@Veteran229, BS

@callmedubious

It's not BS. The Scandinavian countries almost all privatized their social security, many government owned businesses and industries, they privatized almost all of their public transportation, and even privatized their school systems. There are a number of competing privatized medical areas too.

The best thing is that the explosion of privatization, i.e.; Capitalism; caused the govt run services to rapidly step up their games, which caused what most call the highest standard of living or best living conditions.

@Jolanta

Voluntarily helping and associating are great. Opec, im pretty sure, does not set prices with Venezuala in mind. Venezuala abandoned Capitalism a long time ago, and has been paying a heavy price ever since.

@BryanLV OPEC lowered prices WITH Venezuela in mind . . . . along with Iran, and Russia. Russia is now one of the top, if not the top oil producer. The bastards in Washington like to claim that Capitalism is superior to any other system, but if that were so, they would not have to foment coups, bomb, drone, and invade to get governments to adopt capitalism.

How to Start Mass Murder and Promote Capitalism:

1. Send CIA and covert funding to radical groups within the country.
2. Start a propaganda campaign against the country.
3. Accuse the leader of being a dictator and madman.
4. Claim that the leader is massacring his own people.
5. Claim the terrorists the US funded / imported are legitimate rebels.
6. Bomb them, torture them, kill them, create refuges from here to hell and gone.
7. Take over their whole economy, set up a US-style banking system.
8. Claim that Capitalism is the only system that succeeds while destroying their system.
9. Establish military bases.
10. Plant a puppet leader and government.
11. Leave the country in shambles, and claim it is due to failure of their non-capitalist system.

This has played out over and over and over again, the same old song and dance.

@THHA

It's pretty clear you are blaming the failures of government and socialism on Capitalism. Democracy within a government owned and controlled economy is socialism.

There is nothing free about the US markets, they are controlled by a govt that exercises eminent domain, Keynesian economics and massive welfare programs to people and businesses they choose.

What you are actually describing and wailing against is big government socialism.

No, not accurate, to say the least, in fact, it is plutocratic corporate capitalist militarism. Sure there are some things in America that are socialized, but saying that the whole country is socialized is just plain laughable . . . if that were so, Trump, Pelosi, Pence, and a whole lot of other folks would be hanging from a rope or on their way to the guillotine. Also, anyone who thinks the US is a democracy is wrong . . . . wealth buys the office. What you are asserting is ridiculous.

@THHA

Please give me your definition of Capitalism.

Because it sounds like youre just throwing out a bunch of words and you don't know what they mean.

I would hope the US was not democracy, but it is, and democracy is socialism. The representative vote is a form of democracy, whether you like it or not.

The entire economy and money system of the US is socialized and ultimately socialist. Especially when the government controls the means of production through "commerce" and controlling the entire monetary system.

Youre just flat out incorrect.

Obviously, I could pull a rabbit out of an elephant's ass, and you would swear it was a donkey.

Definition of capitalism
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

THIS:
Definition of socialism
1
: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a
: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b
: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3
: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.

DOES NOT EQUAL THIS:
Definition of democracy
1
a
: government by the people
especially : rule of the majority
b
: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2
: a political unit that has a democratic government
3
capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S.
from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy
— C. M. Roberts
4
: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5
: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

EXCEPT IN YOUR WILDEST DREAMS.

@THHA

Yes, please tell us more about how the US has promoted a free market system in Venezuela. I would be fascinated to hear these accounts.

@THHA

In one post you claim the US is bombing, killing and torturing them, destroying their system.

In a following post you claim that Capitalism is, "Characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market."

If a government is killing, bombing and torturing people; does that not define, "a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state." ?

Seems you may want to rethink your definitions a bit.

I will not waste my time on someone who claims that democracy = socialism, clearly the definitions do not match, and as I can see you did not bother to even read it, or you would have had to admit you were wrong on that point.

As previously stated:
Obviously, I could pull a rabbit out of an elephant's ass, and you would swear it was a donkey.

You are not worth my time.

@THHA

I already know the definitions. You obviously did not read your own information.

democracy
1a: rule of the majority
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation.
4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority

socialism
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

These are the same things!!!!! A society where the group owns things and makes decisions as a collective.

This is what you posted. Did you read it?

Yep, it's a jackass, not a rabbit!

@BryanLV Oh, yeah because Capitalism is so very interested in helping people and looking after their own.

@BryanLV You seem to be hang up on socialism and not once do you mention social democracy. Why are you so afraid? Don't you want everybody to have enough to eat, somewhere warm to live, education and a job? Or are you happy with what is going on in the US, where people need to have 2 - 3 jobs just to pay the rent, where education is being eroded all the time by cutting money for it, where people cannot afford health care, where homelessness is growing at an alarming rate?

Do you not think that if the obscene amounts of money wasted on attacking & occupying small countries around the world & the trillion $ that can not be accounted for by the Pentagon was spent on a decent healthcare program that the average citizen would be better off?

@Jolanta, @callmedubious

I think people who call themselves government, forcefully stealing money from people, and then spending it on things you do not want is immoral. I just stay consistent. I also believe it is immoral for the people who call themselves government, to steal money to do things you like, or think are good or whatever.

If the system is completely voluntary, and people may opt out and in; then I am fine with voluntary socialism. But democracy is not voluntary and implies that people who vote and win can force the minority-the individual is the greatest minority-to do or not to do whatever, based on its whims or greater goods or whatever.

I do not believe in that system. I find it repugnant to freedom of autonomy and the natural rights of all humans.

@BryanLV I think you need to move to an island where there are no other people but yourself, that way you can do whatever you want and not worry about that anybody will come and want to share something with you.