not as diverse wealth levels as the USA or the UK for example.

What is poor?

Eastern Europe is only now getting a middle class. In contrast, in the USA the ‘poor’ are not poor in my mind, they are with few exceptions living pretty nice lives.

In the USA I have even heard the poor have TV or radio and running water. Poor in Eastern Europe have no running water, no plumbing, no heat in the winter and no food and people sleeping on a floor in a one room studio in the winter with no windows. I have seen this and some of my friends almost live like this. Poor in the USA, and I lived in the south mind you, people have TV’s and radios and plumbing. Let me tell you, you do not want socialism in the USA. You do not want an entitlement state. You do not want anything but capitalism or the middle class will disappear.

Any libs out there that wants change and are anti-capitalists, be aware that you will go out of the fire and into the pan if you embrace a more socialistic state.

Do you really want to change from capitalism to socialism?

Once you set up an entitlement state you can never go back. People do not want their free milk from the state cut off. Basically the system would have to collapse for people to be free from this type of socialism. I am not saying provide no help for the poor, however, a socialism is not help for the poor.

  • If you want to tell me about the nice European social states in Western Europe, try me and leave a comment.

If you want a pie that gets bigger and bigger vote generally libertarian or Tea party small government.

If you want a pie getting smaller and smaller and people fighting over the shrinking pieces vote tax and spend democrat or Neocon republican. Within both the democratic party and the GOP there are elements of good people who want to reverse the damage of government is having on the middle class and the poor.

The middle class is being eroded because of creeping government not because of capitalism.

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Mark Biernat

This is my Youtube Channel: EconLessons

Comments

12 responses to “Capitalism is the best form of socialism”

  1. Katya

    I am a Russian girl. There is no way I would roll back the clock and base a society on a failed economic theory. It is what Zbigniew Bzezinski called the “Grand Failure”.
    People who idealize socialism have no idea what they are talking about.
    Captalism is almost synonymous with freedom. Socialism is almost synonymous with corruption, elitism and oppression of freedom.

    Reply
  2. Adam

    Socialism is a poisonous seduction for the weak,the envious and the parasites. The only good thing about it is that it always eventually self destroys. The not so good thing about it is that it can take one life time.

    Not so far from where I live Tyrannical Fidel totally destroyed is country.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9q0KZo3CKk

    Reply
    1. Mark Biernat

      Adam this is a brilliant video, thank you. And when Cuba becomes free again, it will only than give hope to people who live there.

      The reason people are so adamantly against socialism is they see it destroy’s people’s hopes and dreams. It is not just the material contrast but the whole idea that there is no hope. That is real poverty.

      Reply
    2. Rex

      Adam, pretty good video of the differences. It would be much better, and more true had not the US invoked economic sanctions against the US and Venezuela and others Socialist countries; all sanctions do is to provide them and their defenders with excuses as to “why” socialism doesn’t work. Give them no excuses and the results will be the same…

      Reply
  3. Adam

    The only real equality I enjoy is “Equal liberty.”

    Reply
    1. Mark Biernat

      The objective of a government is not to make everyone equal materially. It does not work. Again, I have been living in a post socialist country. There was no equality under socialism, not even an illusion of it.

      Equality in liberty is a good goal.

      For society as a whole (not the individual) the summum bonum is justice. People from Plato to Mortimier J. Adler argued this correctly. You can never have too much justice, it is the ultimate good for a nation.

      However, how you achieve a just society is the point of debate. The idea of justice is often elusive and hard to define even with situational ethics. So it is better to focus on the two ideals of equality Vs. personal liberty.

      On one hand people argue for material equality, because this is equated to opportunity in life or maximizing comfort.

      Yet, when you take from one person to give to another, the ideal of fair and just is comprised. Social engineering is the path of good intentions (questionable) which is the road to hell. This was the experience of the 20th century.

      On the other side is liberty. Although I am libertarian leaning to say the least, there are limits to liberty in a just society. For example, it should not be permitted to allow children to take recreational drugs. There are limits to freedom.

      There is something called a ‘public good’ such as air. We can not dump anything in the air if we own a factory as we all share that public space.

      Small limits on freedoms is something very different than striving government steering and defining something called “the common good”. This is where people get their wires crossed.

      The idea of the “common good” sounds great. However, when embraced by a government, it leads to the road of incremental movement to things Europe experienced in the 20th century. Governments pass laws, even in democracies that are unjust in the name of the ‘common good’

      So better to have trust in individuals ability to purse enlightened self interest which will unintentionally bring society to ‘the common good’ and maximize the summum bonum of justice.

      But outside of the extreme or obvious cases as above, the idea society should be based on the idea that most people are balanced mentally and can handle liberty and responsiblity and they own their own life. This means, although I do like make money, I am not going to stop at nothing to do it.

      We can quote enlightenment philosophers from Adam Smith to John Locke and Jefferson until we are blue in the face, but I guess what it comes down to is, do you think men are naturally good or naturally evil.

      Are people generally good or evil?
      If you believe men are evil, your society should be based on restricting liberties and social engineering and redistribution of wealth forced by the government. You as a politican can play up class warfare and greed and work on people’s jealousy.

      If you believe men are at the core good, than a society should guard personal liberties and freedoms of the citizens and protect the citizens from government abuse of power. As a politican you can take the higher ground and appeal to people’s ideals and love or freedom.

      I guess my question is why do many people not see this?

      Reply
  4. Adam

    “there are limits to liberty in a just society. For example, it should not be permitted to allow children to take recreational drugs. There are limits to freedom.”

    I am not in agreement with this but I understand what your saying.

    Freedom does require responsibility. That is part of protecting it.
    I would not be respecting freedom if I dumped my garbage on my neighbor’s lawn or if I pollute a river where other have the freedom to swim on or drink from. To allow children that are not fully mature or ready to take there own decision to take drugs would be irresponsible and putting there there eventual freedom in jeopardy.

    I distinguish the responsibility and protection of freedom from its limitation. The word limitation scares the hell out of me.

    Jefferson said “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

    I may sound a bit extreme but I think that modern democracies have been hijacked a long time ago. To me democracy should not be a goal in its self as we have it to day, instead I look at freedom as being the goal of democracy. We are very far form such a libertarian objective.

    Reply
    1. Mark Biernat

      I have argued this point before. In the US constitution, the declaration of independence and the bill of rights the word democracy is not found. Democracy is good and nice but the purpose of government is to protect the rights and freedoms of the citizens.

      Democracy plus protection of freedoms is the ideal. However, it is an old story from Ancient Greece to Rome as well as modern examples from the 19th and 20th century, often democracies do not protect the rights of good peace loving citizens. Just because we have some form of democracy does not mean we are exempt from being on guard against violation of individual rights.

      Every socialist republic that was totalitarian did have the world democratic or republic in its title.

      I think there is a movement in the US to bring the country closer to the orignal intent of the founding fathers. 2012 is a key election year.

      Reply
  5. Adam

    Mark.

    Your suggestion concerning the 12 months moving average is a good suggestion or a kind of “good Rule of thumb”. I never paid to much attention to that but I will now had it to my basic investment criterias. It’s quite reliable.

    Tanks for sharing this.

    Reply
  6. Adam

    (I will now had it = I will add it)

    Reply
  7. bob hope

    Just forget that the good life for even the poor in USA is based on the extraction of natural resources, exploitation of human resources and the financial squeezing of predatory lending. all major power eat off of minor powers. Furthermore the planet is dying of toxic waste from cheap deregulated corporations. The choice is not between monopoly capitalism or monopoly communism but corporatism vs free and fair trade. concentration of wealth and power just stinks. to oversimply the choice is between Gandhi style political economy and fascism, meaning corporatism. You don’t need a middle class and a small upper class under a ruling class if people live simply and well without tyrannical ruling classes to force consumerism on the people.

    Reply
    1. Mark Biernat

      I have no idea what you are talking about? I have lived in post communist countries and they are polluted and corrupt and poor. I could not wait to get back to the clean air and easy life of capitalist America.

      I think you need to live in some post industrial Russian city for a while. I am all for Gandhian ideas and ‘small is possible’ type economics but it starts with human freedom. Free movement of labor and capital. So your back to capitalism.

      The only real place capitalism has to be watched are public goods like the environment. We could not allow every company to dump pollution into any river near their factory for example. But here are free market solutions for this.

      The financial crisis was caused by government trying to control capital and markets like the Federal reserve not the idea of maximizing individual freedom, which results in a greater good for all.

      Reply

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