Capitalism vs Socialism

Tuesday, November 29, 2008

Capitalism vs Socialism

With all the political debates today about the American Policies going toward the left (socialism) I feel that there is the need for someone to put this in prospective. So I will heed that call to clarify some of the issues.

Capitalism: The fuel for capitalism is greed. I could use a more politically correct term but let’s call it what it is and skip the niceties. Let’s face it, greed is human nature. I am not trying to state if it is a good or bad value. It is what you make it. We work hard to better ourselves. Ourselves is the point here. We don’t work hard to improve our neighbors. This self is what fuels the capitalist system. But we are a social being so we do care about our neighbors and our country. Not only that we can not survive as a race without working together as a group. This country’s greatness, wealth, and its progress with many innovations can be credited to the capitalistic system that we live in. That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been progresses made in socialistic or even communist system but let’s face it, we have done better.

Socialism: A group that all members contribute and all in the group shares in the rewards. This would probable be a good system if it worked but lets not for not forgetting the greed factor. Let us exam this idea. Let’s start with a small social group: the family group, 1 man, 1 woman, 1.5 children. First example: Husband and wife both works and they have similar spending habits and common goals. Good: it works! But even with this if they don’t have common goals there are problems. Money is one of the leading causes of divorces. Even with both working and contributing if one wants to shop and spend while the other wants to save and be debt free there will be serious problems. But let’s use example 2. Example 2: Same family group but this time husband works and we have a stay at home mom. The earner can either be; I earn so I get what I want, or the wife stays home, watches soaps, and shop QVC all day. This is a real problem. Example 3: Wife works; husband stays home drinking beer and watching sports all day. This is another problem. You get the point but let’s take it to a larger group. I will use the community that you live in. You work but your neighbor stays home drinking beer and watching sports. He gets housing assistance, food stamps, utilities paid, medical provided from your working income. You might recognize this example. But to make it clearer, you earn your money, come home and share your paycheck with your neighbor. How hard are you going to works so that you both can live better? After all, your neighbor has a lot of free time and needs a new fishing boat. Maybe you should consider a second job to improve the quality of life for your group. We see the problem with socialism. Take away the self factor and it has a problem with functioning. Now there are exceptions to this; religious organizations, some of which all work together for a common goal. Another example is where there is a strong leader that can unite people for a cause. The life of sustaining these causes is debatable. I believe that it is shorter than that of a capitalist system. We do get communist systems that have been around for awhile but that is from force and also that the people have been under that system for so long that they don’t have the drive to work hard and produce. It can even be compared to the way someone that has been in the military of imprisoned is when they no longer have someone to tell them what to do and when to do it. They can be lost for a time.

Democratic Sociality

Having a democratic sociality doesn’t mean that it is a capitalist sociality nor does being a capitalist mean that you have a democratic sociality. Cuba was a very capitalist sociality before Castro took over but it was a right wing dictatorship where a few had all and the average Cuban had little. This was a major factor in Castro’s rise to power. In fact it is one of the major reasons for many countries going communist. These lessen we should learn from. The reason that we are now in a swing to the left is for that were reason. The working people haven’t been getting there fair share of the wealth. When Obama said that the wealth should be spread around, people that feel like that they weren’t getting their fair share of it agreed. There is a lot to support that feeling. If we did as bad on our job as many of the CEO we would be fired without the millions of dollars bonuses for losing billions. Something is fundamentally wrong with this. The different today in the compensation between the top management and the lowest paid employee of a company has spread to an unacceptable amount. It has and will cause problems. That is where a democratic works. We can throw the rascals out has is causing problems in our government. We are now making a correction no doubt. But we must be careful not to go too far to the left. We do have the greed factor that has helped us get here. I for one don’t want to contribute anymore than is necessary to the common cause. But the key work here is necessary. We do have many common causes that do need our contributions (taxes). Other that the obvious ones; military, infrastructure, education, or whatever else that fits into that category, we need to weight the return to the citizen vs the cost to the citizen. I didn’t buy a new car because I didn’t want to pay the cost now I am paying and not receiving the car. The talk is saving manufacturing while the auto companies send the part to be made to Mexico and Asia. The plastic manufacturing that I have done for 40 years is now all gone and no one was interested in saving it. We are not talking bailout here, we were just asking for fair trade but free trade won. China produces plastic materials below market and then produces parts at a cost that we can not compete with in this country. Some prices that I have competed against with the Chinese have been less what my material would cost. We built steel companies with American money in Japan after WW2 that were build to be more efficient that our own and it put our steel companies out of business. When they ask for financial backing (not bail out) to compete they were denied by our elected government. We haven’t been in fair trade of free trade for a long time; we have been in a sell out by our elected officials. It is time that they all become unemployed.

A Balance: We have experienced the problems with free trade and the unregulated banking. Both of these would have worked with the proper oversight. But because of the lack of a realistic regulation of these we are in the crisis that we now face. This is the type of situation that can lead to serious changes that is not for the best for long term improvement in our life. Also it leaves us vulnerable to other problems such as an attack from an enemy, our enemies are enjoying our problems and it gives them the confidence to try something. We would also have a very serious problem in the case of an assassination on Oboma. It would cause an uncontrollable uproar from home and abroad. The right should be blaming themselves and Bush for getting us into this mess. So many still don’t get it on the right. How can the people of this country not want to support the wealthy and be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from his table? The trickle down economic never will work! Remember the greed factor. Greed is hard to control. That is greed, taking all. After a while people gets tired of this and rebel when they fighter out that they are not going to make it to the big table, that the rules prevent it; the wealth is not to be shared.

We must keep the proper balance for this system to continue and to strive. There are no games that are played without rules and regulations including socialites. We must be fair to all while allowing people to flourish in their efforts. But with great gifts and talents there are also greater responsibilities. Many of the very successful people understand that they also have been giver a larger responsibility toward the betterment of their fellow man that those with lesser accomplishments.