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Capitalism is the only system that has a proven track record of bringing people out of poverty. Many industrial nations had a garment industry phase and graduat

• csmuk 13y ago
  > Capitalism is the only system that has a proven track record of bringing people out of poverty. Citation please. It's become apparent to me that it does that until the workforce hits equilibrium at which point it divides people slowly into two classes, the lower of which is purely exploited by the upper. NK just skipped the first bit.
  • swombat 13y ago
    The level of both classes is nevertheless much higher than the level of the earlier economy, before capitalism and its effects. Unrestrained capitalism may of course creates huge levels of inequality. Luckily, unrestrained capitalism was largely put to rest (in the western world) after the 1900s, via unions and other similar movements. Capitalism floats all boats, but not all equally. To ignore the fact that it floats all boats and point only add to the inequalities it creates is to miss the point.
    • camus2 13y ago
      so if "Unrestrained capitalism" exists , what is basic capitalism? hypocrisy ? Yes it is. In order to work , capitalism need slaves. wether they are 10 miles from your home or on the other side of the earth,it doesnt matter. Capitalism got "restrained" in the West because people fought for basic rights, and many died during the process.
  • mattchew 13y ago
    > Citation please. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World
    • csmuk 13y ago
      And I raise you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_Kingdom To back up my original point.
• markdown 13y ago
  > I hope you won't bother pulling a No True Scotsman here, because the list goes on. Then use another example from your list. North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship. It's not exactly clear whether its woes are the result of its economic system or its form of governance.
  • VMG 13y ago
    USSR, GDR, Cuba? Of course they are all totalitarian dictatorships, but that's what you get with communism.
  • cynicalkane 13y ago
    Communism in the formal sense, which is Marxist socialism or one of its offshoots, requires state control by definition. It can't be a "true scotsman" unless it's a dictatorship. Communist theory does not allow for democratic socialism, because it proposes real "democracy" is the "dictatorship of the proletariat", Marx's words.
    • paradoja 13y ago
      Nope. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not communism. Not even for Marx. It is the state before communism, in which the proletariat makes changes in society so that communism may take place.
      • cynicalkane 13y ago
        Nice try, but I explicitly stated I was talking about Marxist-style socialism, which is what 'communism' has come to mean. I almost never see people talk about "real" Marxist communism anyway.
        • paradoja 13y ago
          You explicitly said "Communism in the formal sense". You were wrong with that. Most ideologies and political or economic ideas have had their names subverted to mean something different by opponents (democracy, republicanism, communism, anarchism, capitalism...). That doesn't mean that if you speak in the "formal sense" you can decide to use whatever meaning you prefer.
• moocowduckquack 13y ago
  Capitalism is the only system that has a proven track record of bringing people out of poverty. At one time you could say that about agrarian feudalism.
• nzp 13y ago
  If the list goes on, you could have then easily picked better examples, couldn't you? When North Korean society still had any meaningful relationship to socialism (not communism) it actually had a higher GDP than South Korea. It only turned around in the 70s and 80s when NK leadership structures went completely insane. So, what other systems? State socialism? It can only be viewed as an alternative system to liberal capitalism, not to capitalism in general sense because it still leaves the same economic relations basically intact. It's an incompetent, extremely monopolistic form of capitalism, which is why it failed so miserably.
  • VMG 13y ago
    East and West Germany. Apologies, Go!
    • nzp 13y ago
      Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my last paragraph, so I apologize to you, but I was thinking of something that didn't fundamentally had anything to do with capitalism. This example still clings to erroneous notion that state socialism is something fundamentally different. It's not really. Of course liberal capitalism outperforms state run centrally planned parody of capitalism.
• moo 13y ago
  North Korea is not communist. Read the book The Cleanest Race to see how U.S. analysts really see North Korea. There are no communist countries today. It's fun to talk about capitalism in the abstract like it doesn't keep monarchism in the closet, underdevelops Africa, props up lackey dictators in the Third World, depends on colonialism/imperialism to get rich, and turns to fascism when in crisis. I'm sure mafias have made life better too for people but that doesn't look at the whole picture. Where would your bought off Scotsmen be if he wasn't capitalism's shock troops who invaded South Africa,Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas and kept police order in India, the Middle East, and Asia?
  • ma2rten 13y ago
    > There are no communist countries today. What about Cuba?
  • foobarian 13y ago
    Not only that, but I don't believe there ever was a pure communist state, only the intermediate stage experiments that ended up cruel dictatorships. The only way we'd ever get one is with the help of a Portal-like AI to distribute wealth and plan the economy.
  • notdrunkatall 13y ago
    There are no communist nations today because communism failed, utterly and often spectacularly, usually because some asshole came to power who was more interested in furthering his own agenda and increasing the power of himself and his friends than in doing what was actually good for the people. This always occurs because in order to transfer to communism, an intermediate government is necessary to take power from the evil capitalists, consolidate it, and distribute it throughout the people before volunteering to dissolve. In practice, this never occurs. Where power is centralized, sociopaths will congregate, and the first stage of the transition to communism is nothing if not the centralization of power. Thus, communism has always failed under the weight of despots, and will always do so as long as that is the case. There are no benevolent governments, period. Meanwhile, though capitalism is surely far from perfect in its implementation, every nation which has embraced it has done remarkably well relative to those which embraced its ideological opposite. No, it's not perfect, but it's obviously preferable to communism. I give those who sided with communism or socialism before 1980 or so the benefit of the doubt, as they were not privy to the vast evidence that we are today of communism's many failures. On the other hand, I immediately write anyone off who still believes communism > capitalism to be a delusional idiot who is almost certainly not worth arguing with.
• pessimizer 13y ago
  >I hope you won't bother pulling a No True Scotsman here, because the list goes on. By cherry-picking North Korea as your only example as a non-capitalist experiment, and pre-disqualifying anyone who says that it isn't a representative example for all possible non-capitalist systems as someone employing a logical fallacy, you haven't really left any room for discussion. Why not pick China, or the USSR? Or the entire modern West, which pretty much exists as explicitly mixed socialist/capitalist economies - filled with welfare, national health services, unemployment benefits, industrial subsidies, public education, and progressive taxation? I hope you won't bother pulling a No True Scotsman here, because the list goes on.
  • eitland 13y ago
    Thanksfor suggesting USSR. From the relevant wikipedia page: " In the wake of the spread of fascism through Europe, Stalin repressed both Communist Party members and elements of the population by creating an atmosphere of political paranoia and establishing a system of correctional labour camps."
  • cynicalkane 13y ago
    Modern social democracy is basically capitalist-fueled redistribution of wealth, and just about every economist and policy wonk who believes in 'capitalism' is referring to this kind of government. It's an entire other world from capital-S socialism. So I'm not sure what you're getting at.
    • steveklabnik 13y ago
      Even more so, social democracy was created specifically to stem the tide of actual socialism. They are two very distinct things.
      • gred 13y ago
        Created? Or perhaps actual sacrifices and secret rites were performed in the dark corners of Bretton Woods in order to counteract socialism? ;-)
• JayNYC 13y ago
  "Capitalism is the only system that has a proven track record of bringing people out of poverty." Not sure about that. Stalin may have achieved economic growth of 500% over 13 years - more than China. The problem with socialism/communism is that you don't have a market. Besides lacking of incentives, feedback loops etc., you basically don't have a way to price goods. Not market, no prices. All these systems will fail in the long run. This being said, a capitalistic system relies on expansion of credit (actually one point, in which good old Mises was wrong). Credit is always a ponzi scheme. If credit expansion stops, the whole system will collapse. What we currently see is the prevention of system collapse by the western government. People are maxed out and the gov, as a lender of last resort, goes into debt. This will not end good. I doubt that significant growth can be achieved anymore in western countries. So communism has failed but capitalism does not look very good either, at least in the west.
  • nnq 13y ago
    > a capitalistic system relies on expansion of credit How did you get to this generalization? Just because the most prevalent current brand of capitalism works this way, it doesn't mean it's the only way it can work, or that when "expansion of credit" will stop capitalism will collapse.
  • crusso 13y ago
    I doubt that significant growth can be achieved anymore in western countries Then you should start an investment portfolio that broadly shorts Western bellwether stocks. You'll make a killing if you're right. Make sure you diversify your profit into non-Western countries so that you can keep those gains. Congratulations.
    • kefka 13y ago
      shorting only works when there Is still a belief that the company being shorted is still desirable. In other words, shorting requires a buyer. If a company goes tits up, you still lose.