Capitalism vs. Socialism In a Single Picture
North Korea vs. South Korea at night. (HT: OBloodyHell)According to the CIA World Factbook, 2007 GDP per capita (PPP) was $25,000 in S. Korea vs. $1,700 in N. Korea.
In "Why Socialism Failed," I concluded that "The main difference between capitalism and socialism is this: Capitalism works."
26 Comments:
I would add the N. Korea is more of a military dictatorship than a "make life equal for everyone" socialist country.
Amassing power in the government is in no way inclined towards totalitarianism.
OK you two, How does a totally socialist state end up any other way than totalitarian - and impoverished?
anon 3:09 here,
Perhaps a :-P will indicate my level of sarcasm.
You might have photoshopped your picture a little better... http://geology.com/articles/satellite-photo-earth-at-night.shtml and scroll down to the last picture... I mean, I agree with your socialism vs. capitalism, but you don't need to resort to faking a picture to get your point across.
What does "works" even mean? Stating it this way shows you're not familiar with some basics like subjective preferences.
It's entirely possible for a capitalist society (private property/contracts) to have very little technology. Just look at the Amish.
I think you need a lesson in the Subjective Theory of Value
"It's entirely possible for a capitalist society (private property/contracts) to have very little technology. Just look at the Amish"...
LOL!
Thanks anon @ 4:51 PM showing us that foot swallowing trick...
Why did you post that link to Mies? An attempt to give yourself some credibility?
Ever consider going back some basics?
Consider "Free To Choose" TV Series by Milton Friedman...
The capitalist countries should learn to turn off more lights at night and quit wasting so much electricity.
"The capitalist countries should learn to turn off more lights at night and quit wasting so much electricity"...
Why? Its their electricity...
Let's hear it for enlarging the carbon footprint!
How to increase your carbon footprint in seven easy steps
Looks like it's hard to get a decent night's sleep in the South!
> OK you two, How does a totally socialist state end up any other way than totalitarian - and impoverished?
Fred, to be intellectually honest, I think the swedish model does work, sort of, but I think it takes an unusual people to get it there and to keep it there.
As I also mentioned that in the comment threads about socialism, I don't think that the tendency towards depression and suicide in all socialist countries, including benign ones like the Scandinavians, are entirely due to the northern clime.
> you don't need to resort to faking a picture to get your point across.
a) Ah. Wasn't me. That was as I found it.
b) While I very much agree with your principle (I would never have altered the original as it appears to have been done), one lit dot (appears to be the only place on your pic of comparison) doesn't weaken the case even vaguely.
> It's entirely possible for a capitalist society (private property/contracts) to have very little technology. Just look at the Amish.
It's called choice, dumbass.
It's a known central part of what makes people happy, healthy, and generally better off throughout their lives. Along with Rule of Law, it's the key reason why the USA is only 1/20th of the world's population but produce 25% (until very recently, 35%) of the world's wealth.
Free to Choose.
What a concept.
Amazing that you need it pointed out to you. Well, except for that dumbass thing...
If you CHOOSE to live without technology, that's fine. And the Amish, as I'm sure you don't know, don't reject technology, they simply believe in strongly controlling its intrusion into their lives. Phones are not allowed in houses, but are found at the corners of an area where four tracts meet, allowing the people to USE the technology, but preventing their lives from becoming centered around it.
But it's always about them choosing where and how technology intrudes into their lifestyles.
The have group debates over what new technologies are allowed into their lives -- they don't just reject it out of hand -- they weigh the benefits against the downsides, and choose for themselves.
And it is always THEIR choices, not that of some bureaucrat's diktat from a thousand or more miles away.
Amish communties aren't even consistent or homogenous -- some locales have much more tech than others.
Choice is central to Happiness --- (emphasis mine)
Our Founding Fathers lacked the special literary skills with which modern writers on the subject of government are so richly endowed. When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, they found themselves more or less forced to come to the point. So clumsy of thought and pen were the Founders that even today, seven generations later, we can tell what they were talking about.
They were talking about having a good time:
------We hold these Truths to be self-evident,
------that all Men are created equal, that
------they are endowed by their Creator with
------certain unalienable Rights, that among
------these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit
------of Happiness...
'This is living!' 'I gotta be me!' 'Ain't we got fun!' It's all there in the Declaration of Independence. We are the only nation in the world founded on happiness. Search as you will the sacred creeds of other nations and peoples, read the Magna Carta, the Communist Manifesto, the Ten Commandments, the Analects of Confucius, Plato's Republic, the New Testament, or the UN Charter, and find me any happiness at all.
- P.J. O'Rourke, 'Parliament of Whores' -
Here's a society Anon can revere -- one which has reduced to his satisfaction their carbon footprint
"Amassing power in the government is in no way inclined towards totalitarianism."
Say WHAT??
"How does a totally socialist state end up any other way than totalitarian"
There is no such thing as a socialist system! This is a COMMUNIST system!!! Socialism is a mythical system invented by Marx to disguise his extreme authoritarianism as people friendly.
"but you don't need to resort to faking a picture to get your point across."
Anything fake in an argument tarnishes the entire argument. That so much blatant bull is found acceptable by so many clearly displays incredible weakness in the right's real platform
I looked at both pics and don't see any evidence of photoshopping. The 2nd pic shows that South Korea is lit up and North Korea is not.
> I looked at both pics and don't see any evidence of photoshopping.
To be intellectually honest, if you look closely at the picture (you might need to save it and blow it up to make it clear) There is a light blob at Pyongyang, and a number of minor blobs in the area above the Chinese border.
These all appear to be missing from the thread's main pic as posted in the earlier threads comments.
I didn't make them, and was unaware of them when I posted it in-comments (I would have commented on them if I had known, but still posted the pic with those acked caveats)
I do not believe either of these change the point in the least -- that the energy usage in the capitalist nations is vastly different as you drift further away from capitalism.
> There is no such thing as a socialist system!
Tell that to the Swedes.
Doesn't fit the bill of "totalitarian" (I believe "authoritarian" would be more appropriate), but it's certainly matches up with the moniker, and that is what they call it.
> Anything fake in an argument tarnishes the entire argument. That so much blatant bull is found acceptable by so many clearly displays incredible weakness in the right's real platform
It tarnishes -- it does not, however, automatically INVALIDATE the argument, which must be dealt with by appropriate examination.
This is why your equation:
"My outright lies are just as valid as your errors" is so much complete bullshit.
The photo has been altered, but not in a way which changes the point. That error has been acked.
*Twice* (and now thrice)
Get over it.
And, BTW and of course -- having noted the error, it is up to the original claimant (i.e., me, in this case) to resolve the question and argue for why the initial claim still has merit.
That, too, has been done, quite amply.
Game, set, match, Arman.
You lose. Insert coin.
"Tell that to the Swedes."
So you say that Sweden and North Korea are the same? Yeah right. See you use the term here and there. Because in your usage of the term it has so many different applications, then specifically, it means nothing.
> "Tell that to the Swedes."
So you say that Sweden and North Korea are the same?
Arman, get your #%#%#$# head out of your ass and stop creating statements that no one other than you would possibly be so imbecilic as to make, solely so you can knock them down.
Idiot. Asswipe. Dickhead.
I QUOTE:
> There is no such thing as a socialist system!
Tell that to the Swedes.
UN-F'ING QUOTE.
No connection to your imbecilic perversion in any way. A simple statement of a exception to your ignorantly stupid statement.
Halfwit Jackass.
You can be emotional or you can be thoughtful. Your post is all feeling and no thought. Can you think?
When a word is used to describe anything, then the word specifically means nothing. Appropriately the word socialism should mean democracy as in a social consensus, and the Swedes use it as such. This is not the meaning of the word as you use it. Socialism, in the meaning that Marx gave it, as in semi communism, simply does not exist.
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> You can be emotional or you can be thoughtful. Your post is all feeling and no thought. Can you think?
When you actually spend time on intellectual honesty and not tap dancing and outright lying through your teeth, it's worth the effort to think.
When you're being a lying sack of shit, it's more fun to call you one and then detail in clear, concise, and thoughtful explanations WHY you are a lying sack of shit.
Both involve thought. The latter just adds icing onto the thought, when I get to call an asshole an asshole as well.
Arman -- in at least two threads, you've lied, attempted to change the venue of an argument multiple times, and done EVERYTHING but admit you were wrong in the point you were attempting to make.
That makes you an asshole, and I'm not going to grant you the least bit of respect until you stop that. There's no excuse for it.
Contrast -- when I linked a picture which Dr. Perry used for a subsequent thread, and it turned out to be photoshopped, I acked that it was not me who altered it, nor was I aware of it as of the time of posting.
Then I explained why I believed the premise it was attempting to make was still valid.
When someone else chimed in that they did not see a difference, I even spec'd where I noted a difference to make sure they saw it, too, and could make their own conclusions.
But all around, I acked that there was an error, if inadvertent, and it was mine.
You're wrong on socialism, just as you're wrong on the Wiemar Republic, and you're a jackass to keep trying to tapdance your way out of it.
Sweden is a socialist state. That's what THEY call themselves. That's what legitimate sources call them.
That it doesn't fit your argument is just too @%#@$#$^ bad.
Your definition is wrong on multiple counts and for multiple reasons.
Q.E.D.
STFU.
"it's more fun to call you one and then detail in clear, concise, and thoughtful explanations WHY you are a lying sack of shit.
Both involve thought."
Male bovine excrement! It requires no thought at all to call someone a liar or an asshole. It is not more fun, but more convenient to your mindset. You do not attack my arguments at all, but thrill to the calling of me a lying sack of shit. That is your impression of me, but you have absolutely nothing to say about my arguments.
>Sweden is a socialist state.<
Yes, but the meaning of socialist as applied to Sweden is not at all the meaning of socialist as you apply to North Korea. When I said that socialism does not exist, I meant as outlined by Marx, being semi communist. When you are talking the communist nations, and you call them socialist, then you are buying into Marxist lies.
"just as you're wrong on the Wiemar Republic"
I certainly am not, but I know that my statement conflicts with what your econ prof taught you. I tell you that printing bills does not create money. You concur that they must be distributed, but you refuse to consider that Keynes, and all generations of followers have been entirely too shallow in their comprehension of what makes money money. I have never found the interest rates going for the hyperinflation of Germany. Argentina had very high interest during its hyperinflation. Zimbabwe has very high interest now. It is impossible to get hyperinflation with interest rates below 5%. It is impossible not to get hyperinflation with rates exceeding 40%. The central banks work by Keynes comprehension, and Keynes was wrong. Today's economic problems are almost entirely due to Keynes misunderstanding cash supply, and the indoctrination of his students with his poorly conceived notions.
Lower interest rates discourage lenders from lending. Higher interest rates encourage lenders to lend. You cannot boost cash distribution by cutting interest rates.
North Korea is a totalitarian state run by the Dear Leader and his dead father who have live and death control over their subjects. If you look up the meaning of socialism, North Korea is not it. And there is no such thing as a pure socialist state anyway.
Capitalism works when it's honest. But tell that to all the Americans who lost their homes, their jobs, and their futures when Wall Street got too greedy and Obama's "socialist" government bailed out the banks.
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