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r/CapitalismVSocialism•
RandomCapitalist

Socialists, what opportunity costs do you anticipate in a society where unprecedented equality and collectivism are paramount and "Private Property" does not exist?

For instance, in Scandinavia where equality and collectivism are valued highly, the average property owner has less than they probably would here in the US but more people have "free education", etc.

What other opportunity costs does a society placing high value on equality over property rights have and why are or aren't you concerned with them?

Posted May 4, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

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craneomotorCapital drips with blood and dirt•

Having less/no property is not really an opportunity cost but rather the definition of socialism.

What are other "opportunity costs" you see resulting from socialism?

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RandomCapitalistOP•

Food would be the biggest opportunity cost socialists seem to run into.

But of course according to socialists that wasn't socialisms fault, just the fault of socialists. Or something I asked socialists to identify the opportunity costs of equality because I'm well aware actual criticisms of the socialisms don't count.

-4†
craneomotorCapital drips with blood and dirt•

Are you trying to say that there's a necessary trade-off between socialism and food?

It seems like your actual question here is "what kind of terrible consequences will socialism have?", which is just a loaded question.

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HhturaNationalist, Ecology, Progress•

He's asking what the trade-offs are. To phrase the example he gave backward, the trade-off of living in America instead of Scandinavia is you get more property, but less free education. Is your answer that there are no negative trade-offs whatsoever?

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RandomCapitalistOP•

Do you know what an opportunity cost is?

Maybe looking it up would help you get started.

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craneomotorCapital drips with blood and dirt•

I do, and my comments reflect that. Yours, on the other hand...

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howcanyousleepatnite•

That's cool, 40% of the food grown in America rots while children starve. We spent a trillion invading Iraq, yet we have a 9/11 of hunger deaths every two years.

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RandomCapitalistOP•

"Capitalism only creates progress not Utopia therefore socialism"

I'm sold.

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craneomotorCapital drips with blood and dirt•

"Strawman, therefore capitalism."

Now I'm sold!

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Allen_JoaksAnCap•

How would socialism solve food waste?

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howcanyousleepatnite•

Science dummy.

Use resources to identify waste and divert it to needy before it is unusable. Community kitchens. Proper diet due to no brainwashing by big sugar to become addicted to their unhealthy products. Small scale gardening, worker ownership of land. scien

-1
Picture_me_this•

So I'm sure people have ranted by now that government stuff is not socialism and "collectivism" is not the goal of socialism nor is socialism a form of collectivism strictly speaking. Socialism uses the collective ownership of the means of production as a way to achieve individual freedom. And if I may add perfect equality is not a goal nor is it possible under socialism/communism.

So a lot of these premises are misunderstood. But more fundamentally despite socialism being rooted in the material conditions of human life (historical materialism), there is no material goal. So fundamentally a question like yours is not really answerable, because a socialist society wouldn't have material goals (build a pyramid, hoard nazi gold, colonize the world etc..) to begin with.

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michaelnoirjust a left independent•

I suspect that even the concept of "opportunity costs" is a capitalist idea. If you mean that under socialism you wouldn't have the opportunity to accumulate vast amounts of money at someone else's expense, then yeah, that wouldn't exist, but I think that would be a good thing.

I think there should be an upper limit on how much people earn. Someone like Bill Gates, who has a ridiculous amount of money merely for owning the rights to a thing, is really the sign of an unhealthy society. A society with its priorities all wrong. When wealth becomes accumulated like that, stuck in a bottleneck, it's a sign of an anomalous system.

Besides, "opportunity", like everything else in a capitalist world, is constrained by the need to make profit, or to stay alive while someone else makes a profit. You have opportunities, but only to do profitable things.

If the things that you like doing happen not to be profitable, then most likely, you will not have an opportunity to do them, because you'll be too busy working. The need to make profit skews all notions of "opportunity".

Even in your Scandinavian example, where is the opportunity loss? Surely more free education means more people have more opportunity?

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RandomCapitalistOP•

I suspect that even the concept of "opportunity costs" is a capitalist idea.

Wow.

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HhturaNationalist, Ecology, Progress•

This is probably even worse than what u/specterofsandersism said about time preference.

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HeFlipYaMutual Exploitationism•

Did he call it a liar?

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HhturaNationalist, Ecology, Progress•

Time preference is just a post-hoc rationalization intended to shame poor people. It does not explain anything interesting whatsoever. He later referred to any talk about time preference as "liberal nonsense" and "disguised Protestantism," I suppose intending to imply it was some kind of religious obfuscation. In any case, he more shoo'd the concept away than address it.

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GhostOfDanielShaysRegulator•

Considering you just suggested Scandinavia is collectivist (a meaningless buzzword), I really don't understand where you come off with this incredulous attitude.

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potato_cabbage•

I suspect that even the concept of "opportunity costs" is a capitalist idea.

Wow.

Seconded.

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End-Da-Fed•

I suspect that even the concept of "opportunity costs" is a capitalist idea.

Wut???? Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to do something else. That's a universal term.

For Example: You could have gave up going on a date with a hot woman with a phat booty that has a crush on you to go out with a different hot woman with big juicy titties that has a crush on you at the same time.

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michaelnoirjust a left independent•

How come you ignored the rest of the comment? Do you not see how the concept "opportunity cost" is skewed in a capitalist context?

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mattsahMarxist-Capitalist (I won the lottery)•

Indeed, without value, one runs the problem outside of capitalism of again trying to compare qualitatively different things quantitatively. It's not even clear that "opportunity cost" would be useful to talk about.

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HeFlipYaMutual Exploitationism•

You were just explaining how commies would weigh pros and cons to make decisions. Why would you do that, if not to estimate what you give up to get something else when you cannot have both?

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End-Da-Fed•

It isn't. You made that crap up.

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michaelnoirjust a left independent•

The quality of debate on this sub is fantastic.

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HhturaNationalist, Ecology, Progress•

Opportunity cost is "you can't have your cake and eat it too." The cost of eating it is you don't have it anymore. I'm having a bit of trouble seeing how that could be related to or impacted by ideology.

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michaelnoirjust a left independent•

If it can't be related to or impacted by ideology, this question was pointless.

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HhturaNationalist, Ecology, Progress•

What I meant is I don't see how what ideology you subscribe to impacts whether opportunity cost is a thing or not.

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michaelnoirjust a left independent•

Concepts can be ideologically skewed.

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dlagno•

I think the biggest opportunity cost would be most productive and educated people from socialist country fleeing to other countries.

That's in case your socialist country didn't close its borders tightly and didn't conquer entire world to establish Communist International worldwide.

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RandomCapitalistOP•

I'm told that when things happen it's Not Real Socialism.

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diezeitenCommunist | I hate all of you, especially the leftists•

What the fuck does this question have to do with socialism?

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C0mmunist1Anarcho-Pacifist•

Here in scandinavia people actually have better changes to become rich than in US. Despite the high taxes. We have more rich people per capita than US, they just aren't filthy rich.

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hungarian_conartist•

Im willing to bet alot of these conclusions depend precisely on what definitions of rich and social mobilty you're using.

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GeorgePantsMcG•

so·cial·ism

ˈsōSHəˌlizəm/

noun

a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Can we stop with the false claim of "no private property"? It's bullshit.

Instead, you should be asking the CEOs and executive boards what the opportunity cost is of having the employees own a piece of the company and have representatives speaking for them on the board.

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schnuffs•

instance, in Scandinavia where equality and collectivism are valued highly, the average property owner has less than they probably would here in the US but more people have "free education", etc.

Do they though? I mean, this statement seems to think that having more education means they "have less" personally, but that education needs to be part of the equation to begin with. It would be more accurate to say that the average property owner has less of an individual profit rather then they simply "have less" overall. Like, it seems like you're thinking about this in an overly individualistic sense where something that's not completely yours isn't part of the things that you have. I have state supplied education in Canada, but it being state supplied or privately supplied doesn't fundamentally change what I actually get out of it. It's merely the method of me getting it.

So to put this in maybe a more digestible framework here, the road you drive you can be private or public, it can be supplied from the state or a private individual. That seems somewhat irrelevant to whether or not I have access to the road, whether the road is fundamentally different because it's from the state or a person, or whatever.

My point here is that an opportunity cost isn't necessarily apparent in the trade-off between private property and public initiatives or property. This is made even more clear by recognizing that opportunity costs in economics isn't confined to merely one's property, money, or any other objective metric that markets tend to favor. It includes time, pleasure, or really any other benefit that provides some sort of utility, meaning that trying to separate public vs. private property (at least in a very broad sense) an effort in futility.

Disclaimer: I'm neither a socialist or a capitalist. I favor a mixed economy where necessary goods are "socialized" while luxury goods are not.

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