| > The central philosophy of capitalism is that voluntary trade leads, ultimately, to greater and more efficient production. But only those who have capital get to participate (and even then the system is antagonistic between traders. everyone is trying to extract maximum value). Everyone else is forced into slavery (in everything but name) or left to die on the streets. Your value, as a person, is literally defined by the amount of money you have. If you have none, you are none. > capitalism requires voluntary action whereas socialism embraces compelled action This is an illusion. Under capitalism, you can choose to starve, sure. But what choice is that? When your value as a human being is tied to a monetary competition, you are either rich and alive or poor and struggling to survive. Maybe people should be compelled? Any and all forms of government are essentially that, a force that compels people to behave in certain ways (under democracy, it's people compelling each other). Usually to do no harm as a baseline for civil society. Is that not a desirable quality of human civilization - people compelling each other to do good, or at least do no harm? > euphemisms for a politically powerful group to harness the productive output of the governed for its own purposes, without regard to if the perceived problems or the perceived solutions are real or not. Funny, because that's how I see capitalism. The capital elite (who own most capital) force those who don't to work for them (because their value as people is tied to their wealth which they can't survive without) and then barrage them with endless advertisements for consumer products scientifically engineered to be as addicting and rapidly obsolete as possible while offering little actual utility. > Socialism doesn't remove fundamental human desires for prestige and power, it only redirects the energy into the mechanisms of state Neither does capitalism. There the energy is directed into profit maximization at all cost and with limited liability for the consequences. And when costs are considered, a money-less person has zero value and is completely ignored. ------------ It's an interesting discussion. Yes I'm caricaturizing. I'm not a communist, nor completely opposed to capitalism. There's merit in what you say. But just like with communism, we can't look at the idealized version. Capitalism has given us a lot. But it's also destroying the planet, which we didn't know about until fairly recently in civilized history. Ideally we'd move competition up to a planetary level where we all work together to colonize space. There it probably causes the least harm. |