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My frustration with the arguments for communism and or socialism vs capitalism is that they are surface arguments on ideological basis. I see socialism and comm

My frustration with the arguments for communism and or socialism vs capitalism is that they are surface arguments on ideological basis. I see socialism and communism as dressed up authoritarianism. A massive hand-over of power to a few in government is not an improvement over capitalism where a much larger group vie for power in a dual reinforcing and opposing system of government and corporate interests. To hand the economy over to the government creates a far more centralized system of power and all the discussion of supposed benefits we could attain by such a system does not nullify the massive threat to freedom by that kind of system. Capitalism is a horrible system but its the least horrible one we know of. A better discussion is how do we get to a better regulatory regime.

jmcqk6 7y ago
The problem is as you state: discussions between ideology are not productive when at least one side is completely entrenched in that ideology. Instead of focusing on ideology, focus on specific problems, and don't let the discussion occur in terms of ideology. This can be done by forcing specifics as much as possible. Ideology is almost by definition, highly abstract. It's nice to talk about things when they're highly abstract, because their incredibly malleable. But the problems we face in the world are not abstract. It's completely clear at this point that an ideological approach to solving problems will not work. But perhaps changing the discussions to be smaller and focusing on real issues in specific detail might be better. I could be wrong. I've been unable to have a productive conversation with ideological opposites from me, but I seem to get closer when I talk about specifics instead of abstractions.