[jakehow]

"self-organized collectives" are abundant in western capitalism, we usually refer to them as corporations. The terms and agreements between parties in these organizations vary but many fit your ideal.

The philosophical difference between socialism and capitalism, is the willingness to accept violence and coercion as a means to mold society to a specific vision.

[stevenbedrick]

jaw hits floor

Which of those two philosophies do you think accepts "violence and coercion as a means to mold society to a specific version"? From the context, I'm guessing that you're referring to socialism, and thereby claiming that capitalism rejects violence and coercion- my apologies if I'm misunderstanding you.

Assuming that I am interpreting your comment correctly, though, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you don't know much about the history of the twentieth-century US foreign policy, especially regarding Latin America. We have a long history of using violence and coercion, either directly or via proxies, in order to promote our capitalist philosophies. "Interestingly," we seem to choose to do so primarily in situations where we have significant financial interests... anyway, here's some reading you might find educational:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#History_in... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_U.S._regime_change_actio...

Note that I'm most definitely not saying that socialism, as a philosophy, has cleaner hands than capitalism. Speaking in terms of political ideologies, the take-home lesson of the abattoir that was the 20th century is that putting one's faith in a political ideology of any kind is asking for trouble.

[jakehow]

Firstly, my comment was qualified with the word 'philosophical' not 'practical'.

Secondly, many people have different understandings of capitalism, and pop culture has continued to remove meaning from the word, which is probably why you are having a hard time understanding my comment.

The examples you cite are perfect examples of the opposite of capitalism: socialized institutions (or the government directly) using violence as a means to an end, either political or economic in nature.

For reference here is the jist from Wikipedia, which leaves a little to be desired but is still pretty decent:

"Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and operated for profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are not made by the government; Profit is distributed to owners who invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses."

[ahi]

"The philosophical difference between socialism and capitalism, is the willingness to accept violence and coercion as a means to mold society to a specific vision."

I am fairly certain violence and coercion is orthogonal to socialism v capitalism.

[jakehow]

It is very simple. A purely capitalistic society can contain, tolerate, and even encourage totally egalitarian organizations in any form the participants deem prudent. A purely socialist society on the other hand cannot tolerate capitalistic organizations in its midst.

Violence is embedded in the assumption that society can be organized in a socialist manner.

[raganwald]

The trouble with arguing about "Purely X" for any value of X is that there are no practical examples of X for us to examine. I don't have an option of living in a purely capitalistic society. Canada is somewhat democratically socialist, but not purely socialist. There are small scale startups, bu t I am not aware of any gazillion person corporations where everyone is paid for what they really contribute. Even when bonus is a major component of someone's monetary compensation, the highest rewards go to those who game the system.

In the end, arguing Capitalism vs. Socialism tends to devolve into the No True Scotsman fallacy: "Socialism sucks because you die of old age before getting an MRI." "Oh, I got one for my knee." "Well, Ontario isn't a TRUE Socialist society."

And: "Capitalism sucks because if a corporation succeeds in exploiting people, it makes money. But if it fails, they go to congress and rob the people through taxes of their money, e.g. the Wall Street bail-out." "That was not TRUE capitalism at work, that doesn't count!"

[jakehow]

Agreed, which is why I tried to couch it in 'philosophical' argument. Discussing the various factions of socialism, anarchism, libertarianism, etc is always fun, but rarely leads to anything productive.

I am just glad that we currently can organize rather freely (even if we are forced to give over nearly half of our labor to war, health and retirement ponzi schemes, subsidizing heterosexual marriage, or whatever it is that you disagree with personally), and think that everyone should spend energy on making that more possible, and more neutral within our current framework(s) rather than trying to decide how people should organize themselves in the end.

[steveklabnik]

It depends on your definition of violence.

Libertarian socialists and other anarchists would say that private property is violent; it requires that there be societal hierarchy to work, and for few to hold power over many. (oh, and don't forget that their definition of 'private property' is different than yours, because it's more narrow. They separate 'possession' and 'private property' into two different things.)

Captialists could describe the state control of hardcore statist socialism to be violent, as it's also few holding power over the free association of the general public.