In that case why do we have so many good examples of regulation in capitalist systems, the most effective being the “Scandinavian model” countries which effectively blended large amounts of socialism into a capitalist system and enjoy the best health and happiness rates in the world?

Indeed there is no such thing as an unregulated capitalist economy anywhere in the world. They all have staggering amounts of regulation.

I agree on your points as well. We are so limited by human nature and lack of consensus that I don’t think we can escape these problems without something extreme like genetically modifying the whole population of the world.

It’s been very nice discussing politics with you. Such civil political conversations are rare and noteworthy.

It’s so silly that these days they are still making the 3d movies for theatres but just not releasing them on streaming services.

It would be a major competitive advantage and something I would use fairly often if I could just open the Netflix or Disney+ app and watch some 3d movies on my PSVR2. I love laying and watching movies in VR when I’m tired but not ready to sleep. 3d would be an additional draw.

I wonder what this means for 50 Cent?

It’s a good point. One that is true to some extent for communism as well. If we were operating in a system that was less efficient as extracting resources and using them for production, we would conceivably get more out of the resources we have and avoid the pointless cycles you point out.

Unfortunately in practice it didn’t work that well because the resources under communism were just used less efficiently and in a more polluting way which negated a lot of the gains. The net result was just less benefit getting to the end user. Though you could argue that people were freed from the capitalist treadmill of overwork to feed largely meaningless consumption that you mention. They just had to pay in quality of life, occasional hunger and genocides, and personal freedoms.

The other issue is that if one country is operating inefficiently and there is another country operating efficiently, inevitably the other country will overtake the first, as we saw in the Cold War. So such a system would need to be enforced pretty strictly on a worldwide level least it get beaten by a system more streamlined for production and militaristic endeavors.

For anarchy, enforcement isn’t strong enough to not get taken over by another system (or at least the requirement for personal buy in of all in the system is too high to be practical)

I’m definitely on board on the small scale. Unfortunately when faced with issues like health care, education, global warming, and curbing the excesses of capitalism, only a government can solve those issues. At least it’s the only mechanism we’ve found so far.

But yes, government should always be the tool of last resort for things that can be done no other way.

Fight the Power by Public Enemy

Or

Justice by Ziggy Marley

No, I’m more of a social democrat. I’m a believer that the best we’ve come up with is to have a government who’s job is to fill in the holes (economic externalities) of capitalism, while curbing it’s worst instincts (monopolies, tragedy of the commons issues like global warming).

Indeed this is the system the most successful and happy countries use. Go too far to the capitalist side or too far to the socialist side and things deteriorate quickly, as history shows over and over.

Right now, especially in the USA, we are experiencing what happens when things go too far to the capitalist side.

Unfortunately it seems that this combined with misinformation leads to fascism which will destroy even capitalism and likely leave us only with war and authoritarianism. Which is what you get at both extremes of the political spectrum.

When it comes to personal liberties, I am more of a libertarian though. I am against the war on drugs or most wars, proxy or otherwise, unless they are in defense. The non aggression principle in libertarianism is something that appeals to me.

How about you? Full blown socialist I’m guessing?

Kerala: As you mention, not a country. Also didn’t really seize the means of production. But when I think of Communism working well, it’s at a local level like this rather than at the level of a country. There are communes and kibbutzes that lasted decades. Generally a tough life but at a small level you can have a government controlling everything without hopefully making as many huge mistakes. Worst case you can more easily just leave if they do (hopefully they let you).

Chile: Also didn’t fully seize the means of production, it’s more or less a perfect example of a government that’s run by a socialist majority for a small amout of time and which enacts socialist measures during that time, but never reaching full communism. This is the kind of thing I would hold up as the ideal case. Socialism for long enough to strengthen the situation of the people, but not long enough to wreck the economy and grow into full blown authoritarianism.

Nepal: Installed by force in the armed uprising against Rana rule in 1951

India: Never seized the means of production (or really got very powerful IMO)

San Marino: Attemped a coup and never seized the means of production.

First off they were installed in the government by force You could really only vote for one party. And usually the elections were to some degree rigged. And the government that did all the nice things you mention also committed genocides, mass starvation, massively oppressed its people, and finally spent so much on its military that they crashed the economy.

Not to say western democracy is perfect (the US is especially flawed these days), but there are a good amount of European countries that instituted many socialist policies democratically without that baggage.

Of course there’s a distinction. A partial socialist/communist government has never implement full communism (seize the means of production and guarantee equal distribution of resources). That’s only ever been done by force.

They have achieved things like universal health care and education, however, and for that we should all be grateful. IMHO the best case scenario really is a parliamentary system with a socialist majority to get these kind of things passed but leave a heavily regulated capitalist economic system in place.

Yes as I said if we are talking about a share of parliament, that’s true. But fully socialist (communist) governments? Only by force so far.

While the soviets did ostensibly appear to have democratic structures, the reality was that the democracy was a fascade at best.

Well it depends on how you define “socialism” which is used to mean anything from a socialist policy to a fully socialist society. For some socialist policies, you can simply vote in some socialists into a parliamentary system and get them to pass some.

But there’s never been enough socialists peacefully voted into power to make a fully socialist/communist society, so those attempts have always come at the barrel of a gun, which so far has always resulted in an authoritarian regime.

I’d love to see one actually get voted into power someday, but I have a feeling I will be waiting for a very long time.

For anything good he will do for food, he will do more damage to the medical profession. And there will have been 10 people in that position by the time Trump is done, so probably he won’t accomplish much anyway. In Trump’s last term he gutted tons of air and water safety regulations, so there’s every reason to expect him to do the same this time.

There’s quite a lot of pretty good evidence to back up your point already. When Trump is done there will be plenty more.

Then the US oligarchy under Trump with no environmental or antitrust regulations and bribes from the wealthy deciding policy should be paradise for you.

For my part, I’m happy to have some possibility for safe food and water and some hope of maintaining my privacy and not be forced into using products and services due to the fact that they have monopoly position in the market here in the EU.

Yes I read this only as good news. You’d have to be pretty thick for this to be a major issue for you.

The graph itself’s utter lack of proportion is more infuriating than the content.