What do you think of these examples of capitalism and socialism?

Question

Hong Kong is a backwater no place. It has no natural resources to speak of. It than has essentially unfettered capitalism hoisted upon it, after which in an astonshingly short period of time it goes on to become a beacon of international trade and success.

Zimbabwe is a shining star of Africa. It is known as the breadbasket of Africa, as highly skilled white farmers ply their trade on private farms. Robert Mugabe confiscates their farmland, kicks them off, and gives the land to "peasants" who have no clue on how to farm the land. In an astonshingly short period of time Zimbabwe goes from being an exporter of food to being an importer of food just to keep its starving people alive. Mugabe's centrally planned, top down economy is a mess and the forecast is for nothing but more suffering under his brutal, socialist rule.

OK. Are you STILL going to say socialism is nifty but the wrong people are always in charge?

Grendle gets today's useful idiot award. Yep, the good old "wrong person in charge" thing. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother after decades of indoctrination by government schools.

Answer 1

Finally, somebody who understands how markets work!
I think most people with any sense agree socialism is a failure; however, the problem is they favor some aspects of socialism. People are too scared to turn schools...etc. over to the private sector when in the long-run it would mean a better quality of education for the children of this country.

Answer 2

In capitalism the majority economics decisitions are taken by the markets, there is economic agents which take its own economic decisitions in function on its benefits. The activity of the State is limited to some areas. Example: US, UK, France, Germany, México, Argentina, Venezuela, Morroco, etc; today the majority of countries in the world are capitalist. In socialism the objetive is the society, all the economics activities are in function of the society. Here the State has the control of majority of economic activities but there is private economic activities regulated by the State. Many intellectuals do not see the socialism like an economic system else like a transition to comunism. Today there is not socialist economies and someone confuses this system with that capitalist economies with an elevated level of social security, so many says France is a socialism economy, this is not true. The golden age of socialism was the 60' and 70' because in this years many poor capitalist economics were in transition to comunism: Hungary, Checoeslovaquia, Yugoeslavia. In the comunism, the State control all the activities of the people: economic, social, political, cultural, etc. The individuals decisitions are not valid and there is not property. Today we see the comunism more like and ideal than a fact because the human nature trends to take decisions, many historian mention that in the URSS the capitalist were not anulated completed,there was many "hiden markets" and many cultural manifestion of independency and individualism; these facts forced to State to create the "iron curtain". Example of comunism countries: North Corea, Cuba

Answer 3

Either you are completely jejeune or you are fishing for hits. In either case, you are being offensively Eurocentric, here.
The question is NOT "socialism v. capitalism" in that in neither case are we looking at a pure form of either system, and your method of evaluating "success" is based on invalid premises.
True, as the eastern trading center of the British Empire, Hong Kong prospered as few cities ever had. Once established as a trading Mecca (if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor), their continued success was a lock. Even as other Asian cities have emulated, and in some cases surpassed, Hong Kong's success, the former British Colony continues to thrive, even under the Communist Chinese.
Zimbabwe was a pest hole in which a comparitive few Europeans managed to live like kings through absolute domination of the population. When Mugabe nationalized the farms, he essentially evicted the white princes. The fact that he did not have the strength to maintain control as a black prince does not signify that "socialism is bad," merely that Mugabe's nationalist land-grab was just another really bad decision by a really bad leader in a really bad nation.
Social programs can be excellent (check out the Swedes for a well-run social system) or it can be terrible, especially in its
"pure" form, since socialist governments chronically suffer from underachieving workers ("Why do more than I must, what's in it for me?").
Capitalism can be excellent, or it can be terrible, especially in its "pure" form, since capitalist systems (there is no "government" in a pure capitalist society) require productivity and resort to Darwinian competition among the general populace ("Produce or die").
So yes, I AM going to say that socialism is nifty, in moderation. And capitalism is nifty neato, when tempered with a little socialism.
Cheers.

Answer 4

fareed zakaria actually makes a really compelling argument in his book "the future of freedom."

he points out that for a country to develop, it really needs a pretty good GDP.

in countries that are rich in natural resources, they're more likely to be fiscally irresponsible. if you consider that you're going to get a bunch of money regardless of your behavior, then it makes a lot of sense.

places that are poor in natural resources must be more responsible. hong kong is a perfect example of that.

capitalism is a great way for a developing country to move to democracy.

two problems with your examples, however are the following:
the plural of anecdote is not data. you have great paradigm cases but it's not sufficient to make a real claim. of course on y!a, that's all you really need.

the second problem is that you make excellent claims about developing countries. it doesn't necessarily follow for post-industrial countries.

fyi: i agree with your claims, i'm just not sure the empirical data backs it up fully.

Answer 5

Hong Kong also the poster child for environmental disasters and unsafe product recalls.

You should read the book "Eat the Rich" by P. J. O'Rourke. It gives good examples of good capitalism and bad capitialism. Same goes for socialism. There are both good and bad examples of it.

Answer 6

Excelent example!

BTW - Grendle, you are quite off base with your assessment that in pure capitalism there is no government... this is "true" about "pure" (read, theoretical) communism, but anarchy is not a goal of most capitalists.

Admittedly there are some anarcho-capitalists, but they are few and far between, and few actually believe that an anarchist capitalist society could survive, because most capitalists have a pretty negative view of humanity, contrast to socialists who have a very positive view of humanity, and a negitive view of society... most anarchists are actually of the anarcho-marxist variety.

Answer 7

One flaw of any command economy is that you need absolute, infallible brilliance at the top, because any mistake will be foisted upon everyone. In a decentralized economy - capitalist or otherwise - you avoid that problem, but there will be some people who make good choices and some that make bad or have bad luck.

So, while those anecdotes support decentralization of economic decision making, they don't, by themselves, outright disprove socialist ideas.

Answer 8

You are mistaken to use those as examples of one or another. What they are really examples of are two governments with different degrees of corruption. There is rampant socialism in Scandinavia, and they have some of the highest living standards in Europe. Pakistan is a capitalist country, so is Mexico.

Answer 9

Why do you spend so much time attacking a system that nobody actually still supports? Is it just because you think, for some reason, that liberals are socialists? We're not. We like making money as much as the next guy, trust me.

Answer 10

Socialism destroys everything it touches.

Yet, capitalism thrives and provides the best living for the most amount of people everywhere it is tried.

Funny how that works.