EN -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- What is the Difference between Capitalism and Socialism? July 28, 2021

What is the Difference between Capitalism and Socialism?

By Larry Romanoff, October 18, 2019

Some aspects of the American style of competition become more clear when placed in a broader context, in this case the underlying socio-economic system, so let’s take a quick look at the difference between capitalism and socialism. For at least the past 100 years Americans have been taught to hate and fear socialism and socialist governments, without ever understanding what they were really against or why they were against it.

The situation is not different today, where any mention of socialism produces a flood of moral condemnation, yet few Americans could likely provide any coherent explanation of socialism or an intelligent discussion of its many presumed failings. Americans equate socialism with despots and tyranny, with fear and hunger in a brutal military dictatorship, a testimony to the power of propaganda and ignorance. US corporations were in the vanguard of this propaganda onslaught, but it was heavily supported by the government and media and, certainly not least, by the educational book publishers and America’s schools and universities.

 

For a century, US corporations, government agencies, and the media, filled the minds and hearts of Americans with fear of socialism and, having stoked that fear, defined for them the signs of socialism to be avoided at all costs. These signs included the government fulfilling its responsibilities in areas like health care, social security and education and providing national needs like electricity, transportation and communications, all presented to the people as “giving up your life and letting the government run it for you”. Government involvement in any segment of society or industry where big business and the elites could make a profit was defined as either socialism or communism and therefore treasonous to the basic religion of multi-party political Christianity.

The Myth of American Competitive Supremacy -- January 23, 2021

  

The Myth of American Competitive Supremacy 

By Larry Romanoff, January 23, 2021

 

 Americans boast incessantly about their competitiveness and the miracles of their predatory capitalist system, but on examination these claims appear to be mostly thoughtless jingoism that transmutes historical accidents into religion. If we examine the record, US companies have seldom been notably competitive. There is more than abundant evidence that their efforts are mostly directed to ensure an asymmetric playing field that permitted them to avoid confronting real competition. And, in very large part, major US corporations have succeeded not because of any competitive advantage but by pressure and threats emanating from the State Department and military.

 

 Xerox was once almost the only manufacturer of photocopiers in the world. Kodak was once almost the world's only maker of cameras and photo film; where are Xerox and Kodak today? More recently, Motorola was the leading manufacturer of mobile phones; where is Motorola today? US-based RCA Victor was one of the largest producers of TV sets in the world. Where can you buy an RCA TV set today? Where are the great Pan Am World Airways and Continental Airlines? Where are E.F. Hutton, General Foods, RCA, DEC, Compaq? Where are American Motors, Bethlehem Steel, Polaroid cameras, and so many more? Gone, because they couldn't deal with effective competition.

 

Eric Zuesse -- Who Can NOW Say America Hasn’t Become a Mega-Corporate Dictatorship?

Who Can NOW Say America Hasn’t Become a Mega-Corporate Dictatorship?

Eric Zuesse

 

February 8, 2020

© Photo: Pixabay

Jon Hellevig posted on January 16th at The Saker, “Capitalism in America: How a Dismal Decimal is Robbing Americans Blind” the most extensive and up-to-date compendium anywhere, of data on economic inequality in America, and one fact especially stands out from it: “Today Top 1% are losers compared with Top 0.1% – the Dismal Decimal – who are where the music plays. Top 0.1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90% combined.” These top 0.1% people also donate the lions’ share of the money that finances political ads and organizations for their candidates and against the candidates who are financed instead by the other Party’s billionaires. Any candidate who isn’t backed by the billionaires of any Party is a rarity and (except for the independent Bernie Sanders, who is truly an exception) has no realistic chance of winning or keeping a seat in Congress.

That drastic inequality of wealth in America — “Top 0.1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90% combined” — is calculated by Deutsche Bank, in their January 2018 study “U.S. Income and Wealth Inequality”. Here’s more from that study:

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On page 3 is shown that U.S. is comparable to Chile, Israel, Mexico, Portugal, and Turkey, as being at the top of the nations studied, in “inequality in household disposable income.”

On page 6: “A record high 30% of households have no wealth” in the United States.

On page 7: All-time high median net worth in constant dollars was 2007, at $119,000, declined to $67,000 in 2010, and rose to $78,000 by 2016.

On page 8: “U.S.: Top 0.1% owns as many assets as the bottom 90%”

On page 10: U.S. has higher income-inequality than any other OECD nation.

On page 11: Income-inequality is rising faster in U.S. than any other OECD nation.

On page 15: Top 1% in pre-tax income in the U.S. in 2014 was $1.3 million+.

Top 0.1% was $6 million+.

So: if the top 0.1% in income in America are also the top 0.1% in wealth in America, then the individuals in America who draw $6 million+ annual income own as much as do all 90% who aren’t in the top 10%.