- 06 May 2015 21:02
#14554300
But unlike socialists, they didn't mention their system by name when they were doing it. So, yea.
Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...
Conscript wrote:But unlike socialists, they didn't mention their system by name when they were doing it. So, yea.
Ahovking wrote:I think everyone is getting Capitlaism mixed up with Mercantilism, Capitlaism only emerged around 1800-1900s (depending on your view), the genocide and displace whole populations of America, Africa, Australia etc was Drivien by Mercantilism which emerged around 1500s and finally died in the early 1900s.
National economic policy of Europen state was aimed at accumulating monetary reserves through a positive balance of trade which frequently led to war between the states and also motivated colonial expansion at any cost, this was driven by Mercantilism not capitlaism.
Under Mercantilism you had
- Building overseas colonies;
- Forbidding colonies to trade with other nations;
- Monopolizing markets with staple ports;
- Banning the export of gold and silver, even for payments;
- Forbidding trade to be carried in foreign ships;
- Export subsidies;
- Promoting manufacturing with research or direct subsidies;
- Limiting wages;
- Maximizing the use of domestic resources;
- Restricting domestic consumption with non-tariff barriers to trade.
Most of this however was abolished or abandoned when free market capitlaism was adopted in the late and early 1900s.
I agree with @JohnRawls that:
As to whenever modern Socialism/Social democracy/social libertarianism is better or worse than modern Capitalism/Anarcho capitalists/Globalism, it is really unclear.
Ahovking wrote:I think everyone is getting Capitlaism mixed up with Mercantilism
The Immortal Goon wrote:I certainly would not conclude that socialism had "merged" with capitalism or that it had ceased to exist as a concept.
Conscript wrote:What do you think?
Engels wrote:...since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism.
If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.
James Connolly wrote:Therefore, we repeat, state ownership and control is not necessarily Socialism – if it were, then the Army, the Navy, the Police, the Judges, the Gaolers, the Informers, and the Hangmen, all would all be Socialist functionaries, as they are State officials – but the ownership by the State of all the land and materials for labour, combined with the co-operative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be Socialism.
Schemes of state and municipal ownership, if unaccompanied by this co-operative principle, are but schemes for the perfectioning of the mechanism of capitalist government-schemes to make the capitalist regime respectable and efficient for the purposes of the capitalist; in the second place they represent the class-conscious instinct of the business man who feels that capitalist should not prey upon capitalist, while all may unite to prey upon the workers. The chief immediate sufferers from private ownership of railways, canals, and telephones are the middle class shop-keeping element, and their resentment at the tariffs imposed is but the capitalist political expression of the old adage that “dog should not eat dog.”
It will thus be seen that an immense gulf separates the ‘nationalising’ proposals of the middle class from the ‘socialising’ demands of the revolutionary working class. The first proposes to endow a Class State – repository of the political power of the Capitalist Class – with certain powers and functions to be administered in the common interest of the possessing class; the second proposes to subvert the Class State and replace it with the Socialist State, representing organised society – the Socialist Republic.
Conscript wrote:What westerners and cold warriors think today when they hear socialism, is essentially this legacy
Pants-of-dog wrote:
Some things continued on in capitalism:
- Building overseas colonies;
- Export subsidies;
- Promoting manufacturing with research or direct subsidies;
- Limiting wages;
- Maximizing the use of domestic resources;
- Restricting domestic consumption with non-tariff barriers to trade.
...and some of the things you did not mention:
- Slavery;
- The ongoing theft of indigenous lands;
- Gov't support or tolerance of private security forces attacking citizens and workers;
- Installing puppet dictators in other nations;
- Union busting;
- Attempted destruction of indigenous cultures and peoples.
The Immortal Goon wrote:
Even Adam Smith and Ricardo, and everybody else that named and described capitalism?
Capitalists will often try to say that capitalism is the ideal theoretical system in order to mirror socialists. But this is problematic.
There was a system that existed after feudalism. People studied it, weighed it, and called it capitalism.
Hundreds of years later, you have people proposing that just as feudalism ended and capitalism came to be, capitalism will end and another system will develop. For the most part, the next system, was called socialism. Marx made the best case for this, so his, "scientific-socialism," became most associated with the shorthand, "socialism."
Cut a hundred years after that, and now capitalists are using socialist rhetoric in order to try and scrub hundreds of years of history away. Like Winston Smith trying to create a glorious current by destroying the past.
It's frustrating to argue with people that have to keep changing the meanings of words and twisting language and destroying history, but it's also weirdly comforting to know your opponent has to go to such extreme levels in order to make their history work.
There was a system that existed after feudalism. People studied it, weighed it, and called it capitalism.
How the shit do you build socialist social pillars with a capitalist base?
Uh no...both things are absolutely true. I am not[…]
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