Is Capitalism Without a Socialist Backbone Impossible?

[ChrisBFRPKY]

But your claim was, "When you start redistributing American jobs and wealth worldwide, that's socialism right out of the book, there can be no doubt."

What book defines "socialism" this way? What you are talking about IMO is trade. There can be favorable and unfavorable trade conditions, but that doesn't make it socialism - unless socialism just means any system you don't like.

To be clear, the NAFTA trade agreement was the topic at hand. I said it's a socialist policy because it redistributed wealth. In this case it redistributed wealth from the US and placed it in other Countries around the World.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

To be clear, the NAFTA trade agreement was the topic at hand. I said it's a socialist policy because it redistributed wealth. In this case it redistributed wealth from the US and placed it in other Countries around the World.

Echo chamber nonsense using make-believe definitions to reach a foregone conclusion. Can't even reach "malice of forethought", which requires thought, so just malice, a desire to paint parts of the world that are feared and misunderstood as evil.

The Bretton Woods exchange agreement and subsequent managed trade under agreed rules, including not just the WTO, but regional trade agreements, brought the world unheardof prosperity in the late 20th century. That the system is now broken has to do with the Republican donor desire to bury union jobs in China and elsewhere. Fair wages and taxes are the enemy of runaway, corrupt and colluding wealth, makers of the propaganda so many love to ape, hopelessly unaware of their abject thralldom, not even of the ideas not being their own.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Echo chamber nonsense using make-believe definitions to reach a foregone conclusion. Can't even reach "malice of forethought", which requires thought, so just malice, a desire to paint parts of the world that are feared and misunderstood as evil.

The Bretton Woods exchange agreement and subsequent managed trade under agreed rules, including not just the WTO, but regional trade agreements, brought the world unheardof prosperity in the late 20th century. That the system is now broken has to do with the Republican donor desire to bury union jobs in China and elsewhere. Fair wages and taxes are the enemy of runaway, corrupt and colluding wealth, makers of the propaganda so many love to ape, hopelessly unaware of their abject thralldom, not even of the ideas not being their own.

If this is your way of saying that Bill Clinton did not sabotage the US worker by making it easier for companies to relocate overseas, please explain.

If you feel NAFTA did not redistribute wealth, likewise feel free to make the case. I'll eagerly read along. Grandiose posturing won't cut it. If we're going to have a discussion about how Socialist policies affect a Capitalist society, you'll need to actually participate with a few facts.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement

"The impetus for a North American free trade zone began with U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who made the idea part of his 1980 presidential campaign. After the signing of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988, the administrations of U.S. president George H. W. Bush, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney agreed to negotiate what became NAFTA. Each submitted the agreement for ratification in their respective capitals in December 1992, but NAFTA faced significant opposition in both the United States and Canada. All three countries ratified NAFTA in 1993 after the addition of two side agreements, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC)."

"Chrétien subsequently negotiated two supplemental agreements with Bush, who had subverted the LAC[18] advisory process[19] and worked to "fast track" the signing prior to the end of his term, ran out of time and had to pass the required ratification and signing of the implementation law to incoming president Bill Clinton.[20]"

Seems the process began and nearly completed under Republican Presidents.

Yes NAFTA negotiations began before Clinton but were negotiated, finalized and signed into being by President Bill Clinton. Things tend to change under new administrations. As an example I would cite the Keystone Pipeline project that was recently cancelled by President Biden.

 

[psionl0]

What if the person is actually talking nonsense? Surely every argument doesn't deserve the same weight given to it.

There are plenty of ways of pointing out that an argument is nonsense. You could even say that the argument is nonsense out right (but such a claim wouldn't carry much weight if you couldn't say how or why an argument is "nonsense").

Condescending remarks like "You are much too clever for me" or "You should run off and tell the experts that they are wrong" are aimed at the arguer and not the argument.

 

[Minoosh]

To be clear, the NAFTA trade agreement was the topic at hand. I said it's a socialist policy because it redistributed wealth. In this case it redistributed wealth from the US and placed it in other Countries around the World.

Redistributing wealth is what government is for. It collects wealth, it redistributes it. That's what taxes are. Now, you can say all that is socialistic but that's a big part of how the US government, or any government, works. That's kind of the thread topic. If all wealth redistribution is socialistic you would need to abolish government to abolish what you call socialism

The Marshall Plan would fall into that category, yet it is considered highly successful. We helped rebuild Europe (and Japan). We invested in Europe out of self-interest, consolidating the "free world," bolstering our anti-communist position and ensuring new markets for our goods. It was a strategic move as well as a humanitarian one. And it was wealth distribution. An isolationist could argue against the US involving itself that way. Maybe you fall into that camp or not. My point is that focused redistribution of wealth is one of the major functions of government. An essential function IMO.

 

[xjx388]

Redistributing wealth is not socialism. Socialism is state or public ownership of the means of production.

I’ve come to realize that redistribution is an essential component of the Capitalist system. Too many conservative thinkers have not yet realized this.

 

[Lplus]

Redistributing wealth is not socialism. Socialism is state or public ownership of the means of production.

I’ve come to realize that redistribution is an essential component of the Capitalist system. Too many conservative thinkers have not yet realized this.

It's called investment in that case.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Redistributing wealth is what government is for. It collects wealth, it redistributes it. That's what taxes are. Now, you can say all that is socialistic but that's a big part of how the US government, or any government, works. That's kind of the thread topic. If all wealth redistribution is socialistic you would need to abolish government to abolish what you call socialism

The Marshall Plan would fall into that category, yet it is considered highly successful. We helped rebuild Europe (and Japan). We invested in Europe out of self-interest, consolidating the "free world," bolstering our anti-communist position and ensuring new markets for our goods. It was a strategic move as well as a humanitarian one. And it was wealth distribution. An isolationist could argue against the US involving itself that way. Maybe you fall into that camp or not. My point is that focused redistribution of wealth is one of the major functions of government. An essential function IMO.

While taxation is a necessity to keep a functioning Government and provide things like a social safety net to those less fortunate and to maintain other required functions within any Capitalist Nation, it benefits that specific Nation from which those taxes have been collected. This type of redistribution is very different than one that removes wealth from it's intended end users (citizens) and then sends it to foreign Countries.

I think you'd agree that there is little issue with the Government keeping some of your paycheck to function and maybe even send a bit of it to help out those in need both at home and elsewhere.

However, if the Government came up with a new trade policy and said "Minoosh, it's not fair you make $3K a week while a guy in Mexico makes $30 dollars. We're going to help your employer close down operations here and relocate to Mexico. Isn't that great?" I think you'd have an issue like many others did.

 

[Minoosh]

However, if the Government came up with a new trade policy and said "Minoosh, it's not fair you make $3K a week while a guy in Mexico makes $30 dollars. We're going to help your employer close down operations here and relocate to Mexico. Isn't that great?" I think you'd have an issue like many others did.

First, that still wouldn't make it socialism.

The jobs going abroad was decided by capitalists, not the government.

Now, foreign aid. It's dispensed strategically, at least in theory. Post WWII America's spending abroad was vital to our standing in the world. Think of the Berlin Airlift. There are many possible reasons to provide aid, but one of the most relevant here is that ultimately it does help U.S. citizens. We win loyalty from potential allies, expand our intelligence networks and help keep the U.S. dominant (thought not No. 1 in soft power).

 

[Hlafordlaes]

If this is your way of saying that Bill Clinton did not sabotage the US worker by making it easier for companies to relocate overseas, please explain.

If you feel NAFTA did not redistribute wealth, likewise feel free to make the case. I'll eagerly read along. Grandiose posturing won't cut it. If we're going to have a discussion about how Socialist policies affect a Capitalist society, you'll need to actually participate with a few facts.

One step at a time.

• All money changing hands is a redistribution of wealth.
• This is referred to as an economy.
• Of the many definitions of socialism, one of the earliest is the idea of the state ownership of capital (controlling investment and production).
• Most other definitions of socialism deal with public spending priorities, without state ownership, and might best be referred to as... public spending in line with voter policy choices. Capitalism remains intact.
• State capitalism refers to when the state acts in close collusion with private interests controlling capital, the three best examples today being Egypt, Russia and China. Similar to socialism in that the control of political and economic power is concentrated in few hands.
• Foreign trade of goods and services is part of the economy and forms part of normal transfers.
• Trade imbalances, when persistent and large, do amount to effective transfers of national wealth. However, as Adam Smith and others pointed out, normally this would be corrected by various "invisible hands", either through currency reevaluation or policies aimed at various price or quantity adjustments.
• Such corrections have been anathema to GOP policy until Trump, the demagogue, fanboy of state capitalism. They run counter to GOP donor interest.
• The large trade deficit with China is a wealth transfer, and is by now quite obviously a huge problem, given that China is a bad faith player practicing state capitalism and using heinous trade policies (IP theft).
• IP is the main driver of long term economic growth. The mass injection the US received post-WWII represents one of the largest transfers of assets that generate wealth ever. It gave the US both the space program and the transistor.
• IP theft is therefore theft not only of tools of trade today, but of the compound growth effects of that IP.

That is what should concern you most. Next comes onshoring production. My favorite would be the concerted adoption by the West of the exact same IP transfer requirement China has been using in order for any Chinese enterprise to sell major capital goods in the West, as well as the requirement for local production if market share is over a certain percentage, and finally including the measures the Japanese perfected to reject goods based on minor defects, holding them in customs during lengthy, agonizing "inspections". This should of course also involve levying a surcharge income tax on American companies that produce 100% abroad, like Apple.

Simple trade restrictions a la GOP Panic Time are the poor man's Fox talking point for losers. If you want to take on the real issue, you take on IP theft, labor policy, and currency manipulation, along with local tax policy on companies operating entirely offshore.

Sure, lots of issues with the WTO. Which means time for a rethink across the board. Financing a sworn enemy of democracy and the rule of law with our every shopping trip is madness.

 

[Startz]

The best evidence is that NAFTA helped the U.S. economy, not hurt it. Here is an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (published by the American Economic Association) summarizing what is known.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.15.1.125

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

The best evidence is that NAFTA helped the U.S. economy, not hurt it. Here is an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (published by the American Economic Association) summarizing what is known.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.15.1.125

It's a good read but a bit dated being from 2001, before the 15 year full implementation of NAFTA, but even back then I agree with some of it's conclusions:

"The mainstream forecasts during the NAFTA
debate were basically correct: NAFTA has had relatively small positive effects on the U.S. economy and relatively large positive effects on Mexico."

 

[lomiller]

If this is your way of saying that Bill Clinton did not sabotage the US worker by making it easier for companies to relocate overseas, please explain.

This is actually a very socialist view or how international trade works. Protectionism is typically a far left, anti-capitalist policy idea and bad policy idea at that.

If you feel NAFTA did not redistribute wealth, likewise feel free to make the case. I'll eagerly read along.

Trade generates wealth. It's a natural consequence of the Law of Comparative Advantage.

Condescending remarks like "You are much too clever for me" or "You should run off and tell the experts that they are wrong" are aimed at the arguer and not the argument.

You may find it insulting when someone says "your ideas are stupid" but this doesn't make it an attacked or something aimed at the arguer. It's simply an observation

"Your ideas are stupid, therefor you are an idiot" is both observation and insult. but is not a logical fallacy.

It's only a logical fallacy if you say "You are an idiot, therefor your ideas are stupid"

The criticism being levied in this thread is the first form. ChrisBFRPKY's interpretation of what socialism is isn't just wrong it's so far removed from the real world that it's laughable. He's literally trying to argue that longstanding goals of right wing politicians are "socialist" and advocating for left wing political ideas. His opposition to free trade may make him the closest thing to a socialist we have in the entire thread.

 

[Roboramma]

To be clear, the NAFTA trade agreement was the topic at hand. I said it's a socialist policy because it redistributed wealth. In this case it redistributed wealth from the US and placed it in other Countries around the World.

Wow. The free market is socialist because it allows for the movement of wealth from one person to another...

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

One step at a time.

• All money changing hands is a redistribution of wealth.
• This is referred to as an economy.
• Of the many definitions of socialism, one of the earliest is the idea of the state ownership of capital (controlling investment and production).
• Most other definitions of socialism deal with public spending priorities, without state ownership, and might best be referred to as... public spending in line with voter policy choices. Capitalism remains intact.
• State capitalism refers to when the state acts in close collusion with private interests controlling capital, the three best examples today being Egypt, Russia and China. Similar to socialism in that the control of political and economic power is concentrated in few hands.
• Foreign trade of goods and services is part of the economy and forms part of normal transfers.
• Trade imbalances, when persistent and large, do amount to effective transfers of national wealth. However, as Adam Smith and others pointed out, normally this would be corrected by various "invisible hands", either through currency reevaluation or policies aimed at various price or quantity adjustments.
• Such corrections have been anathema to GOP policy until Trump, the demagogue, fanboy of state capitalism. They run counter to GOP donor interest.
• The large trade deficit with China is a wealth transfer, and is by now quite obviously a huge problem, given that China is a bad faith player practicing state capitalism and using heinous trade policies (IP theft).
• IP is the main driver of long term economic growth. The mass injection the US received post-WWII represents one of the largest transfers of assets that generate wealth ever. It gave the US both the space program and the transistor.
• IP theft is therefore theft not only of tools of trade today, but of the compound growth effects of that IP.

That is what should concern you most. Next comes onshoring production. My favorite would be the concerted adoption by the West of the exact same IP transfer requirement China has been using in order for any Chinese enterprise to sell major capital goods in the West, as well as the requirement for local production if market share is over a certain percentage, and finally including the measures the Japanese perfected to reject goods based on minor defects, holding them in customs during lengthy, agonizing "inspections". This should of course also involve levying a surcharge income tax on American companies that produce 100% abroad, like Apple.

Simple trade restrictions a la GOP Panic Time are the poor man's Fox talking point for losers. If you want to take on the real issue, you take on IP theft, labor policy, and currency manipulation, along with local tax policy on companies operating entirely offshore.

Sure, lots of issues with the WTO. Which means time for a rethink across the board. Financing a sworn enemy of democracy and the rule of law with our every shopping trip is madness.

Wonderful post. I find myself in agreement with the majority of it. You bring up great talking points for a discussion of Globalism, World trade policies and how China benefits from unfair trade policies, business practices as well as state run capitalism (which the latter is argued to be a better definition of Socialism) . Bravo!

But, I didn't see anything about how NAFTA was not a Socialist policy. It does tie into Globalism a bit as well. While I have no issue with Global trade when conducted fairly, I do have issue in unfair trade deals designed to seemingly redistribute the wealth of the US into their trade partners with little to no advantages financially for the US. Also when other Countries not originally intended to benefit from NAFTA did benefit at our expense.

As far as how "Fox viewers" relate to the topic. The jobs that were lost as a result of NAFTA affected those on both sides of the political spectrum however the locations of the affected areas do see to be more Right than Left. Detroit would be an area where the closing and relocation of auto/auto parts factories would have affected both sides almost equally. I did notice a few cracks along the "Blue Wall" in the 2016 elections.

There were a few factories closed here in KY due to NAFTA as well. Not all were required to relocate production facilities to Mexico, though many did. I lost a rather cushy job at one of them, SKF-USA, when they moved production to India. I realize India may not be considered NAFTA related to most, yet it was. Parts produced there were shipped into the US thru a shell company in Mexico and passed thru freely untaxed and without tariff. Presto, India benefitted from NAFTA as well as many others that were not supposed to. A bit of paperwork here and there is all it took to set up a middleman in Mexico.

As far as State owned businesses I haven't argued NAFTA would qualify to stand on its own as a textbook definition of Socialism, I do argue that it was a Socialist policy with a touch of Globalism thrown into the mix.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Wow. The free market is socialist because it allows for the movement of wealth from one person to another...

Not so much and not what I said.

 

[Roboramma]

Not so much and not what I said.

Markets aren't any less markets because they are international.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Markets aren't any less markets because they are international.

Nothing wrong with free markets. Free market would not include trade imbalances or government practices draining profits or intellectual property away from the business owners.

Otherwise you simply have state run business using Capitalism both within a closed system and the Global market reaping the benefits of both without the risks typically associated with Capitalism alone.

China knows how to win. The US should take lessons.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Nothing wrong with free markets. Free market would not include trade imbalances or government practices draining profits or intellectual property away from the business owners....

You have got to be kidding me.

I heartily suggest you disentangle yourself from any and all prior notions and start over.