By "socialism" we refer to the concept as it is referred to here (https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/o.htm), as a social organization whereby the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned and managed democratically, in conditions of
Workers can ensure that they are not marginalized and forced into wage slavery under Capitalism. The underlying cause of what you would class as wage slavery is low quality education systems - currently identified for example in the United States as the Public School system, despite the highest socialist-type dollar spending per pupil on average than any other western nation. Private skills gaining organizations with little State interference would be a good case for a replacement to attain access to robust education.
o_achiron
Prejudicial Language
'Marginalized' and 'forced into wage slavery' are highly charged emotive ways of stating what you believe is one of the obstacles between the workers and reducing their poverty. Capitalism does not 'force into slavery' these workers to practice sub-standard education, arguably a greater antecedent cause of a poverty trap.
o_achiron
Focus on political theory is a distraction. Corruption and propaganda are too easy in socialism and capitalism. The biggest cause of poverty is by far corruption of the national currency. So the best solution is a system of accurate and honest accounting difficult for anyone to control or corrupt.
Commodities are produced for exchange, under capitalism, and decisions as to the production and distribution of commodities are made in accordance with maximum profit as opposed to maximum social benefit.
You assume that the generation of maximum surplus (profit) is a cause which precludes maximum social benefit. A case could be made that maximum social benefit requires first the attaining of maximum surplus. Profit is simply 'maximal surplus'. It is ideological to assume that conducting an action with the most bountiful surplus being achieved is a route towards guaranteeing poverty (the eradication of poverty must be met by surplus).
o_achiron
Business owners do not pay the workers - the consumers pay the workers, the business owner is trying to sell the labor of the worker to these consumers - no amount of socialism can make consumers want to buy the labor of the worker who is STILL inefficient or provides no economic value.
Socialism as practiced in declaratively socialist countries (Warshaw pact countries, the USSR) did meet needs as long as they were bread, water and rudimentary lodgings.
However, it is contended that the USSR was on verge of hunger/bankrupcy when it collapsed.
The US poverty rate decline has never been as fast as it was just prior to the beginning of socialist programs and the war on poverty, which promptly resulted in a plateau of the poverty rate.
1) This is factual untrue. The Great Society/War on Poverty Programs Began in 1964 and poverty declined sharply between 1964-1974 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate_1959_to_2011._United_States..PNG).
2) There were any number of similar wealth transfer ("Socialist" in the common parlance) programs implemented before this period such as Social Security that researchers believe had enormous impacts on poverty in the U.S. (GV Engelhardt, J Gruber, 2004 - NBER). So the cutoff suggested in this premise is totally arbitrary and quite misleading.
3) Even if every facet of this premise were factually correct, it would still only prove a correlation, not causality.
rynebrandon
Capitalism is information-exothermic while Socialism is information-endothermic, what I mean by this is that Capitalism unearths the true price information for everyone of each component in the economy - Socialism is the mandated destruction of this information, which leads to inefficiency and loss.
This is roughly translatable to the (false) statement: "The town, eating the seed crop harvested this season, which was set aside for planting anew at maximum efficiency in the new Spring season, will reduce poverty more." Only by a sophist trick of the mind does it APPEAR to reduce poverty more.
Marxism relies on valuing everything by the labour put into it. Capitalism by what people are willing to pay for something. In a socialist society, there is no incentive for efficiency or automation. Those in poverty today are much better off than those in poverty before the flour mill was invented.
"Socialism" could mean any number of very different things, from Roosevelt's New Deal to Stalinism, and from hippy communes to German social democracy.
Economic growth is generally belived to be the best way to eradicate poverty, therefore the debate should focus on which of these two system produces bigger growth. However, it has been noticed that due to inequalities, the share of lowest deciles of society in GDO growth is declining.
The welfare state is self-perpetuating: By undermining productive social norms and misallocating resources, welfare creates a need for even greater assistance in the future. U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs, yet progress against poverty has been minimal.
xplkqlkcassia
