[Rich]

But before we descend into ridiculous dystopia, let's keep in mind what our current society is like. Bank loans, for example, are easily available to any viable prospective enterprise... Workers and other humans routinely start their own businesses (despite countless ways governments make that more difficult than necessary), people live, save and fund their families working even as unskilled workers. Cheer up!

You see I can run with this,

but this:

Land is cheap and plentiful (once you remove free up government land and zoning restrictions).!

Now I don't want planning anarchy, but I do want radical change on property. The price of accommodation is outrageous in Britian, and theirs no doubt that outside of inner cities its not market forces that make it so expensive. Personally I'd like to see a land value-use tax. With a personal property tax allowance. So having a property in a national park would incur a high tax and even more if it was an eyesore. So there would be a massive expansion of property building while in some areas the amount of buildings and private property might reduce.

But whatever the desirability of my changes or yours there would be mass opposition by voters in Britain. While many property owners would like easier planning to exploit their own property very few actually want more development in their own neighbourhoods and locality. Libertarianism is a million miles for being implemented. Some things have become more libertarian over recent decades, but many things have become less libertarian, more controlled and regulated whether for good or for bad.

There are many things I'd like to more Libertarian. I'm against the huge burden of impose by anti terrorism and anti paedophile legislation. But lets be fucking honest. These controls have widespread public backing they're not just the result of control freak politicians. I'll tell you the non aggression principle's not worth the paper its written on. Sure in America you might even get people to pay lip service to it like people pay lip service to the Constitution, but it won't make the damdest bit of difference. If there is one country that disproves libertarianism its America. They even founded it on the principle that all mean are born free, or rather lip service to it. These principles proved utterly worthless.

America from the slave owning sons of liberty to the government get your hands off my Medicare Teabaggers. What a fucking joke!

[The Immortal Goon]

There is nothing "libertarian" about the use of this term exclusively to denote a government by the wealthy, with all the privileges that are accorded government, but not the wealthy in an anarcho-capitalist society, such as making and exclusively enforcing laws.

I don't even understand what that means. I think it's pretty clear, however, that Utopian Fascism will be dominated by the wealthy classes-as per the definition, it is a plutocracy in that only people with means will be able to express theoretical rights.

I understand you mean the second use, i.e. "utilization of another person of group for selfish purposes". This definition is, of course, so broad as to be useless.

For example, when I buy a loaf of bread in the supermarket, I am utilizing a group of people (the supermarket with its owners and workers) for the selfish purpose of having a loaf of bread. When I accepted employment, I similarly utilized a group of people (the company I work for) for the selfish end of making a living.

Please indicate how you propose to distinguish the nature of utilization by the worker of his employer and the utilization of the employer of the worker such that the latter, but not the former, count as "exploitation".

It is an unequal relationship. The boss has the power and makes the profit. The worker loses his power and is working more than he is getting paid, even in the most ideal situation, otherwise there would be no profit for the boss.

This correction, however, strengthens my point that actors within society, even those as powerful as a well-established central government, are constrained by societal expectations. If that holds with respect to the one organisation that both controls all the guns and enjoys great public esteem, how much more so with respect to a commercial organisation in an anarcho-capitalist society, which, at best, controls a minority of guns, and enjoys no such esteem from the public at large?

The insentives in Utopian Fascism are strictly for personal gain by the individual. If a government employee, today, used his power to force a citizen to put his wife and daughter into a harem, the employee would go to jail. In your Utopian Fascism, the boss requiring such things would get his harem.

That really depends. There is nothing "theoretical" about your choosing to buy your TV from this or that retailer.

This is only true if you assume an infinite supply of money is always available to everyone in Utopian Fascism. In reality, we are constrained by personal resources and broader distribution. Only the very wealthy can overcome such barriers. While they have the actual freedom to get any TV from any place they want, normal people have constraints upon them. For me, the "right" to have a gigantic flat screen in a massive home theater is abstract, a theoretical privilege that has no way to actually manifest. It is only a "right" theoretically. For a very wealthy person, this is an actual choice to have. It is a real right in the true, material sense.

I am suggesting that a scenario in which he could remotely hope to get away with such demands in a truly free market (as opposed to a market dominated by pro-business government regulations, for example) is about as likely as a scenario in which I get $5,000,000 for my dirty T-shirt. Asking for it isn't immoral - it is pointless.

But please note (and if possible, address) the more fundamental issue. The more desperate the workers are to keep their job, the more evidence that is for the essential nature of the value provided by the employer in the first place.

If the employer is so desperate to keep his job that he would entertain Boss Hogg's demands, what would he do if his employers became bankrupt???

He would starve to death or moved, en masse with the rest of the industrial peasantry to their new work detail for another wealthy tyrant to serve.

As for your "fundamental" issue, there is none. Boss Hogg is not "essential" because he has the power to do whatever he pleases with any of his employees under Utopian Fascism.

Imagine a wealthy donor who gives a university $100,000 donation every year. After a few years, he starts making demands on which future donations are conditional. "Name a chair after me". "Accept my nephew as a student". "Give me a permanent seat in the girl's locker rooms".

The donor is obviously a jerk. The value he adds to the university is diminishing. However, at no point can the university claim that the donor is somehow making it worse off, since it always have the option of telling him to fuck off!

The exact same holds for the relation between employee and employer. An employer that makes excessive demands may diminish the value he adds to the employee. However, at no point can the employee claim that the employer is making him worse off, since he always have the option of telling the employer to fuck off!.

Except the university will just be less well funded. The employees will starve to death. If by, "fuck off," you mean murder the bosses and seize the means of production themselves and forever banish Utopian Fascism into the dustbin of terrible tyrannies never to return again, I suspect that this would happen now and then. This is why Utopian Fascism would only work with the horrifying proposal to make dissent literally unthinkable for the exploited masses. Fortunately, such means are impossible. More than likely, it would follow the pattern of the American West or colonial Britain: the exploitation of the masses would result in armed insurrection; private armies would be put together to slaughter the resistance; if need be, a government apparatus would have to be created in order to pool collective resources and protect the abstract property rights of the wealthy via troops; violence would be quelled but discontent would continue under the thumb of the new government; when things grew worse a reformer would seem to check the base of society enough to quell revolutionary thoughts; and the reformer's reforms would slowly be errored out of existence until they were needed again to protect the system's base. The base, of course, ultimately being capitalism reliant upon contradictions (as are all systems) that cannot be reconciled while maintaining the system.

And from which part of history have you studied the operation of a market free from government intervention?

Since governments always exist in some form or another, you're deliberately trying to set up a "No True Scotsman" fallacy to defend Utopian Fascism. But fortunately, the study of history does not require an exact duplicate of a situation to be useful. A quick glance at a similar question on a libertarian board that does not exist suggests that the most similar historical examples to Utopian Fascism would be 19th Century America and Great Britain after the Corn Laws. I could not agree more!

In both we have examples of extreme poverty for the masses, desperate attempts by the workers to destroy the system that was killing them, brothels filled with cleaned poor people to service the whims of the financial tyrants, slavery, high rates of industrial accidents, starvation, and piles and piles of bodies heaped to clear the way for more profits to investors in glass towers far away from the suffering masses.

Was this an improvement to previous systems, like feudalism? Most certainly. But we can see the results of what you propose clear as day-even if a government does exist in some form at the same time.

[Eran]

It is an unequal relationship. The boss has the power and makes the profit. The worker loses his power and is working more than he is getting paid, even in the most ideal situation, otherwise there would be no profit for the boss.

First, so is the relationship between me and my supermarket. The supermarket makes the profit. That is only possible if I pay more for my bread than the supermarket pays for it. Does that mean that all relations between consumers and retail institutions are exploitative?

Second, profit (unlike wages) is never guaranteed. In those circumstances in which the business loses money, are the workers exploiting the employers?

The incentives in Utopian Fascism are strictly for personal gain by the individual. If a government employee, today, used his power to force a citizen to put his wife and daughter into a harem, the employee would go to jail. In your Utopian Fascism, the boss requiring such things would get his harem.

A boss requiring such things would find himself out of a job (if he himself is a hired manager), or out of business (as all his employees would leave in disgust).

This is only true if you assume an infinite supply of money is always available to everyone in Utopian Fascism. In reality, we are constrained by personal resources and broader distribution. Only the very wealthy can overcome such barriers. While they have the actual freedom to get any TV from any place they want, normal people have constraints upon them. For me, the "right" to have a gigantic flat screen in a massive home theater is abstract, a theoretical privilege that has no way to actually manifest. It is only a "right" theoretically. For a very wealthy person, this is an actual choice to have. It is a real right in the true, material sense.

Even those characterised as "poor" in America tend to own multiple colour TV sets. They have multiple vendors from which they can buy those TV sets. They have many (though not unlimited) choices as to which TV to buy, and from which retailer. This holds with respect to virtually every purchasing decision of all consumers, rich and poor, in a capitalist economy.

He would starve to death or moved, en masse with the rest of the industrial peasantry to their new work detail for another wealthy tyrant to serve.

Yet there are no instances of starvation, and very few instances of en-masse migrations in modern capitalist economies. So let's be more realistic, and agree that he would have to find alternative, inferior employment.

In other words, he would only agree to Boss Hogg's demands if the value of Boss Hogg's employment offer exceeds that of his second-best choice by so much, that giving away his woman-folk seems like a good idea. How likely is that?

Boss Hogg is not "essential" because he has the power to do whatever he pleases with any of his employees under Utopian Fascism.

Boss Hogg as no such power. The only power he has, in fact, is to fire his employees, a move which merely reverses the effect of the initial offer of employment he made them. In other words, his power is limited to withdrawing the benefits (of employment) he bestowed on those employees in the first place. He can never make their situation worse than it was had he never existed in the first place.

Except the university will just be less well funded. The employees will starve to death.

So you insist on an imaginary scenario in which the employee's only choices are working for Boss Hogg or starving to death. It seems to me that Boss Hogg deserves huge recognition has the life-saving benefactor that he is.

Without Boss Hogg and capitalists like him, the entire proletariat would disappear in a massive famine! I don't know about you, but if a small group of people is able to save the masses from starvation, they deserve the eternal gratitude of those masses. Don't you think?

This is why Utopian Fascism would only work with the horrifying proposal to make dissent literally unthinkable for the exploited masses.

On the contrary. It would work because, absent their relations with government agents, capitalists will no longer be able to exploit the masses. They would have no choice but to pay them fair wages, or see their employees leave, either to competing capitalist employers or possibly setting up their own shops.

Since governments always exist in some form or another, you're deliberately trying to set up a "No True Scotsman" fallacy to defend Utopian Fascism. But fortunately, the study of history does not require an exact duplicate of a situation to be useful. A quick glance at a similar question on a libertarian board that does not exist suggests that the most similar historical examples to Utopian Fascism would be 19th Century America and Great Britain after the Corn Laws. I could not agree more!

19th America, a time and period during which ordinary people saw their standard of living increase dramatically, and which attracted massive immigration from many parts of Europe?

Contrast the industrialization of America, which was accompanied by a flood of immigrants wishing to join the ranks of the "exploited", against the industrialization of the Soviet Union, which was accompanied by a flood of would-be emigrants wishing to leave the "socialist paradise".

Was this an improvement to previous systems, like feudalism? Most certainly. But we can see the results of what you propose clear as day-even if a government does exist in some form at the same time.

Ok, so we have a system that was (1) better than the system it replaced, (2) gave rise to modern capitalist standards of living which are even higher.

For the sake of argument, let me try and make the claim that capitalism a-la-19th century America is the best possible way to emerge from feudalism (or whatever you would call 17th-18th century America).

Being "best possible" doesn't mean being "perfect". It merely means that no better system exists for making this transition.

Can you point to a better system for making the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society than capitalism?

[The Immortal Goon]

And how do you expect me to respond to this delusional day dream?

You simply pretend that everyone always has unlimited funds and the ability to move anywhere and do anything as a counter to the tyranny that you propose. How this amazing freedom comes, is left to the imagination. Why the sins and problems of last efforts in your direction should be ignored is asked purely on faith.

Reason nor reality stand in the way of the grand ideological cause. That is why, amongst other reasons, the fascism in your system is so apparent. A trust in the volk despite a back-breaking system that exploits everyone is countered by theory and dogma.

Keep it. Until you can explain how everyone gains the ability to move anywhere and do anything, Utopian Fascism is as useless as fairie dust to solve our problems. There is really nothing else to the second-rate tricks in avoiding the realities of this nonsense.

[Eran]

People throughout history have moved. Very poor people, like those Jews, Italians and Irish who immigrated to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century.

"Company towns" are very rare. In the vast majority of cases, multiple employers compete to hire available workers.

Further, why is it that capitalist entrepreneurs emerge all the time, using their savings or bank loans to start new businesses, while your workers are helpless in the face of ridiculous demands by imaginary bosses?


Finally, you haven't responded to my question. With all your criticism of capitalism, can you point to a single system that has, overall, worked better in improving the standard of living of society's poorest?

[The Immortal Goon]

People throughout history have moved. Very poor people, like those Jews, Italians and Irish who immigrated to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century.

And the Jews that didn't move were put into ovens. What a great model on which to base a society.

"Company towns" are very rare. In the vast majority of cases, multiple employers compete to hire available workers.

They were far more frequent, having about 5% of the US population at one point, before the courts had to get involved with Pullman in Michigan. In your model, there would be no such counter-control. Like Pullman, you'd have to buy, rent, and do everything Pullman demanded. Pullman was largely seen as a great success in the experiment of a company town, but he controlled what books you could read, what church you could go to, what you could spend your paycheck upon, hired spies to report residents that may not conform to his liking, and since he was trying to make a profit, he wouldn't reduce rents ultimately forcing everyone to work for free. When the town rebelled, Pullman was forced to invite Federal Troops in to crush all the plebs.

It's really exactly what you propose everywhere, with the theoretical option of getting enough money (magically?) to move to the next tyranny.

Further, why is it that capitalist entrepreneurs emerge all the time, using their savings or bank loans to start new businesses, while your workers are helpless in the face of ridiculous demands by imaginary bosses?

My workers are not helpless, they would surely shatter the industrial-style serfdom you demand they submit to. But they are reduced to having as little power as possible in Utopian Fascism. Which is one reason I reject your model.

Finally, you haven't responded to my question. With all your criticism of capitalism, can you point to a single system that has, overall, worked better in improving the standard of living of society's poorest?

[Turning Point]

So you insist on an imaginary scenario in which the employee's only choices are working for Boss Hogg or starving to death. It seems to me that Boss Hogg deserves huge recognition has the life-saving benefactor that he is.

Without Boss Hogg and capitalists like him, the entire proletariat would disappear in a massive famine! I don't know about you, but if a small group of people is able to save the masses from starvation, they deserve the eternal gratitude of those masses. Don't you think?

IMHO and as an example, we can turn this around and say that a Chinese landlord in the 1940's "deserves" huge recognition as "the life-saving benefactor that he is" for ensuring that the rural peasantry stays in its place and more or less starves during a time of famine during which the landlord wouldn't even allow a single peasant to eat leaves from his tree let alone eat at all.

Without the landlord "and others like him," (i.e. village militia members controlled by the landlord, occupying Japanese troops who worked closely with leading collaborationist landlords, and the Nationalists no doubt) the rural peasantry would be establishing a socialist system unfettered by semi-feudalism and/or capitalism (To think, how horrible that those peasants rise up and destroy the system that oppresses them)

Your fantastical scenario acts as if "Boss Hogg the capitalist" is deserving of some reward for effectively holding the proletariat in check (with the aid of a central government and it's armies) while reaping the benefits (profit) in an imaginary land where the workers' grievances won't manifest itself in class struggle and revolution.

Contrast the industrialization of America, which was accompanied by a flood of immigrants wishing to join the ranks of the "exploited", against the industrialization of the Soviet Union, which was accompanied by a flood of would-be emigrants wishing to leave the "socialist paradise".

Where to begin, where to begin? Firstly and IMHO you fail to mention one tiny little fact: Whereas America in the 19th century and into the early 20th century was booming economically and unrivaled in its hemisphere, the Soviet Union was having to pick itself up after a vicious civil war all the while being significantly isolated from Europe and the world (which in turn effected Lenin's decision to grant concessions to foreign capitalists and their governments, hence the New Economic Policy's implementation)

Socialism furthermore was never meant to be a "paradise," wherein as Lenin pointed out inequalities and injustices would still exist under socialism just as under capitalism.

What the Soviet Union went through (civil war, famine-like conditions, rebellion, all in the early 1920's etc.) necessitated or, at least in Stalin's mind, necessitated industrialization and other measures as to catch up with the western (capitalist) world

It was an unequal struggle from the start, yet considering that it was highly unequal it is somewhat revealing to see how the Soviet Union went from a backwards place to a modernized and technologically advanced society economically (costly as it may well have been, collectivization brought tractors and electricity to the villages)

On the contrary. It would work because, absent their relations with government agents, capitalists will no longer be able to exploit the masses. They would have no choice but to pay them fair wages, or see their employees leave, either to competing capitalist employers or possibly setting up their own shops.

So in this fantasy scenario it would work because without a government capitalists would just magically "no longer exploit the masses?"

And whats stopping them, barring a government, from lowering a workers' wages and making them work for fourteen hours a day non-stop around the clock? Whats stopping the capitalists from generally exploiting the workers and making boatloads of money from profit in the absence of a government (which in present-day society acts as a sort-of stopper on the activities of the capitalists, setting laws, regulations, etc. to prevent full-scale exploitation of workers)

Can you point to a better system for making the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society than capitalism?

Lets see...the USSR, the People's Republic of China, etc. come to mind as attempts to construct a socialist society unhindered by free-market capitalism. As The Immortal Goon has already pointed out, the Russian Revolution of (October) 1917 offered up a new system (i.e. one based on the soviets or councils) and, under Stalin, would in theory as well as in practice build a socialist system (arguably socialism did exist in the Soviet Union under Lenin and later under Stalin IMHO)

Finally, you haven't responded to my question. With all your criticism of capitalism, can you point to a single system that has, overall, worked better in improving the standard of living of society's poorest?

Socialism, which came into existence in 1917 and which dominated more then half of the planet (from Moscow, Beijing, and Hanoi to Havana and back to Warsaw and Berlin) at one point, which IMHO can be perfected and employed as an alternative to capitalism (just look at Venezuela's attempt at 'socialism for the 21st-century', or at modern Cuba with all of its flaws and blemishes)

So yes, there is a viable system which has the daring potential to end capitalism (and with it libertarianism and 'utopian fascism') and to emancipate humanity from the shackles of an outdated and outmoded system.

[Eran]

And the Jews that didn't move were put into ovens. What a great model on which to base a society.

This isn't a model on which to base society, but rather a refutation of your assertion that poor people do not have the means to migrate.

The question of what happened to the descendants of those Jews 40 years later is completely beside the point. Italian and Irish were no less poor when immigrating to the US, and the descendants of those they left behind suffered no similar lot.

They were far more frequent, having about 5% of the US population at one point, before the courts had to get involved with Pullman in Michigan. In your model, there would be no such counter-control. Like Pullman, you'd have to buy, rent, and do everything Pullman demanded. Pullman was largely seen as a great success in the experiment of a company town, but he controlled what books you could read, what church you could go to, what you could spend your paycheck upon, hired spies to report residents that may not conform to his liking, and since he was trying to make a profit, he wouldn't reduce rents ultimately forcing everyone to work for free. When the town rebelled, Pullman was forced to invite Federal Troops in to crush all the plebs.

Nobody was ever forced to accept employment at Pullman's, or any other company town. People moved to these towns (typically very enthusiastically) from larger cities in which many alternative employment offers were available, because they recognized that the overall value of Pullman's offer, including the limitations (but also the many advantages) associated with living in a company was greater than any other offer available to them.

At any point, of course, employees were also free to leave the town. That people chose to fight rather than leave is another indication of their recognition of the value offered to them through that employment.

On top of which, as you noted, only 5% of the American working population was, at most, associated with those company towns.

My workers are not helpless, they would surely shatter the industrial-style serfdom you demand they submit to. But they are reduced to having as little power as possible in Utopian Fascism. Which is one reason I reject your model.

Why are they unable to do what every entrepreneur does, namely use their savings and/or bank loans (individually or jointly) to start a business run to their taste and preference, rather than accept inferior, exploitative offers of employment?

Why can't they bypass capitalists, in other words, and peacefully produce without them?


Finally, are you suggesting that the Russian Revolution was more successful at improving the standard of living of society's poorest than were capitalist alternatives? That Russia's poor (at what point in time? 1920s? 1950s? 1980s?) were better off than the poor of similarly-industrialised and resource-rich capitalist countries such as Japan, the US, the UK, the Netherlands or, in the second half of the 20th century, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan?

[The Immortal Goon]

This isn't a model on which to base society, but rather a refutation of your assertion that poor people do not have the means to migrate.

The question of what happened to the descendants of those Jews 40 years later is completely beside the point. Italian and Irish were no less poor when immigrating to the US, and the descendants of those they left behind suffered no similar lot.

It would be convenient for you if you could just throw everything away. But this is exactly the point, not "completely beside the point." There were people in Ireland, Italy, and Jews all over Europe that could not move for one reason or another. They starved to death, were persecuted, massacred, and everything else. In your model, these piles of bodies are to be ignored and the people that can move away—the ones with means—are the only ones that matter.

Nobody was ever forced to accept employment at Pullman's, or any other company town. People moved to these towns (typically very enthusiastically) from larger cities in which many alternative employment offers were available, because they recognized that the overall value of Pullman's offer, including the limitations (but also the many advantages) associated with living in a company was greater than any other offer available to them.

At any point, of course, employees were also free to leave the town. That people chose to fight rather than leave is another indication of their recognition of the value offered to them through that employment.

On top of which, as you noted, only 5% of the American working population was, at most, associated with those company towns

Again, this is a theoretical argument that ignores reality. Nobody was "ever forced to accept employment at Pullman's," they could have easily just chosen to starve to death.

This thread even goes into you tacitly accepting that an employer should have the right to demand sexual services from an employee's children. You say they chose to revolt and that's recognition of how great Pullman was. I say it's a recognition of how great the people are. They tried to rise up and smash the system that was killing them. You support the tyrant: I support the people.

Why are they unable to do what every entrepreneur does, namely use their savings and/or bank loans (individually or jointly) to start a business run to their taste and preference, rather than accept inferior, exploitative offers of employment?

Because that's not how capitalism works. Again, we run into your solution being, "Everyone should just be rich!" How will this happen? Magic! Sure, every possible incentive is given to the employer to brutalize the employee, and to use every scam and diversion to take as much money as possible, but everyone will have means to do whatever they want.

Finally, are you suggesting that the Russian Revolution was more successful at improving the standard of living of society's poorest than were capitalist alternatives? That Russia's poor (at what point in time? 1920s? 1950s? 1980s?) were better off than the poor of similarly-industrialised and resource-rich capitalist countries such as Japan, the US, the UK, the Netherlands or, in the second half of the 20th century, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan?

I'm responding to your question. Capitalism did a shit job of improving the standard of living for the poor in Russia. The creation of a workers' state did for Russia what took hundreds of years with capitalism in other such places.

But this being obviously true, you're changing the question to be whether the poor in Russia were better off than the poor in wealthy capitalist countries. The answer, bluntly, is still yes. Even if we look toward the end of the Soviet experiment, the reforms made to reflect capitalism made things worse:

Poverty in the Soviet Union can often be deceiving, because of Government subsidies for ordinarily costly expenditures, like housing and education. An urban family in the Soviet Union pays on the average 6 percent of its income for housing, as against 26.6 percent paid by an American family, according to an article in the Soviet journal U.S.A.

Viktor Kryazhev, department head at the Research Institute of Labor at the State Committee for Labor and Social Issues, emphasized that the key determinant of need is a person's ability to buy food and other daily necessities.

According to the U.S.A. article, the average person here works 10 times longer to earn a pound of meat than the average American worker, 4.5 times longer to earn a quart of milk and three times longer for a pound of potatoes.

Soviet citizens complain uniformly that the economic restructuring Mr. Gorbachev is trying to implement has so far led only to shortages in the stores and a rise in prices. No one has felt these changes more drastically than the poor, who find that inexpensive goods, ranging from food to soap, are nearly impossible to come by.

[Eran]

Again, this is a theoretical argument that ignores reality. Nobody was "ever forced to accept employment at Pullman's," they could have easily just chosen to starve to death.

Actually, yours is the theoretical argument. Nobody had to choose between accepting employment at Pullman's or starving. In fact, only a tiny fraction of the American workforce was employed by Pullman's, and none of the many that weren't working with Pullman's actually starved.

I will ask you to either substantiate or drop the myth that people's choice was between accepting employment at company towns (or from any particular employer) or starving.

Because that's not how capitalism works. Again, we run into your solution being, "Everyone should just be rich!"

Who said anything about being rich? You can take a loan from the bank to start a small business. You don't need to be rich, and that doesn't make you rich. It merely gives you another option to being employed, if you feel that the terms of employment offered to you are unfair.

Or you can be a small merchant. Or a farmer. Or you can pool your savings with those of a few of your fellow workers, and start your own business.

All of those are viable alternatives to accepting employment, and none of them require that you be rich. Not in the 19th century, and even less so today.

Capitalism did a shit job of improving the standard of living for the poor in Russia.

What does pre-revolutionary Russia has to do with capitalism? Russian society was barely emerging from feudalism. It was certainly not "capitalist" in any substantive sense.

But this being obviously true, you're changing the question to be whether the poor in Russia were better off than the poor in wealthy capitalist countries. The answer, bluntly, is still yes.

Then why did the Soviet Union have to stop those poor people from living the country? Why, in fact, weren't any poor people from wealthy capitalist countries attempting to move into the Soviet Union? Why did Cubans risk their lives to reach the US, rather than the Soviet Union?

Why did Jews trained as engineers in the Soviet Union prefer emigrating to Israel and working there in menial jobs?

[The Immortal Goon]

I will ask you to either substantiate or drop the myth that people's choice was between accepting employment at company towns (or from any particular employer) or starving.

It's not a myth that you need work from "any particular employer," or you starve. Especially in a system like Utopian Fascism.

A family is destitute. They must send their child to work or they starve.

I have to work, because otherwise I would starve.

Who said anything about being rich? You can take a loan from the bank to start a small business. You don't need to be rich, and that doesn't make you rich. It merely gives you another option to being employed, if you feel that the terms of employment offered to you are unfair. Or you can be a small merchant. Or a farmer. Or you can pool your savings with those of a few of your fellow workers, and start your own business.

All of those are viable alternatives to accepting employment, and none of them require that you be rich. Not in the 19th century, and even less so today.

This is to completely ignore any kind of institutional or theoretical profit motive. It assumes banks are some kind of charity that give money out of the kindness of their hearts to anyone who wants to invest it in anything that they want. It's an absurdity. One wonders why you think the masses of people in 19th Century America or Britain after the Corn Laws were so stupid that they died of black lung and cave ins, were reduced to selling their daughters to prostitution, and their sons as soldiers, when all they had to do was ask a bank for their free money to open their own businesses.

What does pre-revolutionary Russia has to do with capitalism? Russian society was barely emerging from feudalism. It was certainly not "capitalist" in any substantive sense.

With all your criticism of capitalism, can you point to a single system that has, overall, worked better in improving the standard of living of society's poorest?

The creation of a workers' state did for Russia what took hundreds of years with capitalism in other such places. But this being obviously true, you're changing the question to be whether the poor in Russia were better off than the poor in wealthy capitalist countries. The answer, bluntly, is still yes. Even if we look toward the end of the Soviet experiment, the reforms made to reflect capitalism made things worse

And now you're, again, trying to ask a different question as if you're simply rephrasing it. Yes, Russia was emerging from feudalism into a bourgeois system. However, the capitalist development was much further along in the market than it was in the government. This is part of what led to the February Revolution. The inability of the February Revolution to use a bourgeois constitutional monarchy in order to harness the—however imperfect—capitalist means of production led to the October Revolution. And then everything got much better, far quicker, the capitalist Whites totally helping by killing all the Jews they could find, butchering peasants, and sending troops in to try and crush the Bolsheviks.

You know, libertarians always act like the government is the opposite of capitalism. It's weird how the troops never move in to crush the capitalists, but only the dissenting masses that don't like the system.

Then why did the Soviet Union have to stop those poor people from living the country? Why, in fact, weren't any poor people from wealthy capitalist countries attempting to move into the Soviet Union? Why did Cubans risk their lives to reach the US, rather than the Soviet Union?

Why did Jews trained as engineers in the Soviet Union prefer emigrating to Israel and working there in menial jobs?

Not that this has anything in any way whatsoever to do with what you asked, but government incentives from the capitalists contribute to this (you'll note the difference in the way immigrants from Cuba are officially classified as opposed to Mexico in the US), but also for the same reasons I've outlined before on this board a few times.

[Eire]

Fascism is a blight on humanity, it is truly pure capitalism with ultra-nationalistic views.

"If you can't convince a fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement" - Leon Trotsky

[PennVoorhees]

I am of the opinion that fascism is in many ways a radical endpoint of capitalism.

Uhh, no. Fascists are anti-capitalist, just not in the same way as Marxists.

Fascism isn't a 'radical endpoint of capitalism', quite the opposite (Fascists don't support a free market and unregulated private property).
Fascism, if anything, is more closely linked with Syndicalism. Substituting trade unions for corporations (social organizations, not big business corps.).

Also, there is no prominent American Fascists/Fascism. They have no power, so I don't see why you would even bother with them.

[Leninist]

Uhh, no. Fascists are anti-capitalist, just not in the same way as Marxists.

Fascism isn't a 'radical endpoint of capitalism', quite the opposite (Fascists don't support a free market and unregulated private property).
Fascism, if anything, is more closely linked with Syndicalism. Substituting trade unions for corporations (social organizations, not big business corps.).

Also, there is no prominent American Fascists/Fascism. They have no power, so I don't see why you would even bother with them.

I agree, Fascism is not liberal capitalism. But Liberal capitalism's problems can ultimately lead to fascists rising to power by promising structure, while appealing to nationalism. They are "anti-capitalist" in so far as they want to end capitalism so as to more rapidly bring on fascism, but unlike Marxists, they are willing and even prefer to incorporate aspects of the old capitalist structure. Hitler's pact with the German business leaders is a very prominent example. In Nazi Germany, German corporations were protected from competition by the government, and their owners were very wealthy. So in this way, Fascism is the "radical Endpoint" of capitalism. It is what happens when capitalism is allowed to evolve rather than be destroyed. But it is ultimately just as flawed, because it is still without workers' democracy, and so when the initial growth brought on by government protectionism begin to slacken and productivity slips, it to will collapse.