@Beachslim FTFY: Capitalism

@WilyRickWiles

People risked their & their families lives escaping communism - I know quite a few who did, so STFU

@w0tn0t Same for capitalism and fascism. Also, did you know this quote is from before the Russian Revolution? The author was later thrown in jail for speaking out against WWI.

@WilyRickWiles

Anyone who "fled" capitalism were/are only traitors & communists.
Antifa are fascists & communists

@w0tn0t So refugees from capitalist death squads and slavery in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, or Asia are traitors? Got it.

@Beachslim I suppose it's a matter of perspective. Some would equate taxation to violence, others property. Some organized labor, others wage labor for authoritarian firms. Some democracy, others neoliberalism, fascism, feudalism, or colonialism. Some multiracial liberty, others racial exclusion.

If you believe that the people on the wrong end of the gun are less human, then I suppose it becomes easier to rationalize capitalism as voluntary.

@WilyRickWiles Forced labor is no more "Capitalism" that it would be to steal jewelry to re-stock your jewelry store.
Maybe if you explained what you mean when you use the term Capitalism

@rway If we're going to judge communism by its failures in the real world, rather than cherry-picked examples or theory, then we should apply the same standard to capitalism.

@WilyRickWiles Agreed. So then it becomes necessary to understand how those failures manifest.
Capitalism fails, to the extent that it is implemented incorrectly.
Communism fails, to the extent that it is implemented correctly.

I don't want to cherry-pick, so give me an example of one of communism's successes in the real world...

@WilyRickWiles ...I should add, that even if Communism were "successful" (which we really should define between us if we're going to make comparisons), then it would still be objectively wrong.
So... there is that...

@rway Again, perspective.

@rway It's easy to find examples where different flavors of socialism have been successful. Sometimes that success is tarnished by failures, sometimes it manifests in successful programs in mixed or reformed economies, sometimes it is interrupted by US foreign policy, and sometimes it succeeds despite US foreign policy. A recent example of the latter is Bolivia.

@rway The problem with your assessment of capitalism is that you only measure it by the people and countries that it works for when most people and much of the world is subjected to it.

@WilyRickWiles well, not really. In general, the "free" market (such as it is) has been successful for everybody. The global population in abject poverty has dropped by like 80% or more in just the last few decades. That's phenomenal, and historically unprecedented. And it didn't happen because anybody micromanaged it.
A public economic model can most certainly be successful, at least to some extent. The problem is that it can never keep up with itself, and will consume itself eventually.
Have you ever worked in a bureaucracy? That's a real eye-opener.
The second-biggest problem with public ownership/management of the means of production (the first being: it's just wrong), is that it literally cannot work.
That would be like trying to get some government office to increment all the clocks and watches in the nation manually, all the time in real-time, to keep the times current and keep them all synchronized. To do that down to the second would be a ludicrous proposition, let alone down to the nanosecond and even beyond that... which would only then begin to approximate the complexity of the market.
That is handled successfully and quite effortlessly by what Adam Smith referred to as the market's "invisible hand"; which is to say, by just leaving it alone... like you do a clock.
That's why communism always seems to result eventually in tears, death and squalor in the real world, for all but those with the power to transcend "the collective" and hoard private wealth for themselves... because it was actually, and predictably, inevitable the entire time.

@rway Communist China is the reason for that success.

@WilyRickWiles it's not my perspective that economic authoritarianism is wrong... I mean that objectively. It's wrong, as in... not right.
You don't have a natural right to step in and dictate the terms of any transaction between two freely participating individuals.

@rway Tell that to the capitalists.

@WilyRickWiles sorry, I just saw that... lol
Communist China isn't even the reason for its own success, that's why they have the Capitalist Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau. They are the engines of prosperity that keep the CCP folly on the mainland from simply consuming itself.