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I know how simple it is to say "socialism = mass death", but it's not meaningful. Was Roosevelt a socialist? Certainly some at the time said he was a socialist

I know how simple it is to say "socialism = mass death", but it's not meaningful. Was Roosevelt a socialist? Certainly some at the time said he was a socialist or even a communist. Or as VP candidate Walz said: "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness." Walz's comment is surely aligned with what the OP meant as socialism. "Capitalism" doesn't simply mean "pay for stuff", because people used money and worked on personal and shared projects long before there was capitalism. And it's not like capitalism doesn't have its own history of mass deaths and economic and literal starvation.

dtagames 2y ago
This is also not correct. No form of socialism has worked and therefore, empirically, it does not work. Capitalism, however, has raised the standard of living for more people across more socioeconomic classes in more places than any other idea in human history, and that's provable on any measure of the quality of human life.
- tocs3 2y ago
  I have a post above somewhere above but CO-OPS. I agree that capitalism has worked wonders but it is not the only route to success.
- eesmith 2y ago
  > This is also not correct. No form of socialism has worked ... The problem is in how one draws the line to define "socialism". I mentioned how Roosevelt was called a socialist and communist due to his New Deal. Was that socialism, or was it not socialism? I highlighted how "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness." That's why "socialism" as a blanket term is pretty meaningless. If you can't define socialism, you can't tell if it worked. If your definition excludes examples which others have said is socialism, and which seem to work, which definition should we trust, and why? > Capitalism, however, has raised the standard of living How do you prove that? How do you disentangle correlation and causation? (As an aside, 'standard of living' is usually measured in economic terms, often coupled with growth, so choosing that definition is not unbiased.) Can we attribute the upcoming climate catastrophe to capitalism? If 500 million people die from it, can we say that capitalism caused mass deaths and economic and literal starvation?
  - dtagames 2y ago
    Socialism and communism are easily defined by Marx's 10 Planks. In terms of raising the standard of living, those are all standard terms and metrics. In terms of causation, money earned by people gets spent by them to raise their standard of living. Don't let people who want to control you pull the wool over your eyes and start thinking that giving them all your money and power means they would make things better for you. They won't. They never have. Those are true facts. For more on the underlying concept of liberty vs. statism and why only the former can deliver any kind of results, I highly recommend Ayn Rand's short essay called, A Textbook of Americanism [0]. [0] https://fee.org/resources/textbook-of-americanism/ https://fee.org/resources/textbook-of-americanism/
    - eesmith 2y ago
      That doesn't really help at all. That list is why some people say the US is a socialist country, that Roosevelt was a socialist or communist, etc. For literally the first DDG example, http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/TenPlanks.html http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/TenPlanks.html . I know they are standard metrics. I don't think they are good metrics due to their built-in assumptions. This thread has nothing to do with "giving them all your money and power means they would make things better for you". My observations were 1) "socialism" is such as broad term as to be meaningless until pinned down - and DonnyV clearly isn't talking about Marxism, and 2) a market economy clearly does not require capitalism as people earned money and had jobs long before there was capitalism or mercantilism, so your connecting the two is not a valid argument. I ask again: Can we attribute the upcoming climate catastrophe to capitalism? If 500 million people die from it, can we say that capitalism caused mass deaths and economic and literal starvation?
      - dtagames 2y ago
        No. And how did we get from history to conjecture? We use oil because it's cheap and comes out of the ground, not because of capitalism. If you could get socialists to volunteer to build and run solar energy systems for free, then we would have those already. Oil also contributed enormously to the rise in the human standard of living everywhere. There is no mass extinction from climate change happening now. Humans survived the ice age. You cannot sell me communism by calling it socialism and appealing to future climate fear. You are absolutely asking for people to give over control and money, as that's exactly what socialism requires. Peace. Out.

dtagames 2y ago

This is also not correct. No form of socialism has worked and therefore, empirically, it does not work. Capitalism, however, has raised the standard of living for more people across more socioeconomic classes in more places than any other idea in human history, and that's provable on any measure of the quality of human life.

tocs3 2y ago
I have a post above somewhere above but CO-OPS. I agree that capitalism has worked wonders but it is not the only route to success.
eesmith 2y ago
> This is also not correct. No form of socialism has worked ... The problem is in how one draws the line to define "socialism". I mentioned how Roosevelt was called a socialist and communist due to his New Deal. Was that socialism, or was it not socialism? I highlighted how "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness." That's why "socialism" as a blanket term is pretty meaningless. If you can't define socialism, you can't tell if it worked. If your definition excludes examples which others have said is socialism, and which seem to work, which definition should we trust, and why? > Capitalism, however, has raised the standard of living How do you prove that? How do you disentangle correlation and causation? (As an aside, 'standard of living' is usually measured in economic terms, often coupled with growth, so choosing that definition is not unbiased.) Can we attribute the upcoming climate catastrophe to capitalism? If 500 million people die from it, can we say that capitalism caused mass deaths and economic and literal starvation?
- dtagames 2y ago
  Socialism and communism are easily defined by Marx's 10 Planks. In terms of raising the standard of living, those are all standard terms and metrics. In terms of causation, money earned by people gets spent by them to raise their standard of living. Don't let people who want to control you pull the wool over your eyes and start thinking that giving them all your money and power means they would make things better for you. They won't. They never have. Those are true facts. For more on the underlying concept of liberty vs. statism and why only the former can deliver any kind of results, I highly recommend Ayn Rand's short essay called, A Textbook of Americanism [0]. [0] https://fee.org/resources/textbook-of-americanism/ https://fee.org/resources/textbook-of-americanism/
  - eesmith 2y ago
    That doesn't really help at all. That list is why some people say the US is a socialist country, that Roosevelt was a socialist or communist, etc. For literally the first DDG example, http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/TenPlanks.html http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/TenPlanks.html . I know they are standard metrics. I don't think they are good metrics due to their built-in assumptions. This thread has nothing to do with "giving them all your money and power means they would make things better for you". My observations were 1) "socialism" is such as broad term as to be meaningless until pinned down - and DonnyV clearly isn't talking about Marxism, and 2) a market economy clearly does not require capitalism as people earned money and had jobs long before there was capitalism or mercantilism, so your connecting the two is not a valid argument. I ask again: Can we attribute the upcoming climate catastrophe to capitalism? If 500 million people die from it, can we say that capitalism caused mass deaths and economic and literal starvation?
    - dtagames 2y ago
      No. And how did we get from history to conjecture? We use oil because it's cheap and comes out of the ground, not because of capitalism. If you could get socialists to volunteer to build and run solar energy systems for free, then we would have those already. Oil also contributed enormously to the rise in the human standard of living everywhere. There is no mass extinction from climate change happening now. Humans survived the ice age. You cannot sell me communism by calling it socialism and appealing to future climate fear. You are absolutely asking for people to give over control and money, as that's exactly what socialism requires. Peace. Out.