Neither Capitalism, nor Socialism Made America Great

[JCMach1]

It was the careful balance created by the New Deal between these two ideas that created the greatest society on earth.

As Republicans and conservative Democratic enablers have systematically dismantled the laws, ideas, and ideology of the New Deal, America has turned the clock back to the time of the Robber Barons.







America needs both these ideas.


Capitalism for innovation, growth and productivity.

Socialism for social conscience and a just society.


Perhaps, we should call that AMERICANISM...


Now, what do we do to get it back?


Arguing over socialism and capitalism surely isn't the way!

[oscarmitre]

1. Is it more accurate to argue it was Keynesianism? n/t

[JCMach1]

4. Not precisely, but point taken...

[manic expression]

25. Keynesianism is very different from socialism

Marx drew his economic analysis from Ricardo and Smith. Keynes kind of did his own thing independent of that branch IIRC.

Anyone who is curious about Marxist economics should read "Wage Labor and Capital" and "Capital" by Marx (the second one is also spelled "Das Kapital").

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/guide.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/index.htm
http://www.marxists.org/

[mr blur]

2. "the greatest society on earth."?

Where do you get these ridiculous notions?

[JCMach1]

3. We could argue about that, but it is not far off the truth...

Greatest society being the best standard of living for the MOST people in a society. On that scale, the U.S. still blows everyone away.

[rman]

9. relative to population size, or in absolute numbers?

I'm pretty sure that most (west) European countries have a lower percentage of poverty than the US.

It's also true that most millionaires live in the US.

[JCMach1]

10. Population size... not percentage...

Per capita doesn't give you anything close to the complexity of the issue.

Take for example India: GDP is growing expotentially. 10's of millions are entering the middle class. Yet, 50% of children do not receive enough food! http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006422064

[rman]

12. "relative to population size" = percentage

Do you agree that while the US may have most people enjoying a high standard of living, that of all developed nations it also has the largest part of the population living in poverty?

[JCMach1]

14. We are also not the worst

It is important to consider it is much easier to fight poverty like Austria where the scale of poverty is in the thousands. In the U.S. we are dealing with millions. Also, if America ended its addiction to War and chose defense as a posture, we could end poverty as we know it relatively quickly. Unfortunately, the pendulum has swung us back to 1900 where progressives had to fight for every small crumb won from the ruling classes. Even with that though, we still stack-up pretty well.

[rman]

16. So you agree the US is not the best,

contrary to what you stated in the OP.

[eallen]

17. Not so. Europe has nigh as many millionaires as the US. And Asia is a close third.

I'm copying these numbers from wikipedia, which cites the 2006 "World Wealth Report." According to it, the number of individuals who have a net worth more than $1 million is:

North America: 2.9 million
Europe: 2.8 million
Asia-Pacific: 2.4 million

The rest of the world -- Latin America, Mideast, and Africa -- have fewer than 1 million combined.

:hippie:

[brentspeak]

22. Allright, I'll play along: give us some alternative "greatest societies on earth"

[GOPBasher]

5. I agree. The ideal system, I have always believed, is right in the middle

of capitalism and socialism.

[JCMach1]

6. I think that is a re-emerging idea with people like Jim Webb

saying the same sorts of things during the last election cycle...

It just seems really strange to hear after the tyranny of right-wing republican rule and the pro-capitalism scree spewed by the DLC.

[manic expression]

21. Is that really ideal

look around you. We have so many problems that stem from capitalism, problems that the New Deal (the "middle") completely failed to address. The New Deal just made the same thing look a little nicer, it changed nothing, and the fact that the robber barons have once again established themselves is evidence of this.

[emanymton]

7. Define - Great. ... Define - America

Many good things are found in the world.

Some good things are found in USA. Canada and the countries south of the USA border have many good things going for them also.

I am opposed to jingoism. As for being great, does not your point depend on who is on top?

[JCMach1]

8. See post 3...

i.e. the greatest economic good for the most people...

While other countries have managed things pretty well on a small scale, none has managed it on the scale of the U.S. and maintained status as a world power at the same time. That's no small achievement.

I don't think it is jingoism to say America is great. However, that ideal is at great risk today. And it certainly doesn't mean American can't be greater than it is in all kinds of ways.

[HereSince1628]

11. So American greatness arrived after 1932?

That makes me wonder, along what dimensions did the USA grow to find the greatness you recognize?

Were the ideals that led to that greatness present in our society earlier? Or were they something that emerged de novo with the administration of F.D.R.?

Clearly, America grew to military dominance and in the decades immediately after WWII it enjoyed tremendous economic dominance compared to Europe and Asia. But WWII seems to loom large as an event that seriously set back and handicapped both Europe and Asia as they directly suffered the devastation of war.

Moreover North America is both big (making it quantitatively resource rich) and the US sits at fortuitous latitudes within the continent. Consequently with respect to prospects for a good life, the US is blessed by a geography that facilitated its development regardless of social policy.

But what is greatness? It's not even especially arguable that there are dimensions along which greatness could be measured that would make other nations great by comparison to the US.

We should perhaps question if an America determined to maintain its economic and military greatness (a clear goal of our sorry-assed form of militant nationalism currently known as NeoConconservatism) ever had any inherent greatness. Was our mid-20th century "glory" not a true feature of US culture but simply a cul- de-sac explored along the inevitable path of a perverse social system that was and is inherently driven by a hunger for global hegemony? Is it possible that because of national pride we just don't see ourselves as others see us? Is our view of ourselves more correct than the views of others?

My personal attitude about economics is similar and in agreement with your general conclusion. I also feel socially responsible capitalism is a better gamble for our nation than either a command economy kept on the straight and narrow by socialism or robber baron free-market capitalism.

But, I am deeply embedded within a society that taught that message for thirty years--from the time of my birth until the free-marketers established their anti-progressive counter-revolution under Ronny Reagan. How could I see it otherwise?

[JCMach1]

13. You know the history as well as anyone I'm sure

Progressivism did not begin, nor end with the new deal. The impetus to create such a system came into being as the U.S. pushed ahead in terms of industrial development.

Instead of a Marxist revolution, ideas were co-opted by both political parties after the Civil War in the United States.

The unbridled market capitalism that marked the Gilded Age was fraught with strikes, social conflict, assassinations and ultimately social change.

After Wilson, there was a conservative backlash that maintained power until the crash of 1929.

The greatness for me isn't the militarism that sprung out of involvement in two world wars and the cold war, it was what American society created... Economic prosperity and opportunity on an almost unparalleled scale.

That is pretty self-evident.

Now, that doesn't mean that such a society is sustainable... I am afraid that is the third axis that we shall have to deal with in the future...

Triangulate an economy that allows for opportunity, provides social justice, and offers a sustainable alternative to destroying the planet.

[HereSince1628]

18. Yes opportunity is easier in an expanding economy, harder to sustain

and when you think of the growing US population and the availabe resources earlier generations had to exploit it, the scope of the opportunity of expansion was truly tremendous. The ideology developed to cope with it--"The American Way"--is a system which trains its citizens to exhalt the opportunistic pursuit and exploitation of profitable venues.

Mechanization and industrialization that multiplied our country's economic development are only possible with a degree of concentrated capital. And rather than than promoting equality, our system promotes further and further concentration of wealth seeking further opportunities to turn into capital gains. The post WWII advantage of the US relative to the world provided a gigantic unsustainable opportunity bubble. In that bubble the myth of access to middle-class prosperity (and dreams of upper class wealth) for the common person was reborn for but a short existance.

When put to the test our system has failed to demonstrate sustainable growth in opportunities and access to wealth. Not only is the gap in wealth between the top and bottom increasing, workers have less buying power then they did thirty years ago (when the post WWII bubble was springing its first very serious leaks).

Faced with the costs of reparation to the consequences of exploitative unsustainable domestic expansion--terrible pollution, resource depletion and stupifying horrible and congenital socio-economic asymmetries (and from capital's view over-expensive labor)--our supposedly blessed system with its mythic equal opportunity has actually endorsed capital to abandon the nation.

Off-shoring is nothing but the practical application of American economic ideology--capital in search of more profitable venues.

Just as in the past, this means that the Capital/Investment class is turning its back on the mess it created and looking for greener horizon$. This is praised as both good and natural by our Democrats and Republicans alike.

I fear the system we exhalt is "great" only when it has the opportunity to expand.

We will accept it because our "American Way" is buffered against its failures by ingrained notions such as 'Jesus said there will always be poor among us.'

[Faryn Balyncd]

15. The economic history of America is the history of a . . . . . MIXED ECONOMY . . . . . . .

Individual liberty, free enterprise, innovation.......with monopolistic and exploitative excesses tempered by a democratic government.




Austrian ex-Communist Willi Schlamm once said,

"The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is captalists."




None other than William F. Buckley added,

"To believe that capitalists will behave honorably just because they are engaged in capitalism is akin to believing that no priest will engage in pedophilia simply because he is a priest."

[AX10]

19. Buckley actually said that?

[manic expression]

23. Where has that economy gotten us?

right back to pig stye capitalism. The "mixed economy" is basically capitalism with a nicer name; nothing is changed.

And "capitalist" is a description of someone's relations to the means of production. The bourgeoisie owns those means of production, and they (along with the petty-bourgeoisie) exploit the workers, the people who actually produce things. That name itself inherently IMPLIES exploitation. This analysis leads us to the conclusion that the bourgeoisie and their system MUST be completely overthrown for any progress to be made.

[manic expression]

20. Are you really serious when you say

America is the "greatest society on earth"?

The New Deal was a "kinder, gentler" form of exploitation and subjugation of workers. People still lived in poverty, people still had no real hope for anything, people were still treated as commodities, but now they were supposed to like it.

The New Deal put lipstick on the pig that is capitalism. Look at America in the 50's; stark inequity, shocking poverty, entire cities forgotten and left to crumble into dust. How was that a "just society"? It wasn't. Look at America today: capitalism has ran its course, as Marx always said it would, and corporations have taken over the market and established gross disparity between the haves, have-nots and people who pretend like they have something. You CANNOT truly reform a bourgeois government, you must overthrow the system itself to make REAL change in society.

Worker control over the means of production, equal distribution of wealth (either directly or indirectly), abolishment of private property and other measures have been proven to make the world a better place. I say we take the necessary action to achieve that.

[manic expression]

24. By the way

are you referring to the thread about the Kulaks?

[OHdem10]

26. Great Posts ---Just Remember

It is the responsibilty of Liberals to make Capitalism
palatable and fair to the greater populace.

Left to its own devices Capitalism creates by it very
nature small groups of Have Much at the top and
Have Nots. Still if managed properly it is one
the best systems.

Liberals must therefore do their jobs and keep DLCers
on the right track. Looking at the situation right
now, with the Great Wealth Gap--someone(s) have fallen
down on the job.

Let's get to work and turn this ship around.