[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.