Communism v. Socialism debate with CONS

In Communism does the government have to borrow money from the bankers to govern it's people?

In socialism does the government have to borrow money from the bankers to govern it's people?

All these conversations do is continue the libertarian takeover of america.  Why don't you Tom start explaining libertarianism to your viewers?  Americans have been so dumbed done in so many areas of knowledge they do not know what to believe.  So many comments are statements which fail to contextualise anything.  Bolshevism is not Karl Marx.  Karl Marx is a philosopher who ideas are incomplete.  In philosophy you have a thesis, antithesis and synthesis. 

The communist Manisfesto is an antithesis and is the most famous political propaganda book known although only 5000 copies had been sold by 1934.  How do you go from a 3rd world country to a 2nd world country to a first world country.  something economists used to study before Milton Friedman from South Africa came along!!!!

http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Quotes/famous_galbraith_quotes.shtml

Milton’s [Friedman’s] misfortune is that his policies have been tried.”

http://www.lp.org/platform the libertarian platform, sounds good until you look at their banking system.. a free market banking system with the banks determining the rules of society just like now!!!!!!

http://people.stern.nyu.edu/nroubini/NOTES/CHAP6.HTM Nouriel Roubini highlighting Milton Friedman's inflationary policies or to give the banks an extra 3% of the total sum of the money supply year after year...

workers lose 3% of wages every year due to goods and services increasing 3% every year

business's lose 3% of profits every year due to operating costs increasing 3% every year

governments lose 3% of revenue every year due to operating costs increasing 3% every year

benny hill explains inflation the best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfuY5Q0BSBM

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/cato.html and who is the number sponsor of the Cato Institute?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Industries and the story of the koch brothers is becoming more widely understood...

what is aristrocratic conservatism?

what is free market capitalism?

Bill, none of those responses actually answered his questions.

Anthony, your conservative friend here is correct that communism is a particular form of socialism. These terms have been confused by American, and frankly, Russian propaganda during the Cold War.  After McCarthyism in the US, there was probably about 50 years there where the common citizen really had no idea what communism really meant.  It was a placeholder for Soviet politics which were "obviously" inherently "evil."

Nowadays, the layman term usage of these two words basically means Socialism = the state owns everything and Communism = everyone gets exactly the same goods no matter what they do.

Neither of these definitions, unfortunately, is correct.  And while your conservative friend is somewhat correct about the relationship between Communism and Socialism, it is clear that he really doesn't have any idea what they mean either.  The fact that he calls Obama, who is a corporatist, a "socialist" is glaring evidence of that.

Furthermore, he seems completely unaware that Socialism does not imply state ownership.  Mutualism, for example, is a form of socialist anarchy.

In my opinion, the problem with many of these discussions is that people tend to not want to acknowledge just how messy and braod these terms are and just how many governmental and social forms they allow for.

Socialism simply means that the the entire community has some form of ownership in the means of production and distribution of goods.  This is in contrast to Capitalism which is defined by the ownership of the means of production and distibution to be in the hands of the few - capitalists.   Both can allow for free-market exchange and I would argue that neither requires it either.  So, when so-called "Capitalists" try to equate their beliefs with some idyllic sense of "freedom" or "free market exchange" that has nothing to do with Capitalism in the strict defintion of the word.  What they endorse when they endorse capitalism is the a particular relationship to the means of production - capitalists who own it and siphon off profits from wage labor.  That is all it means.

Conversely, socialism could theoretically operate with completely privately owned corporations which compete in free markets.  The difference would be that the workers would own the corporation instead of shareholders.  We have this now actually.  Worker owned firms exist in our current ecnomic system  Ironically, no one cries SOCIALISTS when they walk into a Hy-Vee, which is a worker owned grocery chain.  They don't because they are under the mistaken belief that Socialism means state ownership and it simply doesn't.

 So where does Communism fit in?  Well, this is a tough one that is probably a lot less theorized.  The picture US citizens get in their heads comes from cold war era movies that depict Soviet Russia as a place where everything and everyone looks identical and has the exact same living conditions and no one is rewarded for effort or hard work.  THe dichotomy to that is there is always the depiction of the state beaurocrats that live the high life and manipulate and control all of the common citizens - they oppress any individuality,etc, etc.  Now I am not going to make any claims about how true of a depiction this was of Soviet Russian.  In some cases, it might be very accurate.  But it isn't Communism.  The Soviets used the word "Communism" in their propaganda to legitimize their statist and autocratic government.  While we were using the word to disparage them and create a Red Scare, they were using it to legitimize their rule by leaning on the ideals of Marx and Lenin.  But their government was not truly Communist if you look at what Marx wrote.   First, communism was supposed to be the result of the a type of proletariate takeover of the means of production.  That never happened.  Secondly, Marx noted that this would only be stable and successful AFTER traveling through a fully developed Capitalist economy.  That also never happened in Russia.  Lastly, communism losely defined is characterized by the ABSENCE OF CLASSES.  This also was not the case in Soviet Russia.  The beaurocrats clearly were on a higher teir than the common citizen and thus this was NOT a communist arrangement.   I would also note that "absence of classes" does not automatically mean everyone gets the same things.  It also does not mean people are not rewarded for merit.  It means that any economic disparity that does exist does not result in a differential ecnomic power relationship that we call "class."  So, the possibilities in Communism are also not as strict as your friend here seems to think they are.

A free market in banking means that any bank that creates or loans money that it doesn't have will be quickly put out of business by the consumers.

How does free banking imply banks making rules for all of society?

 If the banks are free then they cannot be effected by the public. Therfore they make the rules

First, markets never regulate themselves.

Second, markets don't mean power for the few, capitalism does.

Ha. I started (or tried to) a facebook group, the regressive right. I think it's fitting to call a spade a spade.

Can we get the free out of markets? Markets are markets and to put that free in front of it only distorts discussion. It's like those new age idiots that have to place the word energy in front of other subjects. Drives me nuts when I hear it......the energy of love or the energy of _______

Markets are created by semi-rational creatures, they're predicably irrational constructs. Oh, there's an excerpt from his book.

Occupy a fair society from Psychology Today might be something from the new economy, but I just donno yet...

Let me see if I can be more clear. 

First, markets do not regulate themselves.  Even in a competitive market, the competing companies have no economic incentive to account for the externalities of their production and market exchage.  Pollution, for example, is not something that will be regulated by regular free market exchanges and must be regulated somehow externally.  Their are several solutions to this other than bans - cap and trade, for example, is a way of putting externalities in the market exchange and subject it to market force.  But the point is, that absent a law that does something like this, the market itself WILL NOT deal with this on its own.

Additionally, you talk about how free markets will create oligopolies but then that they will regulate themselves.  This is a contradiction.  There are basically two ways you can look at this - the markets, left alone, will always create or allow for the creation of the competition to "regulate themselves" and stop oligopolies/monopolies from forming.  The other way to look at this is that free markets left unregulated will ALWAYS lead to some corporations gaining enough power to create some form of oligopoly/monopoly.  The only way to really examine this is look at historical information for clues but this leaves room for a lot of interpretation. 

Conservatives like to think that the only monopolies that have ever been created were governmental.  The most used example is AT&T.  Oddly, this might be the only true example in existence.  IMO, things like utilities don't qualify for two reasons - 1) taking something out of the market is not the same as creating a monopoly within a market (I have written on this elsewhere in a thread called "governmental monopolies do not exist" or something to that effect), and 2) It is difficult to see how something like piping that takes up physical common space in the ground could be turned into a competitive market.  It is not feesible to lay pipes for multiple companies in an urban area and offer new homebuyers any real choice within that market; having to tear up the streets every time sooneome buys a house.  It is just ridicluous to concieve of that.  Thus, these "governmental monopolies" are often "natural monoplies" anywway.  And I personally, want natural monopolies under democratic control rather than in the hands of a capitalist.

The other way to look at the evidence is that the only time in our history we have ever had private oligopolies/monopolies have been in the least regulated sectors of our ecnomy.  I'lll give you a few examples:

1. CPUs and GPUs - this is a very unregulated market.  There are basically two companies in each.  Intel and AMD for CPUs and Nvidia and ATI/AMD for GPUs.  Intel in particular has been accused and even convicted in some European nations for engaging in "monopolistic behavior."

2.  The banking and insurance industry - one of the most unregulated industries in the country.  The only industry other than some pro-sports to have a discrete anti-trust exemption.  This allows a handful (about 5) companies to control the entire national market on health care insurance.

And with these multinationals, part of the issue is that there currently exists no regulatory body large enough to really regulate them.  In the 1900s all the way up through about 1990, companies for the most part were tied to a national boarder.  While there was globalization before that, infrastructure for these companies resided in one place and they had a "home" somewhere.  During this time, national governments could pretty well regulate the companies in their boarders.  Now, with the internet and increased globalization, coroporations are omni-present chimeras.  You cut off one head, and another one somewhere else simply takes over.  England fining Intel for being a monoply, for example, does NOTHING to change the fact that they are a monoploy that operates globally and that they pretty much control the entire CPU microchip industry.  It is difficult to even concieve of how a government would even assert the means necessary to break up a company that goes beyond its boarders and operates literally everywhere.

So no.  Markets do NOT regulate themselves.

Now, if you have "free" markets that have a distributed power structure - like the type of worker-owned companies for example - as its primary method of organization, then you won't necessarily get oligopolies.  And even if you do, they will most likely not engage in the same types of deliterious practices that a capitalist one would.  Capitalism is supported by a particular type of logic that is enacted through how our property rights laws work.  A system like I am describing would operate under  a different logic and laws.  For example, it is not a "given" that someone should be able to own a means of production (lets use a factory as a place holder) and then charge people to work in that factory (capital gains) and only pay them a portion of their work that we call a "wage."  It is just as reasonable to operate under the logic that people who work in a factory have the right to purchase a share of the place in which they work and contribute.  If we operate under this logic, the government would create a set of laws that makes capitalist ownership over the means of production illegal.  Wage siphoning would be illegal.  Workers would have the right or maybe even the legal responsibility to purchase an equal share of the factory in which they work.  In addition, this equal share would make them a voting member of the factory which democratically controls its policies, practices, and all pertinent decisions for the factory - including their own wages, how much to invest back into the company, their benefits, how much their CEO gets paid, their production practices and how they effect the natural environment and the rest of the community, etc.  All of it subject to democratic control by the workers.

The thought behind this is that many of the externalities and other issues that come with capitalist ownership would naturally resolve themselves because of the power structure.  For example, a capitalist sitting in upper Manhattan could give a rats ass whether they pollute a small midwest town by fracking in its area.  But in a worker owned firm, the company would be owned by workers that live in that particular town.  The workers would NEVER agree to pollute their own water supply and infect their entire town with cancer.

So, hopefully, this makes things more clear.

Finally, I personally use the term "corporatist."  Not all corporate cronies want to "move backward" like regressive implies.  Many of them want to move "forward,"  whatever that means, in a way that benfits their corporate benefactors.  The common thread is the corporations that fund them.