Since this is a great topic for a discussion forum hugely in need of revitalization, I've decided to remake a thread that vox closed (apparently because it was made poorly. something I don't intend to do).


Anyways, if you're here because you're interested about learning more, here's a brief summary of both options and of their relevance in the modern world.

Socialism - 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.
Hence the term socialism, derived from society. Simplified, it's the control of the economy by the people or state. Everybody runs the companies, and by extension industries, and by further extension entire economy. Keep in mind that every country is to some degree socialist. The market is regulated by the state using antitrust laws and taxed (your income tax is socialist). This money is then put to work in public programs such as transit, healthcare, and the military.

Capitalism - An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.
Capitalism is essentially the idea of the unregulated, or free, market. The idea is that it's a meritocracy (a system where you advanced based upon your merits, or positive traits): the more intelligently you sell or the better you do your job, the more you make.

Read more on both here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

The pros of socialism are generally agreed to be the following: it reduces poverty and income gap, and provides a higher standard of living for the majority of the populace.
The cons are generally the equality itself: individuals aren't allowed to prosper as much as they can/should be able to, and it can also lower the incentive to work or do well. The regulation of the economy means that it typically doesn't grow as well as it otherwise could.
The equivalent pros and cons of capitalism literally are the cons and pros of socialism, as the two systems directly compete.

Alright, I think that's as much introduction as I can reasonably give, what are your thoughts and opinions on socialism/capitalism, advantages/disadvantages of both, and which one or mix of the two is better for a person or the country as a whole?

Edit: What I was really hoping, vox, was that you'd learn to improve the post, not take it out on the guy who went to the effort of writing all of that just because you think his definitions are wrong. Or if you don't want to even do that, you could refrain from launching an all out attack on his post that is intentionally mean and goes out of its way to call the user ignorant.

It's tough, and I've always wanted to debate this topic. Socialism, could be great for America right now. The Occupy Wall Street bums would shut up, the economy would (most likely) go up, and people would have more money in their pockets per capita. On the other hand, Capitalism has always been the "American Way". In other words, a man could make his (and in today's world, her) own fortune in a week. It's what drives hard labor, it's what fed families, but as time went on, the rich kept getting richer, while the poor only went further into debt. Social Darwinism would be the term I'm referring to.
All-in-all I suppose a mix of the 2 would be nice, but I'm not quite sure how that would work.

All I can say to that is stop misconstruing what I say to confirm your own bias.


[EDIT] Tell you what, I'll open it if you can send me any kind of constructive argument for or against either socialism or capitalism that can't be simply negated by saying "Everyone has different opinions about where is the right spot on the political spectrum, and while it might be possible to say a specific system is too socialist or capitalist in general there is no one right spot."
I'll be honest I can't think of a single argument that would satisfy that, so if you do it bravo, thread's all yours. Note that this isn't an evaluation argument by the way, simply weighing the cons or pros doesn't buy you the thread, to get some purchase your going to have to argue something, feel free to play devils advocate as much as you want however.

[MOAR EDIT]

Yea, I tried that as a policy for a while, no one took it seriously, sometimes I overkill a bit on the harsh side, that's just how moderating is.
The thread however is staying closed until someone makes the case that it has any discussion merit, and to be honest I'm being lenient with the challenge above, since if such an argument could be made, I doubt most Toribash users would be able to respond with anything useful.

good thread, but unfortunatley on wrong forum since 99% of toribashers are kids who are not intrested or cant understand any difference.
in my opinion all political systems has their own stages. in beginning stage difference between socialism and capitalism is BIG. but as time pass by, all political systems tend to centralize all power which leads to totalitarism and totalitarist political system is not democratical. we are living in time where capitalistic systems are in their late stage, it has been extremley hard for those in goverments to keep on interpreting truth in their own way because of globalisation, internet and last but not least evolution of consciousness. people are not stupid, less and less people believes what they hear on news and thats good because although capitalistic systems are not controlling media, media companies are interpreting truth in their own way. and so happens that CNN is reporting about some thing that happened and some media company from my country (small country in EU) is reporting completly another story about same event. and god knows what really happened. capitalistic systems depends on stock market and news are directly influencing that market so that is why truth is forged.
i know it is hard for you to believe that 90% of everything you see on news is lie but that is how it is.
in my opinion there is no real difference between soc. and cap; maybe only in beginning stage.
but at the end, it all comes to same thing.
and that is masked totalitarism

Actually we live in a world whichs course is set by the third way ( at least in europe ) Neoliberalism is the new deal, but besides that: you forgot something to add to socialism- Socialism stands for a class-less society ( Hm thatДs what marx said though ) So if you donДt add that, your debate would clearly go for modern capitalism vs socialism which isnt capitalism vs socialism anymore.(youДd have to add class,race-gender debates and developement of world wealth weights and such)
Its more like neoliberalism vs culturemarxism or so.
Boah my english is so shitty that i am apologizing for posting here but i wanted to tell you that. ( btw i am seeing myself as a socialist )
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ten you are not talking about socialism itself anymore. I donДt think media is too much of a point in this debate. its just two contra opinions in a direct face to face thingy. globalisation does play a big role in modern society but capitalism kinda adapted and so did social democratic parties. this is when the third way was born. actually in europe there are no powerful left parties.
All parties tend to go for an islamophobic ,anticrysis neoliberal course. which slowly but effectively dooms us.
Media just hops onto the bandwagon of hatred which is caused by depression which is caused by the crysis which is caused by the new forms of capiutalism .
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you could rename the thread to developement of capitalism and socialism since the ninetees to turn it into a viable discussion topic.
this is more like a show off with no point to really discuss

Pinheads: get an English spell checker, seriously :|

Closed, I don't see this going anywhere.