Capitalism vs Socialism - CEO Andy Puzder

Posted by $ blarman 4 years, 8 months ago to Economics
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Two minutes of succinct explanation about why capitalism works and socialism doesn't.
SOURCE URL: https://youtu.be/-fypJtenD1U


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  • Posted by Solver 4 years, 8 months ago
    Isn’t socialism more objectively based primary on envy and justified by a type of social altruism which leads to forced redistribution of what others have produced?
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    • Posted by ewv 4 years, 7 months ago
      Yes, socialism is based on altruism. It is collectivism, the opposite of the rational self interest of individualism and the right of the individual to his own life, liberty, property and the pursuit of his own happiness.

      The "envy" you refer to is only the snarling result of the resentment caused by socialism and the false morality behind it as people are pushed into an impossible life of dog-eat-dog pressure group warfare to try to survive in the system, while still mouthing the false morality of a duty to serve others as the justification and the meaning of morality.

      The video is terrible, repeating the fallacies we have extensively discussed previously https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... in which the Puzder claimed capitalism is "altruism" -- confusing the necessity of trading value for value with "serving the needs of others" -- and extols Scandinavian welfare statism as "capitalism", with production serving the purpose of making the welfare system possible while ignoring the concept of "freedom". The man is promoting stark evil while smiling about his own business success in the "American dream".

      This video, like the previous one by Puzder promoted here, gets everything backwards in a fallacy all too typical of conservatives trying to rationalize capitalism in terms of the false morality of altruistic service that they have accepted -- which is why Puzder sounds so appealing to them. It contradicts the entire history of the success of this country and its sense of life (until recently) on which the success was based since the Enlightenment, as well as the possibility of such success.

      It obviously contradicts the sense of life and the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged, in which the producers went on strike against the very moral appeals that this Puzder promotes in his evasive contradictions.

      This is not the first time Blarman has pushed Puzder's moral and economic inversion as "a brilliant job of explaining", and conservatives oblivious to the theme of Atlas Shrugged have piled on behind him -- as if neither Ayn Rand nor discussion on this forum had ever discussed or refuted them. They don't even acknowledge the existence of such discussion, trying to put it over by repetition on, of all places, an Ayn Rand forum.
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      • Posted by Solver 4 years, 7 months ago
        Ok, but Isn’t “envy” a specific type of resentment that comes from desiring to have something possessed by another?
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        • Posted by ewv 4 years, 7 months ago
          Yes, but that emotion isn't the basis of socialism. An emotion is a psychological state, not a principled, moral argument for a social system. When people try to justify socialism it is on the basis of the principle of an alleged collectivist "fairness" of egalitarianism, which is based on altruism -- a duty to serve -- not a specific desire for something someone else has, which is the traditional meaning. Such an emotion as simple envy isn't even enough for a basis for even a minor welfare system, let alone the egalitarian nihilism of socialism. So what if someone wants something. Why should someone else give it up? It doesn't justify concocting a whole social system to allegedly provide it by bringing others down.

          There are also people who under capitalism are envious, and act on it in the form of working harder (and spending too much) to 'keep up with the Joneses', but we don't say that envy is the basis of capitalism. It requires a far broader system of principles.

          The rabid advocates of socialism do harbor resentment and often a literal envy, but rationalize it on philosophical grounds of altruism: They try to make you feel guilty for not serving, not feel guilty because they want something you have. You are not to have more than they do in a false appeal to fairness on principle. Without that they wouldn't get away with it.

          Altruism is impossible to live by, let alone base a functioning society on, and once accepted the attempt to implement it only results in all kinds of resentment. But service to others remains the popular standard of what it means to be moral. You have a duty to sacrifice, and if you don't the state will make you.

          Every altruistic act has a recipient -- and cashing in on that is part of the package -- but altruism also requires the idea of sacrifice of value because it is value; if you don't surrender your goals and achievements you are branded as "selfish" as the epitome of evil.

          As we are seeing more and more, a literal simple envy isn't all there is to the emotional resentment: Their class warfare demands to bring down the successful to a lowest common denominator for egalitarian nihilism. Wanting to destroy others in resentment isn't trying to get what they have; it's a demand that they not have it.

          It doesn't matter to them that if they seized all the wealth of the so-called "1%" and redistributed it over hundreds of millions, let alone billions across the globe, that it would be a paltry amount for each of the recipients, to say nothing of bringing down the whole economy. Their demands for socialized medicine would prevent us from obtaining quality medical care beyond a lowest common denominator and eliminate our ability to choose in favor of government dictates. They not only want to destroy their targets, they want to destroy the principle of private ownership and choice in favor of mob control for their egalitarianism. This is all much worse than run-of-the-mill envy.

          It's also becoming progressively worse. The Marxists used to claim that socialism would create prosperity for all. The repeated demonstration in practice that it not only does not but causes wholesale misery has done nothing to stop the drive for collectivism in the name of "fairness".

          We now not only have a resurgence in demands for socialism, but are confronted with the viro movement and its most recent "Green New Deal" demanding that we have too much and must de-industrialize for the sake of a misanthropic, nihilistic egalitarianism embracing all of nature, the ultimate in sacrifice of human value. Socialists from Ock to Elizabeth Warren have recently said that instead of pointing out facts and criticizing their plans as economically unworkable we should embrace their ideals and try harder to achieve them. Few respond that their ideals are evil; they prefer to joke about cows.

          This trend was analyzed by Ayn Rand in "The Age of Envy" and the "Anti-Industrial Revolution", both in Return of the Primitive, by observing their principles long before there was a "Green New Deal". "The Age of Envy" discusses the deeper sense of life underlying envy as the only acknowledged manifestation of a "hatred of the good for being the good".

          Capitalism is based on a sense of life and a philosophy embracing individual productive achievement in pursuing one's own goals for one's self and the moral right to do it. A mere run-of-the-mill-envy wanting something someone else has is too petty to be a basis of collectivism and almost clean in comparison with socialist principles and resentments based on altruist sacrifice.
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          • Posted by Lucky 4 years, 7 months ago
            Spot on.
            Another comment on why so-called altruism via the mechanism of the state gets support- it is the rake-offs the big banks get on the small percentage fees on the very large number of transactions as in welfare payments and carbon offset trading.

            Words- envy, ambition.
            Envy (usually) leads to destruction, ambition (usually) leads to creation.

            Sacrifice- as by Greta, the 'sainted' Swedish schoolkid not flying to harangue us but sailing in a racing yacht (with diesel backup) which cost $Xmillion. The rest of us are to do the real sacrificing.
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        • Posted by Solver 4 years, 7 months ago
          Checked Wikipedia,
          “Envy is an emotion which "occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it.”

          Like in the old Russian joke,
          “A poor peasant whose better-off neighbor has just gotten a cow. In his anguish, the peasant cries out to God for relief from his distress. When God replies and asks him what he wants him to do, the peasant replies, “Kill the cow.”

          And when God doesn’t answer, who does the peasant cry out to?
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        • Posted by lrshultis 4 years, 7 months ago
          Rand put as something like this: envy and pity are the two worst emotions that one may have. Envy because it is the desire for the unearned and pity as recognition that someone is incapable of living.
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  • Posted by $ 25n56il4 4 years, 8 months ago
    All these boring, posturizing people debating seemed to have their own ideas about how the U.S. could be better runner by them. I loved it when they said, "under my administration!' In a pig's eye.
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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 7 months ago
    Socialism does work as a distribution system. But it does not function as a production system. As soon as. Distribution exceeds production, it fails
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 3 years, 11 months ago
      Socialism does not work as a distribution system.

      First, the oversight is that distribution is just another kind of production. You need the means in order to be able to distribute. You need transport infrastructure, staging, communication, information storage and retrieval. Send by rail, air, ship, truck?

      North Bay Produce flies 250,000 pounds of blueberries from Chile to St. Louis
      North Bay Produce received its largest shipment ever in a single day when 250,000 pounds of blueberries from South America were delivered this week to MidAmerica St. Louis Airport. The blueberries were flown into the Mascoutah-based airport from Santiago, Chile, on two 747 cargo planes on Monday. North Bay President Mark Girardin valued the blueberries at $1.3 million.
      (from 2013 here: https://www.freshplaza.com/article/21... )

      How do you decide to fly them on a 747 versus the cheaper more "cost effective" alternatives of rail and ocean shipping? The socialist central planner will make that decision for everyone. Under capitalism, the people who want it pay for it that way and if that is not "cost effective" they find out and that information is communicated through the markets far more efficiently than if a central controller gathered and disseminated information about distribution.

      Then (2) how do you determine who deserves the distibution? Socialism fails to distribute specifically because its methods are wrong.

      The very many private charities that exist in capitalist societies are far more efficient than centralized charites that are ultimately inhumane and dehumanizing. The Goodwill is an effective marketer of second-hand merchandise. The Goodwill put me to work. Their employment agency has state government contracts. The department of public safety ("state police" here in Texas) needed someone to write contracts for public bids. I answered an advertisement. That is the point of failure for the socialist distribution system.

      Socialism would see me as an unemployed technical writer and they would say they have no job openings for one. And that's true. In 40 years, I worked two contracts for state agencies through Goodwill -- because they fit into the free enterprise system. Can you imagine any socialist distribution system that provides technical writers to businesses and government agencies? My college degrees are not in writing, by the way.

      That is failure point number three. Socialism sees goods. Capitalism deals in services. I could make my own car. I choose to pay someone else to do it for me. My job is to be a technical writer. It is a service, that is unperceived in any socialist distribution system.
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      • Posted by term2 3 years, 11 months ago
        Actually I agree with you that socialism doesnt work at any level really. I was considering only the production part of it when I made that comment.

        The only system that works efficiently overall is the free market.
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    • Posted by exceller 4 years, 7 months ago
      Works as a distribution system?

      Surely you jest.

      Has any "distribution" ever worked to help those in need even a tick? Think of the billions sent to Africa to "help" the economically undeveloped countries. Are they better off?

      Or take the former communists countries. Did Russia benefit from the distribution they institutionalized as the foundation of their society? Or a more recent example: Venezuela. It was a well to do country before communists took over. Now people are starving as a result of "distribution".

      You may want to revisit your conviction.
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      • Posted by term2 4 years, 7 months ago
        I didnt say it was a proper or honest distribution system- just a method of distributing what has been produced. It takes what is there and distributes it as it sees fit.

        Living in Las Vegas, I see a lot of buffets. An analogy would be a buffet where quantities of food is put out , but there was no connection between production of the food and the distribution.

        Socialism as a system I would say distributes the goodies that either exist or are produced by the workers mostly to the people in power, not the "needy".
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