White people...

[Nihilist_santa]

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

sick buzzwords my man, you must be pretty sharp

Oh man a one liner from pokeman. Im going places.

[Nihilist_santa]

Of course socialist have to account for the past failures of the applications of socialism. You guys wiggle all you want but regardless of how authoritarian those regimes were their economic theory was socialism. They went bankrupt except where they integrated capitalism heavily like in China.

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Nihilist_santa [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Of course socialist have to account for the past failures of the applications of socialism. You guys wiggle all you want but regardless of how authoritarian those regimes were their economic theory was socialism. They went bankrupt except where they integrated capitalism heavily like in China.

You can make a sweeping generalization about anything if you ignore enough detail and complexity. Here, watch this:

Consider presidencies of George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.

Of course conservatives have to account for the past failures of the applications of conservatism. You guys wiggle all you want but regardless of how moderate those presidents were their economic theory was fiscal conservatism. They both did nothing but fuck up the country except where they integrated liberalism heavily like in the establishment of the EPA.

See now isn't that just retarded? Detail and nuance matters. Fact of the matter is, there are profound differences between the Soviet Union and the United States, just like between the United States and Sweden. Imagine that!

[Maner]

They say the number one way to not be poor for your entire life in this country contains just two parts. They are to, finish high school, and to not have a kid before you're married. Has absolutely nothing to do with race in this country.

[Nihilist_santa]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You can make a sweeping generalization about anything if you ignore enough detail and complexity. Here, watch this:

Consider presidencies of George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.

Of course conservatives have to account for the past failures of the applications of conservatism. You guys wiggle all you want but regardless of how moderate those presidents were their economic theory was fiscal conservatism. They both did nothing but fuck up the country except where they integrated liberalism heavily like in the establishment of the EPA.

See now isn't that just retarded? Detail and nuance matters.

Hey I agree the morons who voted for those people are accountable as are the establishment conservatives who allowed Trotskyites to hijack their party because they bought into a conservative branding scheme. What does that have to do with a proven failure of an economic theory like socialism?

You are saying that people ran under the premise of implementing fiscal conservatism but its easily shown that they did not implement those policies where as the soviets and other socialist systems did implement socialism and it lead to the corruption you use as an excuse for their undoing because long term socialism isnt a viable system.

[Raev]

Originally Posted by Lune

Modern conservative ideology is largely based on a set of simplistic, widely-discredited economic principles, such as Austrian economics.

Please no more silly appeals to authority. Austrian economics has quite correctly predicted that all of this central bank stimulus would fail. Keynesian economics is what is discredited IMO.

Originally Posted by Lune

Raev says the things that made America great were limited government and individual liberty, and yet the golden age of our civilization occurred in the middle of the last century when even conservatives recognized the need for a safety net, expansive regulations, and government intervention in general

If it was the golden age, that implies things got worse immediately after, which doesn't really say good things about their policies, does it? The free market and individual liberty part was what powered America to the top of the world through the early 1900s. Then the banks got the Federal Reserve going, and government expanded hugely while Roosevelt was busy turning an ordinary recession into a Great Depression then World War II, and things went down from there.

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Nihilist_santa [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hey I agree the morons who voted for those people are accountable as are the establishment conservatives who allowed Trotskyites to hijack their party because they bought into a conservative branding scheme. What does that have to do with a proven failure of an economic theory like socialism?

You are saying that people ran under the premise of implementing fiscal conservatism but its easily shown that they did not implement those policies where as the soviets and other socialist systems did implement socialism and it lead to the corruption you use as an excuse for their undoing because long term socialism isnt a viable system.

The "socialism" implemented by FDR during the New Deal, and defended/sustained by Eisenhower in the 1950's, was arguably more socialist than the kleptocracy they had going in the Soviet Union.

Get it through your head that people advocating for Democratic Socialism is much different than they socialism they tried to implement in Russia. Nobody is advocating that workers own the means of production as a rule, only that we have a mixed market that is a little more mixed and a little less market.

[Raev]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Consider presidencies of George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.

Of course conservatives have to account for the past failures of the applications of conservatism. You guys wiggle all you want but regardless of how moderate those presidents were their economic theory was fiscal conservatism. They both did nothing but fuck up the country except where they integrated liberalism heavily like in the establishment of the EPA

I am not a fan of either Bush or Nixon. But let's not forget that both of them inherited a gigantic pile of steaming shit from their Democratic predecessors. Nixon came in after Johnson had started a massive war in Vietnam and had pressured the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low. As Austrian theory would predict, this boom lead to the bust in the 70s and stagflation etc. Bush came in after Clinton had freshly repealed Glass-Steagall and the banks were already busy building a time bomb of mortgage backed securities.

Now you can argue both of them made things worse. Nixon took us off the gold standard, and keeping the US dollar relevant meant sucking up to Saudi Arabia. Bush pushed for more home ownership, appointed Greenspan who cut rates after the 2001 dotcom crash, and took us into Iraq. Neither of them were particularly competent.

The point is it's much more reasonable to say that the failure of the Soviet Union with socialism reflects poorly than the failure of two random presidents (who aren't even in full control of the government) does on capitalism.

[Pokesan]

dont argue with libertarians

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If it was the golden age, that implies things got worse immediately after, which doesn't really say good things about their policies, does it? The free market and individual liberty part was what powered America to the top of the world through the early 1900s. Then the banks got the Federal Reserve going, and government expanded hugely while Roosevelt was busy turning an ordinary recession into a Great Depression then World War II, and things went down from there.

We were a second-rate backwater through the early 1900's, hardly even matching Great Britain and absolutely not the top of the world.

At no point since 1950 have things gotten as bad as they were prior to 1950. They may have diminished since then, but that's to be expected considering competing industry all over the world was destroyed in WW2. Things didn't really start nosediving until Reagan, and even then, we're still better off than the agrarian gilded-age shithole we were around 1900. I mean you're basically advocating for people like Andrew Carnegie to wield considerable power and influence again. That's basically what free market capitalism is. The people with the capital wield the economic power (and the political power too unless specific protections are in place, as we're seeing now).

Also consider that Nazi Germany and fascist Italy weathered the Great Depression better than any other economy in the world leading up to WW2, including the USA and Great Britain, and those were arguably the most socialist Western countries the world has ever seen.