A strong welfare state, helping the poor, free medical care, free higher education, nationalization of key industries, socialism – all this surely sounds great. But then two seconds after you put it in practice, you get sky-high inflation, food shortages, censorship, and the very students you were educating for free are marching down the streets, calling you a fascist.
On the one hand, free higher education for all sounds great. But my student who is paying his way through college by working two full-time jobs comes to my office every day and inundates my mailbox with questions. And the one who’s on a scholarship tells me to my face, “I don’t care because the state pays for it” and comes to class once every 3 weeks.
A strong welfare state also sounds attractive. But then I look at my sister in Quebec who works 80-hour weeks only to hand over half of what she makes to the state to ensure that the lazy bureaucrats all have expensive houses and those who don’t feel like working can travel to international resorts twice a year, and I don’t want to live like that.
What Chavez was doing in Venezuela didn’t sound bad at all. But the result is horrible. This is the great paradox of socialism and communism. They sound so great, but the closer you come to them, the greater is the horror you experience.
Venezuela has demonstrated once again that socialism sucks and capitalism works. If you compare it to Spain, which has no natural resources, lots of completely barren land, suffered enormously from the global economic crisis, and chose the aggressively capitalist way, you will see that, unlike the Marxist-Leninist Venezuela, Spain has no food shortages, no censorship, no inflation, and the economy has started improving.
As much as I don’t like recognizing this, there is no economic system that is better than capitalism.
Clarissa's Blog 
Wall Street gambling and losing………….bailouts put on taxpayers………..capitalism? Not so much. 😉
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And now, after the recession and bailouts, look at how you or I live and how people in Venezuela and Cuba live. Experience any food shortages lately?
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They are honest !!!
Not steeling !!!
Not cheating !!!
New society never will go backwards !!!
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They honest !!!!
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I know that you like to be provocative and to provoke ideas, but some nuances may be good here. If I did not know you better I would say that your are being demagogic in this post.
In fact, your defense of capitalism sounds like you are content with the lesser evil. I am not. I am confident that human beings have the capacity to create alternatives to capitalism. Now do not ask me what that is.
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“I am confident that human beings have the capacity to create alternatives to capitalism.”
– Si, se puede! 🙂 Yes, I’m confident, too. But for now, all of the alternatives are. . . you know.
I actually wanted to like Chavez, in spite of Alo, presidente!, Bolivarianism, Castrism, Marxism-Leninism, and the parrots. So now that I’m studying the issue, I feel defrauded.
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Venezuela… I wish I knew what is really going on in Venezuela. As one of your reader said, information about Venezuela in the media seens incredibly biased.
Strange phenomenon in my Advanced Spanish class this semester: 25% of my students are venezolanos antichavistas convencidos! And they love Stephen Harper too! And they built houses with Habitat for Humanity! And they think that Rob Ford is not that bad a mayor! It has been an interesting semester.
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In the meanwhile, I have several Mexican students this semester who are great supporters of El Chapo Guzman because he was good, helped the poor, and only killed really bad guys. So, yeah. . . 🙂
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You are right in the aspect of how we presently live. Considering the USA is over 14 trillion dollars in debt and pretty much every capitalist society in the world is in debt, things are going to change. There was a line from a movie(cant remember the name) that sums it up perfectly. “Youre dead, you just don’t know it yet” 😦
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Said Marx, centuries ago. . . 🙂 🙂
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I am skeptical, Clarissa. Capitalism = University of Phoenix. Socialism = State Universities giving (so far) genuine educational opportunities for everyone who qualifies for admission.
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Actually, those for-profit online schools get MORE MONEY from the state (at least, in our state) than our state’s public universities. The president of our university was practically frothing at the mouth in indignation when he discovered that our budget was being slashed to feed these losers!!!
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Also, in my experience, the Postal Service does a much better job than UPS or FedEx, in spite of the conservative attempts to destroy it.
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Sure enough. But I promise to you that the moment it remains the only possibility and the private postal services are prohibited from functioning (which is what socialism requires), every time you try to mail something will become a heroic adventure.
Socialism doesn’t entail having some state services. Socialism = state ownership over means of production. Not a couple of means, though, but all of them. And what I’m saying is that the more you advance down that road, the hungrier and unhappier people become.
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I am old enough to remember when you sent a letter from the US to a socialist country and then received one back months later and saw that it had been ripped open and taped together not once, but twice. I presume once going out of its country of origin and one coming into the US.
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When my best friend from childhood emigrated to the US in the 1980s, my mother asked them never to get in touch because that would put all of us in danger.
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Yea because they were likely “dissidents” used as intelligence assets, and had long been kicked out of their country.
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J Otto Pohl: That is true. I once sent a photo to someone in Poland Whom I corresponded with regularly. The photo was delivered to her in a later letter than the one I had enclosed it with. However, that kind of surveillance can happen in a capitalist country, too.
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Both systems are horribly broken. One gives the illusion to many people that it works(short term). The other shows its inherent flaws much quicker. The common trait in both is that a small percentage of people are laughing all the way to the bank. 😉
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“Both systems are horribly broken”
– It is legal to visit Cuba from Canada. Have you been? If you try very hard, you will be able to evade the police for a short period of time, and see how people actually live.
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Come see some police-ridden shantytowns in Louisiana or southern Texas (for starters).
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The choice is not between some shanty-towns and none. The system with none has not been invented yet. The choice is only between some shanty-towns and 95% of a country as one big shantytown.
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95% as shantytown, like El Salvador or various African places, etc., & elsewhere in global south?
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Or like Cuba.
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That’s my point. I don’t find Cuba so much worse, and find it better in some respects despite all the obvious issues.
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“and find it better in some respects despite all the obvious issues”
– Could you give an example? I visited Cuba and Mexico in the same year and there was simply no comparison. There was crushing poverty in both countries, but the Cuban people were zombified, robbed of anything that would even resemble Hispanic identity, rendered completely cynical, consumed by self-loathing, possessed with the worship of what could pass as “British”, in short, completely and utterly Sovietized. To me, being in Mexico was enjoyable. But being in Cuba was traumatic.
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Can you say Prism? 😉
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When you eventually have children it will be important to remember that the good life you are experiencing now will be paid for by your future generations. And if payment is not possible, Anarchy certainly will be. BOTH systems are HORRIBLY broken. Its just not our generation that is going to feel it in this culture.
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Oh, my friend, you are way too young for this old-people need to believe that the good things will run out the second they can’t enjoy them any longer. 🙂 🙂
And you are also way too Canadian to engage in these American apocalyptic fantasies. 🙂
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Lol, ah, the intellectual who forgets Rome. 🙂
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Ah, I knew the “this is just like” line of argument was going to surface sooner or later. 🙂
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They are all “just like” because the one constant is change. Cultures all have a shelf life.
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Except, of course, the Hispanic Civilization. That one IS ETERNAL. Especially now that I have immortalized it in my research.
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Life is like surfing, sometimes youre riding the wave, sometimes youre crashing into the shore. Most times, youre paddling to get another wave. 🙂
Enjoy the ride, the wave is about to crest. 😉
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“Life is like surfing, sometimes youre riding the wave, sometimes youre crashing into the shore. Most times, youre paddling to get another wave. ”
– Ah, so you are one of those Facebookers I discussed in the previous post! 🙂
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Capitalism needs a strong rule of law to keep abuses and frauds and thiefs in check. The US hasn’t had that for at least 20 years.
Socialism needs rule of charismatic frontmen to keep people from noticing how awful things are getting.
The ideal system is one that rewards initiative and work and wealth creation and no socialist system has ever figured out how to do that very well for very long.
You also need to keep an eagle eye on financial establishments or they’ll rob you blind and mortgage your future for magic beans.
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“The ideal system is one that rewards initiative and work and wealth creation and no socialist system has ever figured out how to do that very well for very long.”
– And this is exactly the problem. Nothing much else to say on the subject. Although, of course, the thread will go on forever, with people trying to convince me that capitalism is not paradise. As if I ever claimed it was.
When compared with an imaginary ideal society, capitalism sucks dick. But when compared to other actually existing systems, it absolutely is the best.
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The U of Phoenix getting all that public $ is a capitalist scheme.
Is VE really Marxist-Leninist? Seems more old-line populist but what do I know.
Socialism, state ownership?
More socialist would be the electric companies in this part of Louisiana, created on a socialist model. The one I am in is actually owned by the city but it’s a service not a for profit business, and the ones out in the country are cooperatives. They work really well.
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“Is VE really Marxist-Leninist”
– Chavez declared in 2005, it seems, that he was abandoning the democratic / capitalist with strong welfare state system and turning to Marxism-Leninism. And if he said that’s what he was, then that’s what he was.
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Ha, like Ol. I also think you’re being deliberately provocative. I can’t understand why you would lump in helping the poor and universal healthcare with nationalizing industries and socialism. That’s a pretty big leap right there.
I don’t think even hardcore leftists in the US believe in socialism (government owning EVERY means of production, like you say). More like capitalism but with stronger regulations. I don’t think any reasonable person can argue against that.
Take healthcare. Under the standard model of private insurance, where the only goal is to make profits, the most common way to do it is to deny coverage to sick people. Their jobs, their year end bonuses, their performance benchmarks – everything hinges upon how many people they’ve denied. The worse the industry behaves, the more profits it collects, the higher its stock market value. Don’t you see something fundamentally wrong with that?
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Stringer Bell: I agree with everything you say. But here I was discussing Chavez who, quite a while ago, declared that he was going in the direction not of the capitalism with better regulations , but in the direction of Marxist-Leninist socialism. And that’s when the country started going to the dogs.
Yes, everybody on this blog supports greater regulations on a capitalist system. And what I’m saying is that this system is better than socialism in its classic definition I believe that this is self-evident, yet everybody seems to get inexplicably bothered by the idea.
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Yea what you want CANNOT exist, capitalism is incompatible with Democracy. I refuse allow all humanity to be disenfranchised for time immemorial…. You think that because a few countries tried something, it wasn’t good enough, that we should stop looking at the sole problem? No, the problem was that global capitalism still existed, and that the proletariat wasn’t in more direct control, and thus was sold out like the powerless ALWAYS are sold.
In fact, if Capitalism was really the best we could do, or better then even trying. Then outright criminality would be an equally valid career path, yea… In Mexico THEY LIKED CHAPO. Does this not tell you enough? That something is wrong? O and shut the eff up about Cuba, you only went their as a funded activist to make it worse.
You stupid moron, you think the US proxies get to provide the same deal, as the USA does for its citizens??? NO, that would not serve the US economic interests, plain and simple. If it existed already MABYE it could be no worse, but we’re paying for it… who was paying you for your little “vay kay”. Capitalism was Batista you effing dimwit, and yes it was worse… a lot worse, so bad revolution was required.
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And merry Christmas to you, too, you happy, well-adjusted individual.
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Really now?
For the first hundred and fifty years or so these United States did extremely well with democracy and capitalism.
And then we created the federal reserve and the politicians realized they could continually spend more money than they could tax . . . .
By the way, capitalistic countries are not going bankrupt because of capitalism. They are in dire financial straits because politicians are spending too much money – usually on ‘social welfare’ programs to buy votes. Or misappropriation of capital (see oboma’s ‘green energy companies which all went bankrupt).
Josh.
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There are an endless number of variations on “capitalism” and “socialism”. Most people would say that Canada was a “mixed” economy. And there are endless variations on that, too. For instance, in Ontario, we don’t have free higher education, but there are loans for students who could not otherwise afford university. This is how I managed to go to university. If not for the loans, I would either not have gone, or had to work a ridiculous number of hours, and then my marks would have suffered, and I would not have been able to go to law school. But I did get good marks and go to law school. The government made more from my taxes as a lawyer than they would have if I had been a waitress.
Also, there are many options for health care. It’s not a choice between the government pays 100% for everyone to have the best of everything and the government pays nothing. And lastly, if your sister is not happy in Quebec she can leave. She’s not leaving? Maybe it’s not that bad.
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I’m the only one in the family who emigrated twice, and the psychological price of the second immigration was that it almost drove me to suicide. It took about 7 years and a very expensive analyst to recover from that. It’s an enormous, enormous challenge, and I wouldn’t recommend this road to anybody.
Of course, if there are more instances of my sister’s daughter being treated like a second-class citizen because she was born in Quebec to immigrant parents, they are likely to consider leaving.
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So you’d like Finland to scrap free education … Germany … Mexico … others?
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And have you stopped drinking cognac in the mornings? 🙂 🙂
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“But then two seconds after you put it in practice….and the very students you were educating for free are marching down the streets, calling you a fascist.”
You’ve used the example of your students before, and I’ve never been able to understand why it’s even an argument. Should social policies be changed because total fucking idiots are in opposition to it? If anything, that should be an argument for advancing those policies.
Should we scrap laws against pollution, worker safety, equal pay, etc. because Fox News viewers cry “TYRANNY!!!FASCISM!!! COMMUNISM” in response??
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““But then two seconds after you put it in practice….and the very students you were educating for free are marching down the streets, calling you a fascist.”
You’ve used the example of your students before, and I’ve never been able to understand why it’s even an argument.”
– I should write more carefully, I guess. Of course, I was talking not about my students but about the students in Venezuela who are protesting in the streets of Caracas right now against the chavista policies of President Nicolas Maduro. They protest against the restrictions against the freedom of speech, and that is a very noble goal.
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Who? The booshwah students, children from those who raped Venezuela for generations… they want the liberal right to pay foreign funded mass propaganda?
Chavez was FAR to kind, They deserve nothing short of a complete beating, and their “teachers” charged as spies. Anyone who wants to talk about humanitarian rights is a garbage hipocrite. Guess what? they work for those who don;t respect public sovereignty anyway, they considered Chavez illegitimate when he was VERY popular. On what contract are those rights valid? No thanks, I’m not the saint you never were.
In fact, consider the beatings just evening out things, in fairness of coarse. Tell you what, in some generations when your stepping on throats, I promise nobody will ask for “humanitarian intervention”. Except for you, because your a hypocrite.
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People tend to like the system they haven’t seen the outcome of in great detail, I guess.
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People tend to like the system they haven’t seen the outcome of in great detail, I guess.(Stille)
Or they dislike the one they live in, I guess. 😉
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“People tend to like the system they haven’t seen the outcome of in great detail, I guess.”
– Exactly. the grass is always greener. 🙂
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The reason the grass is greener is because its covered in shit. 🙂
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The biggest issue is Capitalism adapts easily to the point where it can even absorb Socialism. However, when Socialism tries to adapt a little to Capitalism, it gets devoured whole. Case and point China and pretty much any former Communist/Socialist country.
Capitalism’s adaptability makes it a far superior model and it is the reason why pretty much everybody has given up on Socialism/Communism as a viable economic model.
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“The biggest issue is Capitalism adapts easily to the point where it can even absorb Socialism. However, when Socialism tries to adapt a little to Capitalism, it gets devoured whole.”
– This is a very interesting observation. Yes, that’s definitely true.
“Capitalism’s adaptability makes it a far superior model and it is the reason why pretty much everybody has given up on Socialism/Communism as a viable economic model.”
– Absolutely. When Marx predicted that capitalism would collapse under the weight of its contradictions, he didn’t take into account precisely this enormous capacity to adapt. Capitalism processed the 8-hour workday and adapted perfectly. But the Soviet system didn’t manage to handle even the tiniest relaxation of its censorship.
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“Capitalism’s adaptability makes it a far superior model and it is the reason why pretty much everybody has given up on Socialism/Communism as a viable economic model.”
I saw, on TV last night a show about an American company that makes creepy “clothing” for men to go about in. Many of these guys are introverts who want to star as “one of the beautiful people” every so often. I think they are kinda, a bit sad, although I could understand it a bit better if they ‘fessed up to finding it an erotic experience to pretend to be a lady doll.
http://www.femskin.com/home.htm
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postwar societies rock.
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“- Could you give an example? I visited Cuba and Mexico in the same year and there was simply no comparison. There was crushing poverty in both countries, but the Cuban people were zombified, robbed of anything that would even resemble Hispanic identity, rendered completely cynical, consumed by self-loathing, possessed with the worship of what could pass as “British”, in short, completely and utterly Sovietized. To me, being in Mexico was enjoyable. But being in Cuba was traumatic.”
Right: Mexico isn’t a good point of comparison, it is opulent and free and everything, comparatively speaking. I’m talking about places like El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, parts of Peru, also some parts of Brazil.
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I’ve also been to the Dominican Republic, and it’s also on a different planet from Cuba. In these Communist systems, there is a point of no return, after which no amount of opulence will change anything. At least, not for a long time to come. Russia, for instance, is immensely rich, but the zombification, the cynicism, etc. all remain.
The damage done by the Communist systems is so much greater than just economic. This has been the enormous mistake that Western societies kept making in relation to the FSU countries. They kept pouring in money and that was the last thing these countries needed. The NATO bloc turned out to be deeply Marxist in its approach to the FSU.
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…I just have difficulty distinguishing because I’ve seen similar zombification in Spain when I was a child, in Argentina under the generals, etc., and also in Chile to some extent although that’s certainly well masked now. But the only Communist country I have been to is Cuba.
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I’m sick of the ignorant claims of some of you that capitalism is a broken system! It is NOT! There is nothing inherently wrong with capitalism, for capitalism is a term to describe a simple system wherein trade flows in and out of a land of laws, unrestricted. It is not responsible for the corruption brought on by Wall Street, DC, the Fed, or by the questionable and shameful journalism the mainstream media outlets feed us. That is all thanks to a little over a century’s worth of sinister reshaping of our laws and dealings made with news outlets and foreign entities alike, who seek to aid the powers that be in demolishing and demonizing our very foundation. All of the problems we face stem directly from our nay-saying enemies who are also, to no surprise, the unconvicted culprits of which there are no vocal witnesses to the murder of the American dream. They’re also responsible for the brainwashing of young, fresh minds, who become and remain ever the more unaware and obedient to their slaves-for-masters.
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“All of the problems we face stem directly from our nay-saying enemies who are also, to no surprise, the unconvicted culprits of which there are no vocal witnesses to the murder of the American dream. ”
– It’s always surprising to see Stalinist rhetoric used in 2014. Wow, man, you are just a tad outdated.
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“I could understand it a bit better if they ‘fessed up to finding it an erotic experience to pretend to be a lady doll”
Just think, if that company existed 30 years ago, then Silence of the Lambs would never have been made. I thought that movie was way overrated, but the book Red Dragon and the movie based on it, Manhunter, were amazing. The Hannibal in Manhunter was much scarier to me (because he was much more like the sociopaths I’ve known).
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This may sound like a frivolous question but I think it may not be: could you compare resorts and their contexts in DR and Cuba??? I don’t do resorts as I am from a whole town that might as well be one (Santa Barbara, CA), have only been to socialist beach in Cuba (workers’ vacation cottages), have seen resorts passing by in various countries, though. Do they work differently in these two places, or is the question irrelevant?
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No, it’s a good question.
Cuban beaches have been infected by the really bad species of sand flea for a bout a few years. the last time I went was in 2005, and the fleas almost ate me alive. The whole thing is so bad that only medication can help clear it up. My parents went last month, and the problem persists, They also got bitten by these critters all over. So I would be very careful about going to Cuba until this issue gets resolved.
Another difference between the Cuban and DR resorts is that in Cuba you get most of the food, even at hotels that are not that cheap, out of a can. No fresh vegetables are available ever, and very little fresh fruit. Maybe if you go someplace ultra-expensive it’s different but I never have.
Cuban resorts are cheaper, of course. The workers at the resorts are paid a lot less in Cuba. In the DR people love you for speaking Spanish, and in Cuba it’s the opposite. It is much easier to get people in the DR used to you and stop noticing you. In Cuba I’m always the Other and in the DR not always.
The customs offices are better in Cuba, they work faster, there is less hassle.
These days, more Russians come to the DR, which is a mixed blessing.
Nothing else I can think of right now.
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It is important to use very detailed arguments when discussing this issue
Saying things like “people can do better than capitalism” or “socialism does not work” is incredibly imprecise.
These abstract constructs describe very specific policy structures that are rarely in absolute form but rather found along a spectrum in the real world.
So, when you identify issues within the real world – produce clear suggestions on what to change. Or, if you dislike capitalism, then describe very clearly what it is specifically that you feel should be improved.
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