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"Recovery!" WHAT Recovery??

Every time there is an economic downturn, the would-be communists declare it's "the end of capitalism". I presume this is to hide the total, complete collapse and failure of communism.
 
Skeptic said:
Every time there is an economic downturn, the would-be communists declare it's "the end of capitalism". I presume this is to hide the total, complete collapse and failure of communism.
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Communism was never really attempted earnestly. All those so-called communist state were actually mostly dictatorship with a few privileged (what is the antithesis of communism ideal). Now whether true communism as decsribed can exists is another matter (I would argue that due to human nature that cannot ever exists) but you can't really tell commnism failed. it was never really started to begin with.

That said I agree with the rest of the argument on "end of capitalism". I even know one idiot which jubilated on it recently.
 
Chaos said:
So you admit that there is NOT a great depression now?
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"Admit" is a strange word to use. Has some kind of misdemeanor been committed?

My amateur opinion is that we are in the early stages of a very long depression.
 
JihadJane said:
Is the US economy in recovery or is it entering a Depression?
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It's in a recovery. Even the source you cite acknowledges that. It predicts that we are in the initial stages of a long and slow recovery, but acknowleges that we are in recovery.

Even discounting the rally in equity prices,...

housing prices are improving, unemployment numbers are improving, lending numbers are improving, layoffs are down, industrial production is up, even unemployment numbers (which are a lagging indicator, and therefore expected not to show recovery until the recovery is well-established) are improving,...

If you think we're "in the early stages of a very long depression," then I'd appreciate it if you could find some widely-studied leading indicators that are still trending downward as opposed to level or actively increasing.
 
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Aepervius said:
Now whether true communism as decsribed can exists is another matter (I would argue that due to human nature that cannot ever exists) but you can't really tell commnism failed. it was never really started to begin with.
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From what I heard: The very concept of "true communism" was based on bad assumptions of economic sciences. It probably would not have worked, even if it was earnestly tried.

Capitalism seems to be more compatible with how human nature happened to have evolved. (Though, it was only discovered to be compatible by accident. I don't think the founding fathers knew much about the science of human evolution.)
 
Skeptic said:
Every time there is an economic downturn, the would-be communists declare it's "the end of capitalism". I presume this is to hide the total, complete collapse and failure of communism.
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Well, I can't speak for communists, but I notice that every time there's a severe economic crises extremely non-capitalist measures are required to stabilize the system.

I don't know if that's the "end" of capitalism, but it sure means capitalism isn't sufficient.

I always hate that false dichotomy. There are some things for which capitalist incentives work really well (cereal choices, inexpensive technologies...etc.) and there are some things it fails at miserably (health care, self-regulation...).

The neat thing is that we get to consciously make choices about how to set up the system. Eliminate the market freedom of health insurance companies necessarily results in a liberation of small businesses and employees.
 
TraneWreck said:
Well, I can't speak for communists, but I notice that every time there's a severe economic crises extremely non-capitalist measures are required to stabilize the system.

I don't know if that's the "end" of capitalism, but it sure means capitalism isn't sufficient.

I always hate that false dichotomy. There are some things for which capitalist incentives work really well (cereal choices, inexpensive technologies...etc.) and there are some things it fails at miserably (health care, self-regulation...).

The neat thing is that we get to consciously make choices about how to set up the system. Eliminate the market freedom of health insurance companies necessarily results in a liberation of small businesses and employees.
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From what I've seen and heard, it isn't that measures such as bailout are required for economic recovery, but rather that they speed up the process. I believe Capitalism is sufficient to bring about it's own recovery, but that some government measure can better and speed up the outcome.
 
Wowbagger said:
From what I heard: The very concept of "true communism" was based on bad assumptions of economic sciences. It probably would not have worked, even if it was earnestly tried.

Capitalism seems to be more compatible with how human nature happened to have evolved. (Though, it was only discovered to be compatible by accident. I don't think the founding fathers knew much about the science of human evolution.)
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From what I gather, Marxist communism ignored that fact that people are self-interested.
 
The True Scotsman said:
From what I've seen and heard, it isn't that measures such as bailout are required for economic recovery, but rather that they speed up the process. I believe Capitalism is sufficient to bring about it's own recovery, but that some government measure can better and speed up the outcome.
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That's a purely theoretical claim because governments always intervene. I suppose it's possible, but think about how horrific the Great Depression was, now imagine what it would have been like without the tens of millions of jobs created by FDR. It's as likely that the country would have fallen into complete chaos as it was likely to recover on its own.

But of course, even if another crisis hit, we already have so much tax money involved in the economy that a pure case can never be found. I would argue this is a good thing.

"Economic recovery" in a purely laissez-faire situation might be possible, but the human costs would be overwhelming.
 
Wowbagger said:
Capitalism seems to be more compatible with how human nature happened to have evolved. (Though, it was only discovered to be compatible by accident. I don't think the founding fathers knew much about the science of human evolution.)
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I Disagree. The founding fathers didn't know about evolution, of course, but they knew human nature very well. You don't have to know why human nature is the way it is to know what it is like. So it was no accident they realized human nature is more compatible with capitalism than with communism.
 
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TraneWreck said:
"Economic recovery" in a purely laissez-faire situation might be possible, but the human costs would be overwhelming.
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Human cost or not, I find it doubtful that a "purely laissez-faire" solution would allow for recovery to previous levels of prosperity. This is mainly because purely laissez-faire solutions don't result in the levels of prosperity that were present before (or after) the downturn.
 
Anyone seen that Michael Moore movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" ??

Now, I can't stand Moore myself. His perceptions are whacked, and he asserts that the capitalist system is designed to keep poor people poor, yet he came from a poor family and made himself successful.

He did touch on a good point though, that after the cold war, America had little in the way of competition in the global market, so prosperity came easy. Now that the rest of the world has caught up, maybe we are incorrectly assessing the situation?
 
JihadJane said:
"Admit" is a strange word to use. Has some kind of misdemeanor been committed?
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Sure... your continued denial of reality, in an effort to proclaim "a very long depression" into existence.

My amateur opinion is that we are in the early stages of a very long depression.
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You´d have to learn a lot about economics just to reach complete ignorance about that topic, so don´t call yourself an amateur while the term "hardcore ideologue" still exists in the English language.
 
The True Scotsman said:
From what I gather, Marxist communism ignored that fact that people are self-interested.
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That's my gathering, as well. I Forgot to mention that bit.

Skeptic said:
I Disagree. The founding fathers didn't know about evolution, of course, but they knew human nature very well. You don't have to know why human nature is the way it is to know what it is like. So it was no accident they realized human nature is more compatible with capitalism than with communism.
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Well, that's one way of thinking about it.

Though, their assumptions about human nature could have been just as wrong as Marx's. They didn't exactly have an empirical study of evolutionary systems to work off of, to confirm their conclusions. It just turns out that they were right, in this manner.

Today, we know why capitalism works better than communism for much more precise reasons, stemming from self interest (as Scotsman points out), and conflicts of interest among relationships of humans.
 
TraneWreck said:
That's a purely theoretical claim because governments always intervene. I suppose it's possible, but think about how horrific the Great Depression was, now imagine what it would have been like without the tens of millions of jobs created by FDR. It's as likely that the country would have fallen into complete chaos as it was likely to recover on its own.

But of course, even if another crisis hit, we already have so much tax money involved in the economy that a pure case can never be found. I would argue this is a good thing.

"Economic recovery" in a purely laissez-faire situation might be possible, but the human costs would be overwhelming.
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I'm a bit confused as you seem to be taking an argumentative tone towards me while stating things that it is nowhere apparent I disagree with.

With that said, I would recommend that you look at the trade-off of your positions. While a mixed economy may be more stable, it is less useful for creating wealth than a free market economy. While a mixed economy may provide basic needs for people, it provides less incentives to work hard than a free market economy does. I'm not going to give any normative statements about which system is preferable, but simply hope you look at the pros and cons of each system.
 
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