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Comment by perceptronas | Hacker News Reader

>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people.

As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism. Its what makes the west so prosperous.

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I come from a similar place and feel the same, and would never ever want those times back. We have seen too much repression, horror and misery that we have developed our own allergy against anything which hints in that direction. But on the other hand I can understand the appeal of the ideas which promise that there will be no inequality, everyone gets access to free education, healthcare etc. That all sounds nice, but what is suspicious that we have not seen a working implementation yet. Which makes me think underlying model has some issues.

I guess we grew up with stories which gave us +5 resistance to socialism. Stories about how in almost every group were people who would report you if you talked about some "threat" to union. Stories about how everyone was living in socialism and they were building communism. Once communism is built - nobody needs to even walk in streets - you will have conveyor belts everyone taking everywhere. Stories about how in the west capitalists were using everyone as slaves and how you as a citizen had power to control. Stories how streets were empty and you had to wait for car for 8 years to buy it (price was insane too). Everyone was stealing from factories, selling "behind table" and etc.

> That all sounds nice, but what is suspicious that we have not seen a working implementation yet.

You mean to say that Western and Central Europe don't exist? They have single-payer healthcare and it works way better than American healthcare. They have cheap tuition and it works way better than American tuition.

We see that America could be better if we stopped being dogmatic about capitalism, and stopped putting it where it doesn't belong. Capitalism is about money. It is not about well-being. It is very poorly suited for well-being.

> You mean to say that Western and Central Europe don't exist?

I would say they are all capitalist countries. I cannot think of any European country after 1990 which prohibits private enterprise.

What you are referring to is still a capitalism, each with their own different taxation, social security and welfare system. You can argue which works better, which not. It is not that it does not exist in US at all, it is probably less developed or is just different. And European countries also differ between themselves, by large degree. But that is not socialism, it is still capitalism.

Looks like another example of Schrödinger's Capitalism. Western Europe is capitalist whenever anyone praises it, socialist whenever anyone criticizes. In point of fact very few people want to abolish private enterprise. The "socialism" they want is of a very moderate form, setting limits on a free market which is still the dominant form of economic activity. The "100% laissez faire or Stalinism" false dichotomy never does these debates any good.

>Its what makes the west so prosperous

And destroy our habitat.

Interesting, capitalism seems orthogonal since China appears to do a good job of it too. I’d say it’s just industrialism or commercialism, which are not concerned with who owns capital.

Concerns about rampant pollution were a significant contributor to the fall of communism in East Germany.

It is orthogonal to a system. In USSR they polluted air, water, soil as hell. Eastern Germany was just a bit better:

http://www.naturschutzgeschichte-ost.de/index.php?id=206

https://grist.org/article/2011-04-21-underground-environment...

They don't, this author does not represent the views of the vast silent majority.

Something like medicare for all is what Americans may want, but strong businesses are a backbone of American culture, not even the leftest of leaning elected politicians in Congress are a threat to that.

In the US, things like fair tax codes, universal access to affordable healthcare, and affordable universities are considered "socialism".

The "not capitalism" of the soviet bloc is not even close to what the article is disucssing

In the US, what is a left policy and what is a right policy seems to depend entirely on which party thought of it first, not on any sound ideology. Party politics all the way down.

>As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism. Its what makes the west so prosperous.

It's paradoxical, but the West is falling victim to its own economical success. Inequality is a sign of effective competition and selection mechanism (no matter how moral or amoral it is) where the best (and sometimes the luckiest) gain an edge on others. Natural selection and meritocracy in any free society eventually lead to hierarchy and to inequality. However inequality leads to social unrest. That's why many governments suppress inequality to some extent with taxes, some rich people do charity for the same reason. Suppressing inequality slows down technical progress and development (because it reduces incentive), therefore extremely socialist countries eventually fail (USSR, Venezuela).

The problem with the West is not inequality per se. The American dream (work hard, get rich) was long time a painkiller to inequality because it gave a hope that you can change things. The problem with the West now is that people lost that hope. They don't believe they can change things no matter how hard they try. The American dream doesn't drive anymore (although it's still driving many immigrants). And when the anesthetic effect of the American dream has gone, people saw the inequality as it is, despite it has always been here.

When increasing numbers are getting a worse deal than their parents it's perhaps not surprising people look to alternatives. Doubt they will overthrow it - far more likely they will try and constrain it. Limits on inequality, environmental damage etc.

We could do worse than look to the periods of history when capitalism seemed to work far better, or to the more social democratic countries - e.g. the Nordic model.

I sincerely doubt there'll be a Western rerun of 1917.

It is a complex topic and my own views are still being defined, but I think it is safe to say that for most the issue isnt capitalism, it is unchecked capitalism. The idea that we work for the system instead of the system working for us.

My grandparents saw our country mobilize for war and create liberty ships. The country was in the space race - I've seen an article (Popular Mechanics) from 1950 that thought we would not yet have landed people on the moon by 2000, but despite that reasonable expectation, they did it. They developed national healthcare for the elderly and the poor, the built the foundation of modern retirement. They crisscrossed America with interstate highways.

But me? I've seen every notable problem rejected without an attempt at solutions because "how will we pay for it?" I've seen seen infrastructure systems left to rot and crumble because of the national debt, yet somehow each time a tax cut comes up for the rich they sell the idea that THIS time it will improve things for the non-rich. I've seen education budgets gutted, healthcare systems dropped and ignored, and I've seen science regarding the global climate scoffed at because their "gut" doesnt agree. (The location of their gut seems to coincide with the location of their wallet)

I've seen our representational democracy have clear signs of distress, from gerrymandering to foreign influence, for DECADES, not just recent headlines.

I've seen wages be near-flat for almost the entire lives of people now old enough to vote or fight in wars, but that wage issue doesnt seem to apply to those with enough money to start with.

But addressing any of these issues might threaten those with money, and our worship of capitalism has lead us to conclude they should be obeyed.

Capitalism is very effective, but we've stopped using it because it is effective, and are instead being used by it. We've gone from a system that allows the worthy to find financial success to assuming that financial success means you are worthy (as lack of financial success means you are not worthy).

Capitalism isnt the problem, but our relationship with it IS.

I have similar feeling, that our government has lost the ability to manage any major project. We have been trying to build one new line of rail in UK for the past 10 years, it has been a subject of constant controversy and I will probably grow old before it materialises.

There were many differences between the Soviet Union and the US. Nominal socialism vs. nominal capitalism was only one, and many would argue not the biggest. Personally, I'm amazed that so many people who suffered under deeply authoritarian regimes seem to support the authoritarian party in current US politics. Members of exclusive clubs colluding with each other outside of the market or public view tends to work out similarly regardless of whether it's the back rooms of Wall Street or Washington DC (and usually it's both).

> Nominal socialism vs. nominal capitalism was only one, and many would argue not the biggest.

Can you elaborate on this? What, in your opinion, is more significant difference than political/ideological system? I am actually curious because I cannot think of any?

Many people, including myself, believe that the most significant difference was the authoritarian nature of the Soviet State. Soviet citizens had no privacy, no safety, no protected rights, no recourse to an impartial judicial system, and that's all pretty orthogonal to socialism vs. capitalism. The Nolan Chart[1] is a pretty handy way to conceptualize this, as is Political Compass[2]. Be careful, though, because the people making this kind of two-axis argument practically always do so from a libertarian perspective, so the "other corner" of socialist but non-authoritarian alternatives (worker cooperatives, kibbutzim, etc.) tends to get short shrift.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart [2] https://www.politicalcompass.org/

Yes that is true about Soviet Union. (Disclaimer: I lived 20+ years in USSR and more than that in the West). And in theory you are right: democracy vs authoritarianism should not be the same as socialism vs capitalism. Now, what I see as the problem, is to implement a socialism without creating authoritarianism. Apart from the fact that there are no working examples in history, I think it is extremely hard if not impossible at all. If you think of the steps you would do to achieve it? First, you would need to either expropriate/nationalize whatever belongs to the rich. That is how you reduce inequality, right? But creative and resourceful people would still recreate their wealth and you are back in square one with that. Ok, we can tax them heavily. That will probably work at some degree. You will take away their incentive and they will stop being productive or leave the country to prosper elsewhere. The economy will sink, and you will need to either admit your failure or turn to oppressive methods to keep your plan moving forward because there will be too many people who will disagree with you at this point. Surely, there probably are other scenarios, but if they are, where are they?

Er, which is the authoritarian party in US current US politics? To me, I'd say there isn't a clear answer. It depends on which issue we're talking about.

Yes, it definitely depends on whether you're cherry-picking a few issues or taking a more balanced view. When it comes to property rights, most would say the Democrats' acceptance of higher taxation and regulation makes them more authoritarian. And then there's the second amendment. On the other hand, the "anti terrorism" (pro war) "tough on crime" Republicans seem rather inimical to individual freedom at a much more fundamental level:

* More search, seizure, and surveillance * Less due process * Less independent judiciary * More suppression of information (violation of public records laws, gag orders, general enmity toward science/journalism/education) * More tolerance of authoritarian regimes elsewhere * Corruption and concentration of influence among leaders' cronies

Really, unless you're a corporation, you have much more to fear under a Republican government than under a Democrat one. If you want to see which party is more authoritarian, look at which one real civil-liberties organizations like ACLU, CCR, etc. find more objectionable. More partisan-political organizations that focus only on "economic rights" and generally act as extensions for the Chamber of Commerce don't paint an accurate picture.

> As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism.

They would probably say that they perceive a difference between "democratic socialism" and "fascist communism".

Well there is no difference. If majority oppresses minority (democracy) - how is this different from Bolsheviks. You kill/take assets from the rich, make private entities illegal and then it is the same. If you allow freedom for people to open a shop to sell meat in your local area - well its capitalism then.

"how is that different" Because in the same way that society is not currently a poor-people-selling-their-organs free market dystopia, we don't have to charge headlong down the slippery slope of any given policy direction. We can make careful choices, establish rules that seek to prevent foreseeable problems, and have the flexibility to adjust course when unforeseeable issues arise.

Virtually no one wants to abandon capitalism. Many want to alter the public/private sector mix that makes up all modern economies, away from things like unfettered free enterprise, "corporate welfare", preferential treatment for the wealthy and other perceived excesses of capitalism. You may just be misunderstanding the debate, which makes sense since the terms we tend to use in these discussions border on meaningless.

No one wants to completely "overthrow capitalism" aside from a tiny fringe.

It's a fearmongering technique to defend the status quo to say one must defend capitalism because the only other option is a totalitarian Stalinist cult of personality dystopia.

It does, however, reflect on the structural complexity of distributing power. Be it capitalists or a dictator at the top social organization gravitates towards being top heavy. It takes unified, active, and uncompromising effort on the part of the powerless to prevent the vaccum at the top from being filled if removed.

“that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism.”

Almost nobody wants to overthrow capitalism. People want to make adjustments to the current form of it to address concerns. That’s very legitimate and necessary in a functioning democracy. The people who scream “socialism “ all the time just want to move the discussion to extremes

> Almost nobody wants to overthrow capitalism. People want to make adjustments to the current form of it to address concerns.

You are right, and that is exactly the problem, since it is something history proved impossible to be reformed.

EDIT: reforming capitalism is a long term desire from part of the humankind. It is not a new idea and has yield very long discussions [1]. So, the big idea today is indeed how to overthrow it in favour of another form of social organization.

[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revol...

Reforming capitalism has been done in many countries for a long time by adjusting policies. Has worked great . There is no way you can organize a society without making constant adjustments no matter what the ideology is.

We abandoned Bretton Woods and triggered the hugely inflationary seventies - the 73 oil crisis helped a lot here too.

We've had, and still have, the Nordic model.

Capitalism is dramatically different today than it was in the 1960s in most countries. We've had the monetarism/neoliberal experiment for 40 years.

We've had globalisation to completely disconnect capitalism (and capital) from government, country and employee - just join the global race to the bottom.

We have had a huge number of reforms to capitalism. Trouble is for the last 40 years all reforms have been in one direction: In favour of the capitalist.

The only difference is there was no labor capital at that period. The risk of capital has been transferred to labor from capitalists. The real change in government happened through Reagan who legalized big corps and started the age of M&A. Globalisation also did help in economy but countries like China which have closed markets but access to open markets lead to more marginalization of labor.

Reagan legalized big corps? Say what? There were big corps before Reagan. General Motors, say.

The number of people embracing extremes has increased rapidly though (generally, and on both sides).

In regards to this, "Replace Capitalism" seems to be gaining ground faster than "Improve Capitalism".

43% of Americans say socialism would be a good thing for the country[1]

1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/257639/four-americans-embrace-f...

I don’t think they mean socialism in the sense of the Soviet Union but more what Europe does. And whole Western Europe is deeply capitalist.

Well, "some form of socialism" is hardly an extreme position.

What you mean by "west"? Latin America (where I live), all the Africa and some poor european countries are "west" and those are not very good examples of prosperity.

Even in "western" rich countries there is a lot of growing unequality. The capitalism is falling by itself.

It's a relationship like this: All wealthy countries are capitalist. Some capitalist countries are wealthy.

I am not sure that's accurate. UAE and Saudi are monarchies. Singapore is very socialist, if you look at their housing policy, it's entirely run by the state. They even allocate apartment to ensure that different ethnic groups mix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cjPgNBNeLU

Also, I would not consider China poor today, and certainly even less so in the future.

Singapore has 0% GDP growth and even need a loan from IMF to invest in infrastructure that's laughable for a developed country.

Both true, both completely irrelevant.

Singapore is ranked 3rd in the world by PPP, at $100k The United States is ranked 10th with at $62k

I can come with with hundreds of criteria by which US is laughable, take foreign debt for example, or number of people dying from preventable diseases.

> UAE and Saudi are monarchies

This is not as hot of a take as you think. Many reactionaries believe that a monarchy under a good monarch is the ideal government system - much better than a democracy where uninformed voters make so many decisions

China has a capitalist market economy. They do have some degree of government ownership of companies and the government has asserted that they are not capitalist as the communist party is in charge and they have to maintain face. However, in practice, they are on the capitalist spectrum. Also, monarchies can be capitalist. Capitalism just means the state doesn't own everything and collect all the profits.

> Latin America (where I live) is "west" and those are not very good examples of prosperity.

Chile is a good example of a "western" latin american country. Brazil/Argentina are bad examples. Brazil for instance, has state-ownership of its entire oil industry - pretty textbook socialism.

US has state ownership of it's entire primary education - pretty textbook socialism.

Or maybe the divide isn't clear cut, perhaps?

> pretty textbook socialism

Yes, like that socialist disaster that is Finland.

(Besides, Brazil does not have state ownership of its entire oil industry.)

As if the lack of prosperity in these countries were because supposed lack of capitalism...

Chile? Just look how people are satisfied with their system nowadays... Behind seeming positive macroeconomic numbers, there is a very unequal society. Chile is the most unequal society among all OECD members. The riots that happen there right now are not against any socialism, but against the liberal fail. They followed strict liberal rules since Pinochet dictatorship, and that is what it became.

My kingdom for a single thread criticizing Capitalism without a response like this. People looking for social justice do not want Stalinism. Why would they?

You don’t want Stalinism, but you do want to limit the speech of people who disagree with what you want? Or you just wish and fantasize for it?

> You don’t want Stalinism, but you do want to limit the speech of people who disagree with what you want?

Asking for substantive debate free of tragic reactionary propaganda is not "limiting the speech" of people who disagree, it's asking for an intellectually honest forum for a discussion.

You're complaining because folks are tired of having important conversations hijacked with slippery slope falacies and the repetition of both USSR and USA propaganda. But that's a reasonable objection, and it's reasonable to ask that folks be minimally educated before engaging in a conversation.

If you're discussing machine learning and then someone comes in talking about how they pyramids taught them neural networking via a series of sines and cosines and also aliens (yes, this has happened to me in a public setting), you might be inclined to ask them to let the adults talk. That's not limiting speech, that's exercising your speech in opposition. They're fundamentally different things.

I wouldn't call the actual experience of a regular person who lived under the rule of the USSR to be any sort of propaganda. But I suppose that's just another way of saying you would like to invalidate anything said by people you don't agree with.

Not that the comment in question was particularly substantive. There is certainly a debate to be had there, but it's already been done a million times over on the internet, so I don't care.

But it is very interesting to read a comment like yours. Not for any reason other than to see the pure rage, saying literally nothing "intellectually honest" about the subject, but rather comparing people you disagree with to conspiracy theorists who believe in aliens.

No one here is disputing the USSR was a bad place to live. I think that's an argument you want to have come up rather than an argument I'm making. I'm saying that the fusion of authoritarian government and leftism was both a tactic of the USA and the USSR for different reasons. That's not a novel idea, is been covered by a lot of historians.

> But it is very interesting to read a comment like yours. Not for any reason other than to see the pure rage, saying literally nothing "intellectually honest" about the subject, but rather comparing people you disagree with to conspiracy theorists who believe in aliens.

Rage? Okay.

Your "freedom to" does not invalidate my "freedom from". I am not suppressing you in any way by exercising my right to say that I'm unintrested in your straw man.

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