I never understood why we’re stuck with just capitalism or communism, two economic systems developed before railroads were a thing and written down at night by candle light or a lantern burning whale fat. I think we should come up with something better. To quote President Not Sure, “The water doesn’t have to come from the toilet, but that’s the general idea.”
Railways were a thing when communism was developing during Marx’s times and Lenin wrote extensively about railways. Their analysis is still very valid, and if anything, planning has become more feasible than 100 years ago thanks to computers. There are some modern proposals, but they are still very much based on socialism, since capitalism can only lead us to ruin.
“It’s socialism or barbarism!”. It’s because there hasn’t been any other convincing arguments otherwise. If you give the capitalists an inch, they’ll eventually take it all. You cannot allow capital to accumulate to the degree that it wields real political power.
“Socialism hasn’t worked out either” what exactly do you mean? Public schools have largely been more successful than not. Socialized medicine has been more successful than privatized insurance.
The blanket statement is simply a statement so sweeping it can only be incorrect. Because there are successful socialized portions of societies.
But that’s not what socialism is. Socialism is when the “public” (read: government) controls all of societies land, resources, and means of production and distributes them from ability to need. Socialism is a specific economic system where the entire economy is centrally planned.
modeled as a command economy (command economies pre date capitalism by a large margin)
Socialism encompasses a much larger group of movements and ideas with lots of differing thought schools largely tasked with improving society in economic ways. Democracy can be argued to be under the umbrella of socialism and socialist thought depending on how things are defined which is why there is such staunch anti democracy sentiments from capitalists.
Like the more developed ideas on socialism are where the benefits of capitalism are realized but the costs are offset or synthetic.
This is a load of nonsense. Socialism is not a blanket term that you can manipulate to mean whatever you like, the same goes for capitalism where you turn it into a pejorative for anything you don’t like. Democracy is also very much not socialism is any way, shape, or form and they have zero connection to each other.
Socialism is an economic model that revolves the concept that all the resources, property, and means of production in a society are publicly owned and managed, aka a centrally planned economy. Democracy is when the people govern themselves. There are ideologies that try to interoperate both, these are very much not the same thing. The same goes for capitalism which is an economic model which revolves around economies being run by free markets, aka unplanned economies.
Socialism is NOT state capitalism, it’s NOT welfare programs, and it NOT public schools or infrastructure. A country like Denmark is NOT socialist because it has universal healthcare and public schools. In fact when Bernie Sanders called them socialist in his 2016 campaign, the PM of Denmark at the time literally came out and correct him by saying that Denmark was capitalist. An actual example of socialism would be the Soviet Union or China under Mao.
Socialism is a failure because it shifts the wealthy class from private individuals with a lot of influence to the actual ruling elite. Therefore the exploitation is happening by the very people running the economy. We saw this happen time and time again in socialist countries.
Europe has figured it out so has New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Japan, and so on. In fact, only capitalist systems have ever produced genuine democracies. All the socialist examples in history were authoritarian governed by an unelected ruling elite.
“You don’t know? Chinese people liking their government means they’re a dictatorship for some reason, seeseepee!!!111!1!11!1! All factual data about China can be disregarded because I’m a racist prick who doesn’t conceive the idea that Chinese are free to speak their minds!!!”
Things don’t need to be opposites to affect each other in predictable ways.
They are both decision making processes where different groups hold power over society’s resources. Democracy very much has economic power and Capitalism is very much about who gets to make certain decisions.
That’s how all societies work though. We live in a world where sacristy is reality, and therefore there will always be people competing to control the same limited resources.
We can measure how democratic a country is by how much its actions favor the people rather than the capitalists. Most communist countries, particularly Cuba are more democratic than any country ruled by capital.
That’s just cope. The reality is that communism is fundamentally flawed to the point where failure was always going to be the inevitable outcome. That’s why despite a century of nonstop attempts across all cultures and lands, not a single attempt panned out well. They all either collapsed or reverted to some version of capitalism. The opposite never happened.
So am I! I just can’t believe Adam Smith and Karl Marx are the Einstein and Newton of economics. It feels like capitalism and communism are the luminiferous ether and fluid theory of electricity and we never bothered to advance any further.
Technically aether theory was never ruled out. People love to claim that the Michelson-Morley experiment ruled it out, but this is historical revisionism. The MM experiment was conducted in 1887. Hendrik Lorentz proposed his aether model in 1904. Obviously Lorentz was not such a moron he would not take into account the findings of MM, but that is what people are unironically suggesting when they say MM somehow retrocausally ruled out his model. Indeed, both Michelson and Morley did not believe their own experiments ruled it out either but continued to promote such models.
Lorentz’s aether model and Einstein’s relativity are actually mathematically equivalent so they make all the same predictions, so no possible experiment could rule out Lorentz’s aether theory that would not also rule out Einstein’s relativity. Indeed, if you read his 1905 paper where Einstein introduces special relativity, his criticism of Lorentz’s model is only a philosophical objection. He never posited that an experiment can rule it out. MM only rules out some very early aether models, not Lorentz’s model.
I would recommend also checking out John Bell’s paper “How to Teach Special Relativity,” where he also discusses this fact, and how the mathematics of special relativity are perfectly consistent with a reality with an absolute space and time. Taking space and time to be relative only comes at the level of metaphysical interpretation.
To paraphrase Tim Curry, communism and capitalism are both red herrings.
Oh that big punch up between the Soviet Union and the United States, decadent capitalism vs brutalist communism. Who won? According to the scoreboard as of 2026: Israel.
The catch phrase I’ve always heard about communism is “the people own the means of production.” Has that ever been true in practice? Did Soviet citizens own any piece of the means of production? Did anything resembling “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” ever once happen under the hammer and sickle? Or was that the false narrative the idiot asshole in charge used to cow the unwashed masses?
Similar questions could be asked of my fellow capitalist Americans. Capitalism is allegedly about the free market, supply and demand, if there is a demand someone will provide a supply, probably multiple someones, competitors will compete, those who do it faster, cheaper or better will succeed until someone else does it even fasterer, cheaperer and betterer repeat until someone else comes along with a completely different idea, welcome to the infinite cycle of meritocracy where the cream rises to the top. How’s that working out? Some substance has risen to the top, not sure it’s cream.
A common problem I see between the Soviet Union and the United States: Weak systems for preventing psychotic despots from ruining it all.
Further expanding on this: My understanding of the Soviet Union: Something something the Bolsheviks, something something communist revolution, They just about have an election, that Lenin overthrows because it isn’t going his way. Lenin is King Shit Of Turd Mountain until his death, then the dumb guy from the ghetto he kept around because he’s good at hurting people, Josef “probably worse than Hitler” Stalin takes the throne. The entire run of the Soviet Union is essentially a dictatorship with a command economy and remains thoroughly miserable.
The United States, meanwhile, has gone through phases. Tides have ebbed and flowed, robber barons have come and gone, consumer protection laws have come and gone. Times when a very few, very rich men have been mostly miserable for most people; times when those assholes get knocked down a peg and the common man has a chance to make a decent living get better.
The problem is a few ultimately rich assholes in charge.
I never understood why we’re stuck with just capitalism or communism, two economic systems developed before railroads were a thing and written down at night by candle light or a lantern burning whale fat. I think we should come up with something better. To quote President Not Sure, “The water doesn’t have to come from the toilet, but that’s the general idea.”
Everyone who advocates for a “third way” always just ends up advocating for capitalism.
Railways were a thing when communism was developing during Marx’s times and Lenin wrote extensively about railways. Their analysis is still very valid, and if anything, planning has become more feasible than 100 years ago thanks to computers. There are some modern proposals, but they are still very much based on socialism, since capitalism can only lead us to ruin.
“It’s socialism or barbarism!”. It’s because there hasn’t been any other convincing arguments otherwise. If you give the capitalists an inch, they’ll eventually take it all. You cannot allow capital to accumulate to the degree that it wields real political power.
Socialism hasn’t exactly worked out either. Replacing a flawed system like capitalism with something even worse is not a solution
“Socialism hasn’t worked out either” what exactly do you mean? Public schools have largely been more successful than not. Socialized medicine has been more successful than privatized insurance.
The blanket statement is simply a statement so sweeping it can only be incorrect. Because there are successful socialized portions of societies.
But that’s not what socialism is. Socialism is when the “public” (read: government) controls all of societies land, resources, and means of production and distributes them from ability to need. Socialism is a specific economic system where the entire economy is centrally planned.
You’re mixing like 3 definitions of socialism:
Socialism encompasses a much larger group of movements and ideas with lots of differing thought schools largely tasked with improving society in economic ways. Democracy can be argued to be under the umbrella of socialism and socialist thought depending on how things are defined which is why there is such staunch anti democracy sentiments from capitalists.
Like the more developed ideas on socialism are where the benefits of capitalism are realized but the costs are offset or synthetic.
This is a load of nonsense. Socialism is not a blanket term that you can manipulate to mean whatever you like, the same goes for capitalism where you turn it into a pejorative for anything you don’t like. Democracy is also very much not socialism is any way, shape, or form and they have zero connection to each other.
Socialism is an economic model that revolves the concept that all the resources, property, and means of production in a society are publicly owned and managed, aka a centrally planned economy. Democracy is when the people govern themselves. There are ideologies that try to interoperate both, these are very much not the same thing. The same goes for capitalism which is an economic model which revolves around economies being run by free markets, aka unplanned economies.
Socialism is NOT state capitalism, it’s NOT welfare programs, and it NOT public schools or infrastructure. A country like Denmark is NOT socialist because it has universal healthcare and public schools. In fact when Bernie Sanders called them socialist in his 2016 campaign, the PM of Denmark at the time literally came out and correct him by saying that Denmark was capitalist. An actual example of socialism would be the Soviet Union or China under Mao.
Rich cant exploit socialism as easily, therefore they demonize it.
Socialism is a failure because it shifts the wealthy class from private individuals with a lot of influence to the actual ruling elite. Therefore the exploitation is happening by the very people running the economy. We saw this happen time and time again in socialist countries.
squawk “socialism bad” squawk
It is. You can smack your head against a wall, but reality won’t change.
Aight. I’ll keep smacking my head against my free universal healthcare and robust safety nets.
If you think a country like Denmark is socialist then you don’t know what socialism is
The real choice is capitalism or democracy.
These aren’t opposites. Democracy is a system of governance, capitalism is a system of economics. A society can be both at the same time.
You cannot have real democracy when there is a ruling minority class, as in capitalism, simple as that.
Europe has figured it out so has New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Japan, and so on. In fact, only capitalist systems have ever produced genuine democracies. All the socialist examples in history were authoritarian governed by an unelected ruling elite.
Yeah yeah, European chauvinism yadda yadda
“You don’t know? Chinese people liking their government means they’re a dictatorship for some reason, seeseepee!!!111!1!11!1! All factual data about China can be disregarded because I’m a racist prick who doesn’t conceive the idea that Chinese are free to speak their minds!!!”
Shut up, boring-ass pro-landlord propagandist
Things don’t need to be opposites to affect each other in predictable ways.
They are both decision making processes where different groups hold power over society’s resources. Democracy very much has economic power and Capitalism is very much about who gets to make certain decisions.
They have what you might call… friction.
That’s how all societies work though. We live in a world where sacristy is reality, and therefore there will always be people competing to control the same limited resources.
Okay, give me your wallet.
That’s not competition. I don’t think you understand what that means.
I can list at least one.
Can’t think of a communist democracy, though.
We can measure how democratic a country is by how much its actions favor the people rather than the capitalists. Most communist countries, particularly Cuba are more democratic than any country ruled by capital.
To be fair, any of the counties that attempted it had a coup enacted by fascist capitalist countries to prevent them from doing so.
That’s just cope. The reality is that communism is fundamentally flawed to the point where failure was always going to be the inevitable outcome. That’s why despite a century of nonstop attempts across all cultures and lands, not a single attempt panned out well. They all either collapsed or reverted to some version of capitalism. The opposite never happened.
I’m all ears for ideas.
So am I! I just can’t believe Adam Smith and Karl Marx are the Einstein and Newton of economics. It feels like capitalism and communism are the luminiferous ether and fluid theory of electricity and we never bothered to advance any further.
Technically aether theory was never ruled out. People love to claim that the Michelson-Morley experiment ruled it out, but this is historical revisionism. The MM experiment was conducted in 1887. Hendrik Lorentz proposed his aether model in 1904. Obviously Lorentz was not such a moron he would not take into account the findings of MM, but that is what people are unironically suggesting when they say MM somehow retrocausally ruled out his model. Indeed, both Michelson and Morley did not believe their own experiments ruled it out either but continued to promote such models.
Lorentz’s aether model and Einstein’s relativity are actually mathematically equivalent so they make all the same predictions, so no possible experiment could rule out Lorentz’s aether theory that would not also rule out Einstein’s relativity. Indeed, if you read his 1905 paper where Einstein introduces special relativity, his criticism of Lorentz’s model is only a philosophical objection. He never posited that an experiment can rule it out. MM only rules out some very early aether models, not Lorentz’s model.
I would recommend also checking out John Bell’s paper “How to Teach Special Relativity,” where he also discusses this fact, and how the mathematics of special relativity are perfectly consistent with a reality with an absolute space and time. Taking space and time to be relative only comes at the level of metaphysical interpretation.
To paraphrase Tim Curry, communism and capitalism are both red herrings.
Oh that big punch up between the Soviet Union and the United States, decadent capitalism vs brutalist communism. Who won? According to the scoreboard as of 2026: Israel.
The catch phrase I’ve always heard about communism is “the people own the means of production.” Has that ever been true in practice? Did Soviet citizens own any piece of the means of production? Did anything resembling “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” ever once happen under the hammer and sickle? Or was that the false narrative the idiot asshole in charge used to cow the unwashed masses?
Similar questions could be asked of my fellow capitalist Americans. Capitalism is allegedly about the free market, supply and demand, if there is a demand someone will provide a supply, probably multiple someones, competitors will compete, those who do it faster, cheaper or better will succeed until someone else does it even fasterer, cheaperer and betterer repeat until someone else comes along with a completely different idea, welcome to the infinite cycle of meritocracy where the cream rises to the top. How’s that working out? Some substance has risen to the top, not sure it’s cream.
A common problem I see between the Soviet Union and the United States: Weak systems for preventing psychotic despots from ruining it all.
Further expanding on this: My understanding of the Soviet Union: Something something the Bolsheviks, something something communist revolution, They just about have an election, that Lenin overthrows because it isn’t going his way. Lenin is King Shit Of Turd Mountain until his death, then the dumb guy from the ghetto he kept around because he’s good at hurting people, Josef “probably worse than Hitler” Stalin takes the throne. The entire run of the Soviet Union is essentially a dictatorship with a command economy and remains thoroughly miserable.
The United States, meanwhile, has gone through phases. Tides have ebbed and flowed, robber barons have come and gone, consumer protection laws have come and gone. Times when a very few, very rich men have been mostly miserable for most people; times when those assholes get knocked down a peg and the common man has a chance to make a decent living get better.
The problem is a few ultimately rich assholes in charge.