Poll of the Day > agree/disagree: Are these fair summaries of various eco-political ideals?

(+) Yeah! (+)

1. Capitalism: To maximize the wealth of the individual - personal goals should be to make as much money as possible since a powerful individual means a powerful nation
2. Socialism: To maximize the wealth of the society - A nation is only as strong as its weakest link; personal goals should be in maximizing the wellbeing of the weakest links.
3. Communism: To maximize the wealth of the community - A nation is only as strong as its communities; personal goals should be to maximize municipal wellbeing since it takes a village to raise a person. What happens in neighbouring towns doesn't really impact you so why care?
4. Statism: To maximize the wealth of a state/province - A nation is only as strong as its constituent voting power; personal goals should be to maximize the power of your state so it can veto the efforts of other states as needed
5. Dictator...ism: To maximize the wealth of the dictator - A nation is only as strong as its leader; the more power a leader has the better for everyone

---

I'd argue that:

a) None of them are "eco" anything, because that implies environmental concerns. I get that you were going for "economic" rather than "ecological", but that's not what that abbreviation usually means.

b) None of them are technically accurate outside of possibly capitalism, because none of the others are really about "maximizing wealth" at all, even in a metaphorical sense.
---

What you have here is a fairly reasonable breakdown of the fundamental units of society and the importance they're given based on different philosophies. You probably mean nationalism rather than statism, and dictatorship because fuck English. While it's pretty wierd to use capitalism/socialism/communism in this context, they do have implications for the importance of groups vs individuals so if we're talking only about the dynamics of groups and individuals I can let that slide, but it's reductive as fuck and not really what those things are about.

---

not an expert on the subject, but no I don't think any of those are right. also, all of these concepts are more complicated than what you can summarize about them in a single sentence.

Capitalism: to let the market be free, so that it can function as a decision making process

Socialism: to attempt to control the market, so that we can (supposedly) minimize wealth inequality, or mitigate other problems that can occur (this has problems if taken too far, because the decision making process that capitalism provides cannot currently be emulated)

Communism: oversimplified, it's just authoritarian extreme socialism.

Statism: I don't know what statism is. reading, it just seems to mean the position that you think there should be some form of government; opposite of anarchism.

---

Lokarin posted...

Capitalism: To maximize the wealth of the individual - personal goals should be to make as much money as possible since a powerful individual means a powerful nation

I'd say it's to make as much wealth as possible throughout the system, whatever is most net profit is preferred, not what is most net profit for an individual. The goal is to give power to those who can generate the most profit, it's a system to maximise production.

Lokarin posted...

Socialism: To maximize the wealth of the society - A nation is only as strong as its weakest link; personal goals should be in maximizing the wellbeing of the weakest links.

Socialism is the halfway point between Communism and Capitalism. It's still focused on individuals accruing personal wealth, however it doesn't consider letting unproductive people die off. Socialism tries to make sure everyone is capable of producing and having a place in society while minimising depriving productive people of their earnt power.

Lokarin posted...

Communism: To maximize the wealth of the community - A nation is only as strong as its communities; personal goals should be to maximize municipal wellbeing since it takes a village to raise a person. What happens in neighbouring towns doesn't really impact you so why care?

This is where Individualism goes out of the window and everybody is intrinsically tied to eachother. Any member of the comminity failing is harm to the entire fabric and any success is bolstering the group. It's focused entirely on security attempting to level out fluctuations by trussing everything together. Only really effective in small or unstable groups.

Lokarin posted...

Statism: To maximize the wealth of a state/province - A nation is only as strong as its constituent voting power; personal goals should be to maximize the power of your state so it can veto the efforts of other states as needed

This is, as far as you're explaining it, the same as communism, except defining a larger loose community. The first step from communism to socialism by gaining enough size to outgrow the need for tight stability and have the means to seize greater productivity.

Lokarin posted...

Dictator...ism: To maximize the wealth of the dictator - A nation is only as strong as its leader; the more power a leader has the better for everyone

This isn't an -ism for a reason. A dictator can use any of the previous states, Dictators are the mirror to absolute majority vote with government in the middle. It has nothing to do with economics, it is an administration.
---