r/CapitalismVSocialism

In socialism, a larger share of the product is typically collectivized and redistributed through the state or society as a whole. From an incentive-theoretic perspective, when individuals receive a smaller direct return from additional effort, their motivation to work may decline.

Therefore, the problem of weak labor incentives is not unique to capitalism; it can also arise in socialism when the worker is not the residual claimant of the product of labor.

Even in social-democratic societies, this issue can still emerge: highly educated and productive individuals may face substantial taxation and redistribution, which can reduce the direct rewards of their labor by transferring part of the value they create to those who contribute less economically, whether due to lower skills, lower productivity, or social disadvantage.

This isn't a policy proposal since it relies on individual preferences, but more of a mental framework when talking about minimum and living wage.

Let's start with the premise: Employment is an agreement in which workers provide their time in effort in exchange for a wage, so that employers can generate revenue from the results of the labor. I'm excluding useless jobs (i.e. making mudpies) and volunteering from this argument.

Corollary 1: A job that an employer needs to be done in order to generate revenue is a job that warrants paying a certain wage for.

Corollary 2: The goal of getting a wage, for the worker, is to afford a certain standard of living.

Corollary 3: There is no such thing as a "starter job" or a "teenager's job" in the context of full time work. Anyone performing any job full time still has the same basic needs for their standard of living.

Conclusion: If you believe that a corporation or employer provides useful goods and services, then the workers who provide those goods or perform those services must be paid enough to afford all their necessary living costs while doing this job.

Now the questions become:

1. Before you deride people who want a living wage for a given job, what wage and standard of living would you honestly accept to do that job?
2. What is the minimum you would be willing to live on, indefinitely, while you did it?
3. And what compromises would you be willing to make, for your long-term health or retirement, for this job?
4. If you have answered that honestly, for yourself, how would you rationalize demanding that someone else do that job for less?

EDIT: So far I'm seeing almost no answers to the questions as asked.

Title edit: How are you sure if socialism is NOT ~~~

How do you know you’re being truly radical and thinking outside the given system?

How do you know you’re exceeding/surpassing the intricate plans of capitalism that would devour any antithetical position and often even guarantee it a perfectly legal, compatible market within it?

Contemporary economic systems appear highly dependent on low-paid labor, despite the essential role these workers play in maintaining societal functioning. In many Western economies, industries rely on minimizing labor costs to maximize affordability for consumers and profitability for firms. For example, global supply chains often depend on garment workers receiving minimal compensation, enabling lower consumer prices and stronger financial performance for companies. Similarly, large-scale organizations such as warehouse and logistics companies depend fundamentally on manual labor while simultaneously incentivizing the reduction of labor costs. And not to begin to talk about the inhumane living conditions on cargo ships, which are again, fundamental for our economies. This raises ethical concerns regarding the prioritization of profit over workers’ quality of life.

Moreover, workers engaged in physically demanding, essential, or socially necessary labor are often among the lowest paid and experience relatively poor working conditions. Attempts to improve wages or conditions through collective bargaining or unionization may face resistance, as increased labor costs can reduce corporate profits. While some argue that workers can pursue higher education or alternative careers, this perspective overlooks the structural reality that societies continue to rely on individuals performing lower-paid but indispensable forms of labor. Consequently, the functioning of current economic systems appears dependent on maintaining a workforce willing, or compelled, to accept comparatively low wages for essential work.

“Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?”

This line is said by Andrew Ryan in Bioshock as a means of explaining his extremist libertarian and objectivist philosophy, with him having gone to the American and Soviet governments as well as the Vatican for an answer. The American response was, as he quotes, “No, it belongs to the poor,” while the Soviet response was “No, it belongs to everyone.” Assuming the quote is meant to reference man’s entitlement to the fruits of one’s own labour, what would the proper response to this question be by the very definition of capitalism and socialism? Keep in mind that Ryan’s question in the game is meant to be a stance against collectivism in general, whether it be through tax (capitalism) or distribution of public property (socialism).

Depends on music preferences, but you should absolutely check out Porcelain Hearts - Redacted.

I think you may like it. Its more anarchistic then socialistic, but there are indeed elements of socialism in the song, and if you ask me, it is a good song!

Revisiting this topic because it’s an interesting one to talk about since it’s something that both left and right ideologies support or oppose for various reasons.

First, I’ll explain how intellectual property (IP) is fundamentally different from physical property. Property laws exist to resolve disputes over scarce resources( Im using scare to mean something that cannot be used to achieve two alternative goals simultaneously). You and I cannot both drive the same car simultaneously to two different locations, and so cars are scarce. If a dispute like this arrises, you need an ownership ethic to determine whose use is preferred. But ideas are not scarce in this way. I can tell you about the car, and we can both simultaneously think about driving it without depriving the other of anything.

This fundamental difference between the two leads to contradictions when both are upheld legally in the same category. Say someone has a patent on the idea of building an engine. This gives them partial ownership over others physical property. If Person A wants to take their own things and try to build an engine, Person B’s claim over the idea of it overrides A’s ownership of his own property.

Regardless of the philosophy behind it, some support it because they believe it protects inventors or incentives innovation. While I’m sure there’s some cases where this is true, in general it doesn’t achieve either goal.

Patent abuse is one of the main ways large companies eliminate competition. large companies use litigation to drain resources from competitors, even if they know they’ dont have a legitimate claim. Smartphone companies have wasted billions on this. Pharmaceutical companies are notorious for “evergreening” where they continually make small modifications to their patent to extend its lifespan so they can delay the competition. And by delaying the competition, they lose their incentive to continue innovating. The man who patented the steam engine prevented anyone from improving or copying it for years while refusing to innovate further. American planes were much worse than Europeans at the beginning of aviation due to the Wright brothers patent.

IP is both contradictory to the concept of ownership, and harmful to consumers. It acts as a form of temporary monopoly, slowing the overall rate of innovation and allowing companies to get away with ridiculous prices due to their claim over the competitions physical property granted by IP law. That is why IP is an illegitimate form of property and should be opposed by all.

This post is about China. I’m not sure why so many socialists argue that it’s a socialist country.

China has billionaires. It has a stock market. It has private corporations competing for profit. Workers sell their labor for wages. Foreign investment is welcomed and protected. Property rights are legally enforced. Wealth is accumulated, invested, and inherited. The economy runs on profit motive.

It’s literally capitalism. The government claiming socialism doesn’t make it socialist any more than Nazi Germany calling itself socialist made it socialist.

In theory they don’t. In practice, neither has ever worked any other way.

The system creates the incentives. If capitalism doesn’t require infinite growth, point to a capitalist country that isn’t structurally built around it.

Under capitalism, each generation buys up the available assets—shrinking supply, driving demand, and pushing prices higher. Older generations get in earlier than you and their net worth grows as values climb. Take housing: the median home price in 1970 was $17,000 ($122,000 adjusted for inflation), while today's median exceeds $400,000. That's over a 200% increase. They also work to preserve it through zoning restrictions, credential requirements, and regulatory capture.

By the time the next generation enters the market, they’re priced out of those same assets. To build wealth, they have take on massive amounts of debt to buy assets like housing, build their own businesses from scratch, or create entirely new asset classes like crypto.

At the same time, the money supply keeps expanding, diminishing the value of whatever cash younger generations hold. The result is a cycle where each generation starts further behind, has to innovate to keep up, and carries more financial risk.

Do you see this as a problem? What's the endgame?

There's a general assumption among liibertarians and ancaps where they assume people only get government jobs or run for election for bad reasons. They want power and influence or something.

But, doesn't this just apply to private firms? To an even greater extent?

The only aim.of a business is to make money. People have no incentive to act in a moral or upstanding way while in charge of a firm. In fact quite the opposite. Whatever keeps the money flowing. Which is why companies have a long, continuing tradition of breaking the law. Constantly.

Why tell the full truth about a product when you can just get creative? Hell, this is expected. Why pay for uniforms if you can just get employees to do it? Why fully maintain H&S standards, nobody will say anything. Why make a better product when you can just make the same thing but cheaper and shitter?

This sort of behaviour isn't just common but encouraged. Why should we expect anything but terrible behaviour from capitalists? Based on this, why would removing restrictions from them ever be a good idea? If companies already do the bare minimum, they're just going to do less if you let them.

Are corporations the problem? I lean pretty leftward but I have to think anyone who considers capitalism the best economic system must see how a group of people collecting money from millions of people and allowed to buy politicians as a big problem. Can we all agree that corporations should be severely curtailed at a minimum?

In order to have prosperity under capitalism, the economy has to keep growing indefinitely. Often that economic growth comes from population growth. However this cannot keep going on forever in a world where resources are finite. Eventually the growth is going to stop. Will capitalism still be able to maintain prosperity at that point or is capitalism fundamentally unsustainable in the long run?

'Neoclassical' economists accepted, in the third quarter of last century, that the theories they teach and apply have no rigorous foundation. They are illogical and incoherent. Why does that not matter? This presents a puzzle.

>"The basic principle of factor substitution cannot be generalized to study market economies with heterogeneous capital goods. Indeed the results known as reswitching and capital reversing showed that factor demand functions will not necessarily be inversely related to their respective rates of remuneration. The reason behind those results ultimately lies in the fact that the capital endowment is specified in value terms among the data of equilibrium in neoclassical theory. But this implied, as was ultimately admitted (e.g., Samuelson 1966), that the theory cannot robustly determine long-period equilibrium prices and distributive variables, and therefore provide a robust supply and demand framework to study real market economies. After more than fifty years since the first exchanges in those debates, one might ask: what happened in the discipline after that historical period in which even some of the most authoritative neoclassical scholars admitted that their theory was at stake?" -- Andres Lazzarini (2015) [Bold added]

Many have surveyed or responded to the Cambridge Capital Controversy. Here are some surveys and responses:

• Mark Blaug. 1974. The Cambridge Revolution: Success or Failure?. London: Institute of Economic Affairs. (I stumbled upon this negative review in the History of Political Economy.)
• Jack Birner. 2002. Cambridge Controversies in Capital Theory: A Methodological Analysis. Routledge.
• Christopher Bliss. 1975. Capital Theory and the Distribution of Income. Elsevier North-Holland.
• Edwin Burmeister. 1982. Capital Theory and Dynamics. Cambridge University Press.
• Avi J. Cohen and G. C. Harcourt. 2003. Whatever happened to the Cambridge capital theory controversies. Journal of Economic Perspectives 17(1): 199-214.
• Avinash Dixit. 1977. The accumulation of capital theory. Oxford Economic Papers 29(1): 1-29.
• Roger W. Garrison. 2006. Reflections on reswitching and roundaboutness. In Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager (ed. by Roger Koppl). Routledge.
• Daniel Hausman. 1981. Capital, Prices and Profits. Columbia University Press.
• Andrés Lazzarini. 2011. Revisiting the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies: A Historical and Analytical Study. Pavia University Press..
• G. C. Harcourt. 1969. Some Cambridge controversies in the theory of capital. Journal of Economic Literature 7(2): 369-405.
• G. C. Harcourt. 1972, 2022. Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital. Cambridge University Press.
• Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1974. The Cambridge-Cambridge controversy in the theory of capital: a view from New Haven. Journal of Political Economy 82(4): 893-903.
• Leland B. Yeager. 1979. Capital paradoxes and the concept of waiting. In Time, Uncertainty, and Disequilibrium: Exploration of Austrian Themes (ed. by M. J. Rizzo). Lexington Books.

Harcourt (1972) is my favorite of these surveys - an utterly conventional view. I do not specify which you might find online not behind a paywall. I disagree with much in many of these surveys and responses. But those who have never been exposed to the CCC will learn something from any of them.

Usually this type of question is directed at socialists, but I’m curious what supporters of capitalism think. In your opinion, is China a capitalist country?

Here is why I daresay it (obviously) is:

- They have a stock market

- They allow for private ownership over property (aka a capitalist class)

- They have billionaires

- They have a market economy

I’ve seen capitalist supporters say they aren’t because of the massive interference and influence the state has on the economy.

If you say they aren’t capitalist, how are they socialist? (I’m assuming you’d call them that).

Also, it should be noted China themselves acknowledges they have capitalism within their “special economic zones“ as they call it. However, what the Chinese government says means little to me, so this isn’t why I say they’re obviously capitalist.

Economic systems are built on assumptions about human nature: whether people are primarily self-interested or capable of cooperation and mutual trust. Classical liberal thinkers argue that markets best express individual liberty and innovation, while other traditions emphasize equality and collective justice. In practice, economies always balance efficiency with fairness, and freedom with regulation. Philosophically, this tension raises questions about the role of the state, property rights, and the limits of wealth accumulation. Economic activity is therefore not neutral: it shapes culture, power relations, and human dignity. A well designed economy should aim not only for growth but also for meaning and long-term stability in society.

Socialism is a broad church no doubt, and even the term itself seems to mean different things to different people. On one side it certainly has some public popularity, but still lacks momentum.

How would you suggest socialists change their messaging if they want to win people over? Or at least reduce people's objections.

So, I'm going to prove that socialism is a memetic cognitohazard. I will prove it through a series of 8 axioms.

Axiom 1. Socialism is a meme.

To put simply, a meme is an idea. Typically an idea with the ability to spread. If an idea only exists in one brain you could say it's not a meme. But socialism exists in many brains so it is a meme.

Axiom 2. An idea being a meme doesn't mean it's good or healthy or helpful.

One might argue that since many people believe in socialism, it must be good. But we often see bad ideas spread like wildfire. For instance, during the pandemic many covid conspiracy theories were spreading very quickly and very broadly. Just because an idea spreads does not mean it's correct or good to have.

Axiom 3. An idea speading doesn't mean it's true.

One might argue that socialism spread beause it's true. But again, we have bad memes that spread without being true. Take sovereign citizen ideology for example. It's believers claim they have special methods and wordings that help them avoid legal troubles but its not true and it fails every time they try it. The idea spead without being true or usable.

Axiom 4. An idea can spread for bad reasons.

Taking Sov Cit again as an example, the ideology has a completely ineffectual track record in actual practice. But it does spread quite readily. If the holders of the idea don't get a gain in practice, what gain do they get? The gain in believing Sov Cit ideology is a thrill of thinking you know better than others. Thinking you have special knowledge and special powers. That you're part of a special in group. These can lead to terrible outcomes but they don't stop the idea from spreading.

An idea can spread for the sick perverse thrill the host gets. With no consideration for if the idea works or is helpful to the next host.

Axiom 5. Socialism as an idea is not effective.

While there's always the plausible deniability that "next time it will work!", historical analysis strongly suggests that socialism doesn't work when it's tried. Similarly to how sov cits will keep trying their tactic in court and fail every time. They will claim it will work but historically it doesn't.

Axiom 6. Hatred as a side effect

While the main arguments of socialism are utopian, when a socialist feels comfortable enough they will quickly start spewing hatred. It can be hatred for specific characteristics, or just general hatred of anyone different. When someone believes in socialism, hatred is never too deep under the surface.

Axiom 7. Socialism harms the host's health

Let's be honest, we've all seen the shift. The spontaneous body-modding impulses, the vacant stare, the self-diagnoses. You can actually see the before and after change from conventionally healthy individuals before exposure to socialism to a broken mess after socialism. Socialism is unhealthy for your mind and body.

Axiom 8. Socialism exibits host-seeking behavior

Socialists do love to spread socialism. But when it comes to applying socialism, it's like the thought never even occurred to them. The point of the meme is to spread. The meme doesn't need to be true, functional, good, or even healthy. It just needs to spread from host to host.

Conclusion:

Socialism is a meme - It's an idea that spreads. And like viruses, memes mutate to prioritise spread from host to host.

An idea being a meme doesn't mean it's good or healthy or helpful - Socialism spreading doesn't mean it's good.

An idea speading doesn't mean it's true - Socialism spreading doesn't mean it's true.

An idea can spread for bad reasons - Socialism can spread for self-serving or malicious reasons.

Socialism as an idea is not effective - The preponderence of evidence is that socialism is innefectual as an idea.

Hatred as a side effect - Socialism spreads hate around the world.

Socialism harms the host's health - Socialism is a public health risk.

Socialism exibits host-seeking behavior - The people who hold the meme don't even believe in it. So why should you?

Socialists are 100% convinced that more people should believe in socialism. But act like 5% convinced it would work. Why is there a compulsion to spread the idea but no similar compultion to practice the idea? Because it's a memetic cognitohzard.

What can be done about it? From time to time, take a mental inventory of the ideas you believe in. Do your ideas make you sick? If your ideas make you sick, consider not spreading them. Do your ideas make you hateful? Consider dropping those ideas.

If you're unhealthy, unhappy, hateful, and look like a goblin, maybe you have acquired memetic cognitohazards that are making you unhealthy. It might be a good time to reconsider those rabbit holes.

P.S. This could be disproven by socialists putting socialism into practice. But they won't.

Capitalists often try to discredit wealthy socialists as hypocrites and act as if markets are unique to capitalism.

There’s nothing about “workers own the mean of production” that stops someone from building web apps, or day trading the foreign exchange market for a living, or making millions while streaming games, or writing a best selling book, etc.

You can get rich if you earn it and aren’t exploiting others. Markets and self employment overlap both capitalism and socialism.

We are all from different ideologies, a lot of us are capitalists, socialists, communists, anarchists, libertarians, classical liberals, syndicalists, ancaps, etc. but we can all agree that we'd rather be under one of the others than Anarcho-primitivism or English Socialism, therefore can we unite just this once to talk about which one (AnPrim or IngSoc) is better (and also make fun of both of them first)