Greater obligations, and much higher standards.

Discussions of socialism versus capitalism spark a lot of thoughts for me, some we’ve already talked about here. But one aspect that always bugs me is this:

When people put forward alternatives to capitalism, it’s inevitably the case that they are expected to fix problems that capitalism doesn’t fix, though the implication is that it does. The implication is that capitalism already resolves these issues, so no alternative is needed.

For instance: Distribution. In reality, capitalism has never, not in its entire history, even in the best Social Democratic systems like Denmark, adequately distributed resources, access and opportunity to all. Capitalism starts with the assumption that a significant portion of society will just be written off, another large portion will often suffer constantly, the middle will struggle to get by, while the top lives cushy lives. Typically, the less Social Democratic offsets a society has, the larger that portion is at the bottom, the greater the suffering is overall, and the bigger the gap between the rich and everyone else.

Okay. So under real socialism, we’re not allowed to write anyone off. Distribution needs to go to everyone, literally. Resources, access and opportunity need to go to everyone. We don’t get to say “the poor will always be with us, so eff ’em.” Our standards, ethics, moral vision won’t allow that. Success for us isn’t like it is under capitalism. In our current system, leaders can claim “success” if they keep most people from living in tent cities, focus redistribution efforts in a way that doesn’t piss off wealthy people too much, doesn’t upset the professional classes too much, but in no way changes the state of the needy to not needy any longer. Capitalism can claim “success” far more easily because it doesn’t have to solve issues for everyone, just the movers and shakers and their underlings, who then (at least try to) convince everyone else that they, too, can be like Bill Gates someday.

Broken down into percentages. As long as capitalism distributes the vast majority of resources, access and opportunity to, say, the richest 20%, it can claim victory. And that’s basically what it does. The richest 20% in the world consume 85% of our resources right now, with the richest 1% taking the lion’s share of that. Real socialism, OTOH, wants to distribute 100% of our resources, access and opportunity to 100% of the population.

Greater obligations, much higher standards.

• This topic was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Billy_T.