4 year Bachelors degree with a major in economics. That degree got me into Navy OCS, and 5 years active duty, followed by a couple of years with a brokerage firm, with the rest of my working life in banking.
Oh, good question! In capitalist society AI will be used by capitalists to increase profits. I well remember back in the 1960s all the articles on computers and the future it would bring. Most said computers would lighten the work load by doing much of it automatically and the work week would be cut to 4 days or 32 hours while keeping pay constant. Oh what a great thing for Americans!
Okay, I'll do my best here:
Again, socialism is not capitalism. Marx said in different words that ancient slave society (Rome?) had an oppressed and exploited class: slaves. And in time, slaves and those in slave society not in the ruling class rebelled and established feudal society which had its oppressed and exploited class (serfs), who eventually rebelled along with others above them who were not in the ruling class, and they established capitalism which has its oppressed and exploited class (workers), who will also one day rebel and will also establish a society in which workers rule over those who would oppress and exploit, which is the meaning of “dictatorship of the proletariat”. BUT, workers will have no class to oppress and exploit! So according to Marx, socialism will be the end of oppression and exploitation. Instead of competing and conflicting, we will be cooperating. Will there be cheaters and opportunists? Yes, but selective subsections of them will not be granted rights to take advantage of everyone else as every society before did.
@Senter,
What if there’s no centralized power to grab? What if a new Constitution says that government’s role is to facilitate and protect worker control of their own workplace and that government may not own any business nor control any, but that the role of government is to enforce the ban on private employment of employees for private profit, keep the peace, keep records of all types, analyze production needs and distribution needs, and advise worker-owned production and distribution facilities of the needs? So government would be to a large extent an advisory agency. The point is to keep power over economics out of the hands of government while facilitating collective, democratic worker control of their own workplace.
Ah! Thanks for the correction. And yet we can look at your link and compare Cuba with the USA. SHAMEFUL!
Yep I should have removed your last sentence in that quoted block, as I was only referring to your statement "Sweden has done better, but not completely and at very high cost (economically) to it's people."
As is most every nation. But I guess we’ve gotten a little tangled up here with the conversation going to Sweden and healthcare and Cuba and South Korea.
Hmm. Interesting. I thought we were having a discussion.
Ok. It has been nice.@Senter,
This conversation, for me, has become circular and tedious. I appreciate your time and thought here, (and certainly your passion for your subject) but I've lost interest at this point. I sincerely thank you for the conversation and hope to see you on other threads.
What if the government's role was to regulate capitalism so that people worked in safe environments and were paid sufficient wages? The government would also prevent businesses from becoming monopolies. Businesses would also pay enough in taxes to pay for the infrastructure they benefit from.
While computers eliminated some jobs, at the same time they created millions of new jobs in hardware and software that paid very well. They were highly skilled jobs — most of which required college.
IOW government would be required to serve society as a whole without favoring Big Business. I don’t believe we can get there from here. First, we would need a new Constitution that put necessary controls on government. We would need to ban all political contributions. The rule and viewpoint would have to be that since ALL people living in America benefit from the laws, the regulations, the schools, the roads, and everything else, then ALL taxpayers and maybe some others as well, must pay a tax to support the system from which they benefit. Everyone would have to pay $10 or $20 every year to support qualifying campaigns for political offices and the funds would be equitably distributed, and that would have to be the ONLY source of campaign funds. Politicians would have to be paid a wage commensurate with a good worker’s wage and no other income sources relating to business in any way would be allowed. In essence, a politician would have to take a “vow of poverty” to hold office.
Yup. If it were only possible. I’ll vote for you!
No doubt. Capitalism has always gone after the money in the hands of the poorest and lowest paid until they were protected by wage laws and labor laws, etc. Then they went after the next tier to get their wealth with inflation and other ways. Capitalism is working its way up the ladder, and one day soon they will have eliminated the middle class as poverty grows. I really believe it and I think we can see it happening. I retired with my wife, both have good-paying jobs in high tech. We had good pensions that paid us twice what we needed to live on comfortably. We bought more house than we needed as an investment and paid cash. Now, with inflation over the last 15 years and mostly during the last 2, we’re getting closer and closer to having nothing left over at the end of the month. We’re still ok, but we see the shrinkage. Our cohort is being reduced from the wellbeing of the 1960s and 70s to more and more poverty and homelessness. And for capitalism to continue in “good condition”, it is necessary in order to feed the needed 2.5 to 3 percent annual increase in sales, market share, and profits. The share of wealth of the top 1% keeps growing (currently about 42% of all wealth) while the share of wealth of the bottom half keeps shrinking (currently 2.37%).
Control is the key. I will never say it can’t be controlled. AI should ultimately be used to free as many people as possible from the need to work most of their lives away. There will always be those who want to do productive work, but at a reasonable pace please. If the economy and government is truly “of the people, by the people, for the people, then the people will make sure it works for them. Notice that all objections to socialism warning of “making people” do this or that, and of people suffering in some way under socialism, depend on a system that is out of the people’s control, more like a dictatorship, and answerable to no one. THAT is not socialism.
Don't you realize that will never work?
But you forget that the top 1% pay 85% of the taxes in this country, feeding the poorer people. Without that 1% paying for almost everything, the country would collapse. It is only a matter of time when successful people will stop working and that well dries up, and the country fails. So you can go after 'the rich', but the money runs out at some point, and then everyone is poor. You will be in much worse shape. Don't demean successful people, they are what keeps this country going.
| Inequality Ranking | Country | Bottom 50% | Top 10% | Top 1% |
| United States | 13.31 | 45.46 | 18.76 |
| Japan | 16.78 | 44.89 | 13.11 |
| Norway | 24.84 | 29.59 | 8.88 |
| Income Level | Wage Growth (1979-2019) |
|---|---|
| Bottom 90% | 26.0% |
| 90th-95th | 51.8% |
| 95th-99th | 75.1% |
| Top 1% | 160.3% |
| Top 0.1% | 345.2% |
You know, I read this and before answering wanted to do some research in order to give a proper, well thought-out answer. So, I perused a book on the subject, read a couple online articles, and watched some youtube videos. I learned a lot about socialism through time, how it's progressed, its successes and failures in different places at different times and how it differs from communism. Thank you for motivating me to really look into an interesting subject.
Although it is true that the wealthy pay more overall, it overlooks the effect of payroll taxes, which are far more of a burden on the lower income earner.
I didn’t forget. I think those who benefit most from our system should pay the most for their benefits and advantages. And along with that consideration, it’s a matter of ability to pay. Someone with an income of $2 million can afford to pay half their income in taxes without it harming their comforts, but a person with an income of $50,000 would be far more likely to have their comforts and even survivability harmed if they have to pay ANY taxes.
Are you defending greed? I’d rather pay $20 extra in taxes per year to have starving, begging, homeless people off the streets and in a reasonable shelter and program to better themselves than to trip over them as I walk down the sidewalk.
Venezuela has a HUGE set of problems they’re contending with including US efforts to squash them, assassinate leaders, undermine their economy, and kill off socialism everywhere. Do you really think the conditions in Venezuela at any time in the past century would be a valid comparison to conditions in the US at ANY time?
Do you think it has actually been established and tried and failed of its own accord anywhere?
But educated people know the outcome is devastating? Really? That’s not education. It’s brainwashing by US propaganda. There has been no “outcome”.
My life and destiny is not defined by others. I don’t blame them for my finances. BTW, I’ve been retired for 15 years, and I have a very good income that I provided for without blaming others.
Kinda sounds like “cutting off your nose to spite your face”. And I think you are blaming the wrong forces at play in your life and everyone else’s.
No it’s not. That is part of the propaganda dished out to influence and deceive us. I don’t trust an advocate of capitalism to tell me the truth about socialism. Do you?
More of the same.
This is true. I think most people prefer the former. And I think the future will be more and more about “government of the people, by the people, for the people". Or at least I hope so, but I fear we may go through some tough times first.
Funny, you would give up 20$. As long as others give more? How generous of you.
Please take your thoughtless insults somewhere else.
And there it is......Socialism at its core. Attack the person not the dialog. So you did read Saul Alinksy's books.
