Why Increased Socialism Leads to Increased Prices

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Maduro isn’t refusing international aid. He’s just refusing aid from people who have, in the past, used aid caravans to sneak in weapons. He’s accepting plenty aid from countries other than the us.

And saying the price of oil collapsed is like saying Iraq fell into dissolution. Yes, it happened, and there was an intentional will behind it causing it to happen.

I’m not saying maduro is great, but there are places in South America, Africa, etc that were and are WAY worse off than Venezuela. How come I don’t see us threatening to march troops there?

As far as China, you can paint it however you want, China is surpassing everyone else at a time where most of the rest of the world is economically falling off a cliff following Friedman economics and the neoliberal model.

And if you’re saying that China’s current market system is not socialism or communism, then may as well abandon the whole socialism vs capital argument as nobody, EVER, means abandoning markets or profit when they say they support socialist ideas. That’s just the corner they’re painted into.

a reply to: pexx421

Maduro isn’t refusing international aid. He’s just refusing aid from people who have, in the past, used aid caravans to sneak in weapons. He’s accepting plenty aid from countries other than the us.

Care to provide any sources? This BBC article says that supplies from the United States, Brazil and Colombia were turned away. It seems the only aid they accepted was from Russia, a supporter of the Maduro regime. I'm just trying to grasp why you support a clearly corrupt and ineffective leader, it seems to me you're willing to let countless people suffer in the name of an ideology which is fundamentally flawed.

And saying the price of oil collapsed is like saying Iraq fell into dissolution.

I was hesitant to use the word collapsed, the point is there was a very large drop in the price of oil and that demonstrably caused a large drop in revenue for the Venezuelan government, leaving them unable to pay for bloated social spending budget, which led to hyper-inflation through devaluation/debasement of the currency. And there is a sort of feedback loop which occurs when a currency collapses, it also loses value when the world loses faith in the currency and the government.

I’m not saying maduro is great, but there are places in South America, Africa, etc that were and are WAY worse off than Venezuela. How come I don’t see us threatening to march troops there?

Which places in South America or Africa have suffered from such a rapid and extended decline in living standards or such high levels of inflation in modern times? I don't doubt it has happened to other counties but I'd like some examples for a comparison. Also the difference here is that Maduro appears to be quite corrupt and unwilling to give up power under any circumstances, that is why the rest of the world is so concerned. But I still agree other nations should not intervene and let Venezuela sort it out.

President Maduro acknowledged PSUV defeat, but attributed the opposition's victory to an intensification of an economic war. Despite this, Maduro said "I will stop by hook or by crook the opposition coming to power, whatever the costs, in any way".[170] In the following months, Maduro fulfilled his promise of preventing the democratically- and constitutionally-elected National Assembly from legislating. The first steps taken by PSUV and government were the substitution of the entire Supreme Court a day after the Parliamentary Elections[171] contrary to the Constitution of Venezuela, acclaimed as a fraud by the majority of the Venezuelan and international press.[172][173][174][175] The Financial Times described the function of the Supreme Court in Venezuela as "rubber stamping executive whims and vetoing legislation".[176] The PSUV government used this violation to suspend several elected opponents,[177] ignoring again the Constitution of Venezuela. Maduro said that "the Amnesty law (approved by the Parliament) will not be executed" and asked the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional before the law was known.[178]

Venezuela

As far as China, you can paint it however you want, China is surpassing everyone else at a time where most of the rest of the world is economically falling off a cliff following Friedman economics and the neoliberal model.

Ok well lets look at the facts. China is ranked #86 on the list of countries by Human Development Index whereas Switzerland is #2, Hong Kong is #7, and the U.S. is #13. China is ranked #78 on the list of countries by GDP per capita whereas Switzerland is #9, Hong Kong is #10, and the U.S. is #11. Despite China having the 2nd largest GDP only behind the U.S., they also have a massive population which means a small GDP per capita and a low average wage compared to most nations. The only redeeming factor of their economy is the mass production results in low prices, but even accounting for that China ranks rather low in terms of average income per capita and is considered a middle income country.

And if you’re saying that China’s current market system is not socialism or communism, then may as well abandon the whole socialism vs capital argument

For the most part I would define it as a communist system of government, but it's what I would call industrial communism or techno-communism. Communist regimes often realize they need a source of funding so they promote industrialization and seize control over production. It's the same principle Mao pushed during The Great Leap Forward when millions of people died, Mao Zedong argued "that the best way to finance industrialization was for the government to take control of agriculture, thereby establishing a monopoly over grain distribution and supply". It didn't work so well back then obviously, and China did learn a lesson from it, which is why they now have this weird hybrid of communism and capitalism. They allowed some privatization, embraced free market trade, and are now even moving away from manufacturing to become a market-based economy.

Since China's transition to a market-based economy through privatisation and deregulation,[15][16] the country has seen its ranking increase from ninth in 1978 to second to only the United States in 2016 as economic growth accelerated and its share of global nominal GDP surged from 2% in 1980 to 15% in 2016.[14][17]

List of countries by GDP

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
a reply to: pexx421

Maduro isn’t refusing international aid. He’s just refusing aid from people who have, in the past, used aid caravans to sneak in weapons. He’s accepting plenty aid from countries other than the us.

Care to provide any sources? This BBC article says that supplies from the United States, Brazil and Colombia were turned away. It seems the only aid they accepted was from Russia, a supporter of the Maduro regime. I'm just trying to grasp why you support a clearly corrupt and ineffective leader, it seems to me you're willing to let countless people suffer in the name of an ideology which is fundamentally flawed.

Sure. Here.
www.google.com...

They’re accepting aid from China, Russia, Cuba, turkey, Palestine.
And I’m not willing to let them suffer due to an ideology. I just know how almost every single nation the us tries regime change on winds up. I don’t want to see THAT happen to the Venezuelan people.

And saying the price of oil collapsed is like saying Iraq fell into dissolution.

I was hesitant to use the word collapsed, the point is there was a very large drop in the price of oil and that demonstrably caused a large drop in revenue for the Venezuelan government, leaving them unable to pay for bloated social spending budget, which led to hyper-inflation through devaluation/debasement of the currency. And there is a sort of feedback loop which occurs when a currency collapses, it also loses value when the world loses faith in the currency and the government.

I’m not saying maduro is great, but there are places in South America, Africa, etc that were and are WAY worse off than Venezuela. How come I don’t see us threatening to march troops there?

Which places in South America or Africa have suffered from such a rapid and extended decline in living standards or such high levels of inflation in modern times? I don't doubt it has happened to other counties but I'd like some examples for a comparison. Also the difference here is that Maduro appears to be quite corrupt and unwilling to give up power under any circumstances, that is why the rest of the world is so concerned. But I still agree other nations should not intervene and let Venezuela sort it out.

I dunno. Greece? Rwanda? Djibouti? How is Columbia doing? Honduras? Yemen?

President Maduro acknowledged PSUV defeat, but attributed the opposition's victory to an intensification of an economic war. Despite this, Maduro said "I will stop by hook or by crook the opposition coming to power, whatever the costs, in any way".[170] In the following months, Maduro fulfilled his promise of preventing the democratically- and constitutionally-elected National Assembly from legislating. The first steps taken by PSUV and government were the substitution of the entire Supreme Court a day after the Parliamentary Elections[171] contrary to the Constitution of Venezuela, acclaimed as a fraud by the majority of the Venezuelan and international press.[172][173][174][175] The Financial Times described the function of the Supreme Court in Venezuela as "rubber stamping executive whims and vetoing legislation".[176] The PSUV government used this violation to suspend several elected opponents,[177] ignoring again the Constitution of Venezuela. Maduro said that "the Amnesty law (approved by the Parliament) will not be executed" and asked the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional before the law was known.[178]

Venezuela

As far as China, you can paint it however you want, China is surpassing everyone else at a time where most of the rest of the world is economically falling off a cliff following Friedman economics and the neoliberal model.

Ok well lets look at the facts. China is rated #86 on the list of countries by Human Development Index whereas Switzerland is #2, Hong Kong is #7, and the U.S. is #13. China is rated #78 on the list of countries by GDP per capita whereas Switzerland is #9, Hong Kong is #10, and the U.S. is #11. Despite China having the 2nd largest GDP only behind the U.S., they also have a massive population which means a small GDP per capita and a low average wage compared to most nations. The only redeeming factor of their economy is the mass production results in low prices, but even accounting for that it ranks rather low in terms of average income per capita and is considered a middle income country.

That is all true. What I was pointing out, however, is that during the last decade the median per capital income in China has increased by, I think, 5x. It’s the most rapid growth and improvement of any nation in the world, the largest increase in economic growth, I believe, in history. All while everyone else is stagnating or contracting.

And if you’re saying that China’s current market system is not socialism or communism, then may as well abandon the whole socialism vs capital argument

For the most part I would define it as a communist system of government, but it's what I would call industrial communism or techno-communism. Communist regimes often realize they need a source of funding so they promote industrialization and seize control over production. It's the same principle Mao pushed during The Great Leap Forward when millions of people died, Mao Zedong argued "that the best way to finance industrialization was for the government to take control of agriculture, thereby establishing a monopoly over grain distribution and supply". It didn't work so well back then obviously, and China did learn a lesson from it, which is why they now have this weird hybrid of communism and capitalism. They allowed some privatization, embraced free market trade, and are now even moving away from manufacturing to become a market-based economy.

Since China's transition to a market-based economy through privatisation and deregulation,[15][16] the country has seen its ranking increase from ninth in 1978 to second to only the United States in 2016 as economic growth accelerated and its share of global nominal GDP surged from 2% in 1980 to 15% in 2016.[14][17]

List of countries by GDP

originally posted by: pexx421
Sure. Here.

An article in English would be preferable, but that doesn't say anything about Venezuela using Google translate.

I just know how almost every single nation the us tries regime change on winds up. I don’t want to see THAT happen to the Venezuelan people.

Lol I don't think it could get much worse at this point honestly, Venezuela now appears to have such high inflation it has some of the worlds highest prices and extreme levels of poverty. By keeping Maduro in power I don't see a future where that changes any time soon. And once again this is a very different situation to Libya and Syria, I don't see how the U.S. trying to force a regime change, although it's clear many nations are concerned about the crisis and want a change for valid reasons.

I dunno. Greece? Rwanda? Djibouti? How is Columbia doing? Honduras? Yemen?

I wasn't aware Greece or Yemen were in South America or Africa but lets take a look anyway. Yemen looks like the best comparison because it appears GDP has stopped growing or even declined since the civil war, essentially a fight over leadership, not unlike the situation in Venezuela. However even Yemen hasn't seen inflation levels anything close to Venezuela, nor has the GDP dropped so dramatically. Greece is now experiencing GDP growth after a long decline, Rwanda has GDP growth, Columbia has GDP growth, even Honduras has consistent GDP growth and a stable currency despite high levels of poverty.

The Greek economy is classified as advanced[171][172][173][174][175] and high-income.[176][174] Greece is a developed country with a high standard of living and a high ranking in the Human Development Index.[177][178][179]

Greece achieved a real GDP growth rate of 0.7% in 2014—after 6 years of economic decline—but contracted by 0.4% in 2015 and by 0.2% in 2016.[50][51][52] The country returned to modest growth of 1.5% in 2017 and 1.9% in 2018.[50][6]

Greece
Economy of Greece

Colombia is Latin America's fourth largest and Central America's second largest economy measured by gross domestic product.[1]

Colombia over the last decade has experienced a historic economic boom. In 1990, Colombia was Latin America's 5th Largest economy and had a GDP per capita of only US$1,500, by 2015 it became the 4th largest in Latin America, and the world's 31st largest.[1] As of 2015 the GDP (PPP) per capita has increased to over US$14,000, and GDP (PPP) increased from US$120 billion in 1990 to nearly US$700 billion.[1] Poverty levels were as high as 65% in 1990, but decreased to under 24% by 2015.[3]

Colombia
Economy of Colombia

Djibouti has experienced stable economic growth in recent years as a result of achievements in macroeconomic adjustment efforts.

Djibouti's gross domestic product expanded by an average of more than 6 percent per year, from US$341 million in 1985 to US$1.5 billion in 2015.

Since the Djiboutian franc is pegged to the U.S. dollar, it is generally stable and inflation is not a problem. This has contributed to the growing interest in investment in the country.[75][78][79]

Djibouti
Economy of Djibouti

That is all true. What I was pointing out, however, is that during the last decade the median per capital income in China has increased by, I think, 5x. It’s the most rapid growth and improvement of any nation in the world, the largest increase in economic growth, I believe, in history. All while everyone else is stagnating or contracting.

Well it's easier to rise when you're not very high to begin with. Consider the fact that even though they have raised so many people out of poverty, they still aren't even in the top 50 when ranked by median income per capita.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

We all have a better standard of living now than a few decades ago, the are less murders every decade, less deaths, less crime, less war, less terror attacks, etc.

Well if standard of living is a barometer of the form of government, I submit the results of Communism....

China lifted more people out of poverty than any other country At the outset of the reforms in 1978, China was poor. It had a GDP per capita level similar to Zambia – lower than half of the Asian average and lower than two thirds of the African average. China experienced an average GDP growth of close to 10% per year until 2014, raising per capita GDP almost 49-fold, from 155 current US Dollars (1978) to 7,590 US Dollars in 2014, lifting 800 million people out of poverty – an unparalleled achievement. In urban centres in China, poverty has been virtually eliminated. However, China’s development has been driven by the coastal east, while development in the rural west is lagging behind. Its per capita income is still below the world average, showing the amount of development still to be done.

Source

No matter what the form of government, all people want is fairness. I don't care what our government is called. Common sense can detect fairness.

What we have now is PROFIT above all else. This will lead to disaster eventually.

But I still get to go out for a stroll and enjoy the sunshine...now that the plume of smoke from the refinery fires are out.

a reply to: ErEhWoN

now that the plume of smoke from the refinery fires are out

And now we have those self-proclaimed socialists in China keeping the prices for our crappy toys in check, nothing like winning! Just avoid reading Marx to the Foxconn employees and we should be fine. At least for a while...

We all have a better standard of living now than a few decades ago, the are less murders every decade, less deaths, less crime, less war, less terror attacks, etc.

Oh, the irony of forever wars on drugs and terror! It's a good thing to have self-righteous statements like that, this batch of failed policies doesn't feel so bad now. We're the good guys after all... right?

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder

originally posted by: PublicOpinion
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

trust me

Never.

So... you didn't even try to refute the article, nor did you look into the second piece I posted. Precisely the kind of extremely shallow scaremongering I expected, who knew?

There was nothing to refute, the entire thing is just complaining about rising costs and how we should blame inflation, and one sentence about how capitalism causes inflation without any deeper explanation what so ever. That article is conveying the precise misconception I wrote this thread to debunk, that's why I found it so ironic. This mindless blame of capitalism for rising prices is far too prevalent, when in fact the vast majority of inflation is caused by the creation of new money by the government. And yes I did read the second article as I'm a fan of the Mises Institute, as you can see I posted several articles from them near the top of this page. I think you'll find the Institute isn't exactly a platform for socialism. If you read the article more closely you may find it's being somewhat critical of "Social Democracy". Here are the concluding paragraphs from the article:

In particular, they “equalized” the opportunities for a high school and university education, by offering the respective services not only free of charge but by literally paying large groups of students to take advantage of them. This not only increased the demand for educators, teachers, and social scientists, whose payment naturally had to come from taxes. It also amounted, somewhat ironically for a socialist party which argued that equalizing educational opportunities would imply an income transfer from the rich to the poor, in effect to a subsidy paid to the more intelligent at the expense of a complementary income reduction for the less intelligent, and, to the extent that there are higher numbers of intelligent people among the middle and upper social classes than among the lower, a subsidy to the haves paid by the have-nots.

As a result of this process of politicalization led by increased numbers of tax-paid educators gaining influence over increased numbers of students, there emerged (as could be predicted) a change in the mentality of the people. It was increasingly considered completely normal to satisfy all sorts of demands through political means, and to claim all sorts of alleged rights against other supposedly better-situated people and their property; and for a whole generation of people raised during this period, it became less and less natural to think of improving one’s lot by productive effort or by contracting. Thus, when the actual economic crisis, necessitated by the redistributionist policy, arose, the people were less equipped than ever to overcome it, because over time the same policy had weakened precisely those skills and talents which were now most urgently required.

Revealingly enough, when the socialist-liberal government was ousted in 1982, mainly because of its obviously miserable economic performance, it was still the prevalent opinion that the crisis should be resolved not by eliminating the causes, i.e., the swollen minimum provisions for nonproducers or noncontractors, but rather by another redistributive measure: by forcibly equalizing the available work — time for employed and unemployed people.

Social Democracy

You wanna know what I found so ironic here?

It's people like you who sold us another redistributive measure with bailing out the banks, and at this point in the game the financial market surely is too big to fail. There will be a price to pay once that bubble bursts, quantitative easing boils down to a planned economy and we all know how that experiment turned out.

We didn't see the final bill for this "capitalism" yet, your whole calculation presumes a happy ending while the opposite is happening. The delusion of infinite growth has yet to be overcome in a somewhat finite ecosystem.

And with that out of the way, I'd like to see you labeling nature with price tags now. You may think a financially responsible end of the naked monkey would be the reasonable thing to do, so what stops you from advocating for fascism in order to save this system from itself?

There are old-line anti-Communists who still insist that it was all fake, that it is all a deception, that the Communists are still running the show in Russia. They do not understand the difference between fascism and Communism. The Russian system is fascist to the core: state-run capitalism.

We are now seeing what hard-core liberals always predicted would happen: the economic convergence of the two systems, USA and USSR. The system of economic convergence is fascism. That was what the liberals always wanted, but called it something else: "economic democracy" or "the government-business alliance."

Economic Fascism and the Bailout Economy

a reply to: PublicOpinion

I agree with your post.

a reply to: pexx421

One word

Oil

a reply to: toysforadults

Who doesn't? Even the OP has a sense for the inflationary tendency here, it really makes me wonder how one can silently advocate for a dying system with simply pointing fingers to the "oh-so-expensive" socialism. Let's simply assume that's correct for discussions sake, here is the rub:
more expensive goods wont be a problem once we have a real UBI worth it's name.

Cutting the bread quick there, but... just add a tiny piece of socialism to the mix and another impressive piece of compartmentalized scrutiny dissolved into giggles. The whole premise is moot, we need a different approach for an objective debate.
And those ... I dunno... 3000€ each month could be ours if we decide to bail out the people instead. We can call it qualitative easing if that helps...

a reply to: ErEhWoN

Well if standard of living is a barometer of the form of government, I submit the results of Communism....

Did you read the last paragraph I wrote before you revived this thread? Also, Communism in China is responsible for more deaths than ever recorded in history.

a reply to: PublicOpinion

It's people like you who sold us another redistributive measure with bailing out the banks, and at this point in the game the financial market surely is too big to fail.

I have never once argued for bailouts of big corporations by the government, and this is especially true for banks, I argue the exact opposite in my money series. The government should have no place deciding what businesses fail and which survive, it shouldn't be giving unfair advantages to any business, it should be a free market process free from government interference. People seem to believe that anyone anyone who supports free market capitalism must be a banker or wall street trader, but the fact of the matter is I believe it's the best way to achieve a prosperous society with a high standard of living. I've arrived at these beliefs after many years of philosophizing and debating these issues on places such as ATS. I used to be in favor of socialist ideals and I would argue from that position on ATS, now I'm arguing from a libertarian point of view but I still believe what I'm saying is the truth and it's aimed at informing people and giving them a better understanding of how the world works. This thread does that in a very clear manner by showing how increased government spending causes increased prices, but people still refuse to accept it.

a reply to: PublicOpinion

it really makes me wonder how one can silently advocate for a dying system with simply pointing fingers to the "oh-so-expensive" socialism.

What really makes me wonder is how one can advocate for a system which has died countless times and caused countless people to die.

more expensive goods wont be a problem once we have a real UBI worth it's name.

So once businesses raise their prices to offset the cost of paying higher wages, I assume it then becomes the governments job to ban prices or control prices? In Australia we have a very high minimum wage, it's the highest in the world according to this list of minimum wages by country. Yet we have a ratio of homeless people around 2.5x worse than the U.S. because the cost of living is far higher here. And now the government is entertaining the idea of raising the minimum wage even more due to pressure from the public. All the problems of society cannot be solved by big government controlling everything, it just leads to an endless loop of insanity.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

The government should have no place deciding what businesses fail and which survive, it shouldn't be giving unfair advantages to any business, it should be a free market process free from government interference.

The free market fantasy with infinite growth, riiiight. And look what it did for us thus far! Odysseus and his fellow high-born from the oligarchy sit on piles while the rest has to endure the polluted outcome of a society that commits ecological suicide.
I mean... we could bail out the people instead. It's extremely annoying to see increasing numbers of child-poverty in a developed society, a point you simply covered up with a bunch of snake-oil-salespitches btw.

All the problems of society cannot be solved by big government controlling everything, it just leads to an endless loop of insanity.

This is so typical, more myths from the same old textbook. You would be the first to show that our society has no means to solve it's problems with collective efforts, the opposite seems to hold more water.
Back to absolutes and religious mantras from the other endless loop of insanity it is then, hit me with a reply once you're finished to price-tag mother nature?

a reply to: PublicOpinion

The free market fantasy with infinite growth, riiiight.

I don't recall saying infinite growth is a good thing, on a planet with finite resources it's clearly a bad thing unless we can expand throughout space. Personally I'm more in favor of a business model with stable and consistent income rather than relying on constant growth. I also think that the GDP of all nations cannot keep growing forever, and this is yet another reason why it's dangerous for the government to rely on the creation of money as a funding mechanism, when that GDP growth they suddenly risk causing huge amounts of inflation because there's no extra purchasing power they can steal from the currency.

This is so typical, more myths from the same old textbook.

Yes, it's just a complete myth that politicians are untrustworthy and that power corrupts, the idea that we cannot trust bloated nanny state governments is such a fairy tale. Lmao.