[umanwizard]

Can you point to many examples of non-capitalist societies where conditions are better for most people than in the United States?

From my perspective, capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system in history.

By what metric has it “failed” ? Because the bottom few percent live in shitty conditions? Before capitalism, the bottom 90% of people were illiterate subsistence farmers.

[random314]

I must point out that it is disingenuous to look at USA in isolation when discussing capitalism. USA increased shareholder wealth within it's borders by exporting misery and poverty to Latin America. So you need to look at USA+Latin America, Chile etc in totality. Moreover eastern Bloc countries and Cuba had severe trading restrictions imposed on them by usa making their economic survival difficult. Cuba, iran and NK still can't trade with a majority of countries even today because of punishments to trading partners by the USA.

[umanwizard]

Ok, forget about the US. Is there any non-capitalist country doing as well as, say, Ireland?

[random314]

Of all the capitalist countries you could pick you picked Ireland? With a higher per capita income than USA. Sounds less than random. If Capitalism is such magic why not pick Haiti? Its a small country with a primary trading partner - capitalist USA!

Is China capitalist or communist? That's the country that has lifted most people out of poverty.

If you really want to pick a typical capitalist country - pick India. It is a country that is clearly democratic and capitalist and represents several 17% of the worlds population. I can pick a dozen eastern bloc countries that were better off in the 80s than India is today.

If you are looking for clear A/B test examples where 2 exactly similar populations existed and one was treated with capitalism and the other with socialism, then you wont find any. The only one that comes remotely close is Latin America compared with Cuba - because both regions had similar economic and geographic status. One set of countries were treated with capitalism and Cuba was treated with communism. Cleary Cuba did much better than Latin America, but this only yields a sample size of one and it would be overreaching to generalize.

I find the whole debate around capitalism vs communism a red herring. Western Europe and USA have enjoyed great wealth because of historic reasons. Western Europe, thanks to colonization of Asia and Africa. USA - thanks to free slave labor and effective colonization of Latin America in the 20th century and geographic safety in the world wars.

Eastern Europe and Russia had limited colonial resources to plunder and had been ravaged by the 2nd World war. They did not have access to Marshall plan funds to rebuild after World war unlike Western Europe. Moreover they were a small bloc of countries that had to trade within themselves because of economic blockade by NATO. Considering the extremely tough circumstances they had mixed results. Romania did well, Poland not so much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Socialist_Repub... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_People%27s_Republic#Eco... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Soviet_Socialist_Rep...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Cuba

Cuba, in particular, has heavy sanctions to this day.

While capitalist countries like Singapore (dictatorship), Malaysia and Hong Kong (colony) did well, some did not (Pakistan) and other countries in the immediate American sphere of influence did extremely badly. Haiti, Nicaragua, Chile etc.

If anything that can be concluded from this, it is

- Being independent is good for a countries economy. Colonization or pseudo-colonization via capitalistic banana republics can be devastating - India, Haiti etc.

- Trade embargoes can ruin a countries economy. Except Cuba, almost all countries are ruined by it - NK, Iraq, Iran etc.

- Socialist welfare states can work and avoid terrible poverty and exploitation of workers. Scandinavia, Cuba, Communist Romania etc.

- USA strongly prefers dictatorships as trading partners-Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, Nicaragua etc.

[philwelch]

> If you are looking for clear A/B test examples where 2 exactly similar populations existed and one was treated with capitalism and the other with socialism, then you wont find any.

I can name two: Germany and Korea.

[random314]

Like I said, 2 countries don't make a great sample size. West Germany got a massive boost from the Marshall plan. East Germany did not. NATO represented a much bigger trading block and economy when compared with the Soviet Union.

North Korea and South Korea had comparable economies until the 70s. Very few countries face the same kind of crippling sanctions that NK has. And you can always compare Cuba with your choice of a Latin American country to make a counterpoint.

[jhbadger]

The problem lies in the definition of "capitalist". Certainly there are numerous countries that by a variety of metrics have a better quality of life than the US (longer life expectancy, fewer percentage impoverished, smaller degree of economic inequality, and so on). The Scandinavian countries are the classic example, but most of Western Europe, Australia, Japan, are as well. Capitalism vs socialism is a continuum, and it looks like the best place is somewhere in the middle.

[umanwizard]

Scandinavian countries are capitalist by any standard. They are not even close to being “on a continuum” between capitalism and socialism. As far as I know most businesses in Scandinavia are not controlled and owned by their workers.

We could use more public spending on safety nets in the US. That has nothing to do with whether “capitalism has failed”.

[jhbadger]

But you can't ignore the reason why the US doesn't have effective safety nets is because corporations don't want them. The reason why the US doesn't have a universal public health care system is because private insurers are doing everything they can to fight it, for example. Countries that put the needs of their people over the needs of corporations are more on the socialist continuum even if they have private businesses.

[random314]

Cuba vs Haiti

[umanwizard]

Yes Haiti is poorer than Cuba. I was asking if there is any non-capitalist society doing as well as the United States. Not the shittiest, poorest example of a technically capitalist society that you can find.

[random314]

You can also compare life expectancy in Cuba with life expectancy in the USofA. Cuba with all kinds of trade embargoes and a history of poverty has better life expectancy than USA.

Moreover, if, for arguments sake, you pick the most powerful capitalist state for comparison - I should also be free to pick the weakest capitalist state to balance things out.