Comparison of Capitalism and Socialism Essay Example

Socialism is morally, pragmatically, and overall better than capitalism because of socialist economies' morality and pragmatic effectiveness without exploiting the third world.

First, what is socialism? No, socialism is not the welfare policies of Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. Those are market economies with some social programs. Or “nice capitalism”. Socialism is the concept of democratic ownership of the means of production. Meaning that the workers run the business. Not the capitalist class. The main socialist societies we will discuss are considered Marxist-Leninism. (see state and revolution) A form of socialism where the workers own the means of production through a workers’ state. 

Now, why is capitalism not the way to go? For one, capitalism is immoral. It extracts what is called “surplus labor” from the working class. (see capital volume 1) The workers generate all wealth within a business. But somehow one man can keep almost all of that for profit. This leads to massive income inequality. For example, the top 1 percent of people own half the wealth! (CNBC) The ruling class stays in power, exploiting the worker, as they live in luxury. The workers do not need the capitalists, the capitalists need the workers. Now, what happens when we rid the ruling leeches from society? Socialism. Workplace democracy. Instead of the owner deciding on something, the workers decide. The worker receives the fruits of their own labor. For example lets say you make 1 paper crane. Instead of someone taking the paper airplane, selling it for 1 dollar, and giving you 9 cents, You get the whole dollar for the paper crane you made. Sounds good, right? 

“But socialism doesn’t work!” Capitalists cry. “Capitalism is the only system that works!” But socialism does work and has worked for millions of people! In roughly thirty years, the soviet union became a power that rivaled the USA. Turned an economically backwards country into a nation that defeated fascism, created many social services with free quality education, healthcare, housing, and dignitive jobs as said in their constitution. To the point when 30 years later, around 75 percent of Russians say that life was better in the soviet union. (Moscow times) Capitalists claim that the people in socialist countries lost democratic rights. What democratic rights? Cuba before was a U.S backed dictatorship, Russia was a Tsarist autocracy, Vietnam was under harsh colonial rule, so what democracy needs to be restored? Colonialism? Fascist autocracy? Monarchy? All of these are opposites of democracy. We can’t expect socialist countries to be perfect at the start. Especially when Cuba is under a harsh trade embargo. Preventing trade of essential goods. Even Obama knew that the Cuban embargo was inhumane. He repealed it, but when Donald Trump came to power he just slapped it back on again! Despite these harsh conditions, Cuba’s free healthcare and education are the best in central America.(WHO) And arguably better healthcare systems than the USA. When I visited Miami, I had a conversation with someone that had a tumor in his arm. He said he visited Cuba and got the care for free, and went back. America’s market-based healthcare system is so bad that citizens would travel to a completely different country and get care there. If we give socialist nations time to prosper, (without bombing them, embargoing them, lying about them, etc) socialist countries can prosper more than many of their capitalist competitors.

Now yes, capitalist countries tend to be more successful than socialist ones. But why is that? To simply put it, theft. For hundreds of years, capitalist nations have invaded, stolen from, conquered, and exploited the lesser off nations. This is often referred to as imperialism or colonialism. This is how countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and Spain are so rich despite having much fewer resources than other countries. Less population, and less landmass. The consequences in these exploited countries are shown to be disastrous.  For example, in India, around 1.8 billion people died from deprivation during the British raj. All of its natural resources were sucked out.  Resulting in massive poverty. All that suffering just for the profit of capitalist western powers. 

“But the soviet union was imperialist!” Some may say. “Look at the intervention in Hungary, And the conquering of eastern Europe!” In order to debunk these slanderous claims, we need to understand the geopolitical situation in eastern Europe. Before the Soviets took over, Poland was a right-wing dictatorship with concentration camps of their own, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, were all brutal fascist regimes in some instances more fascist than nazi Germany. And even when the Soviets took over these nations, the countries still had their own leaders, government, and right to self determination. The soviet “expansion” is not comparable to any expansion of capitalist nations. The soviet union was not exploitative to any of its allies. Those nations (after the removal of fascism) had a choice on whether or not to join the soviet union. The soviet union even rejected requests by nations like Mongolia to be annexed. The soviets enriched their allies. With economic aid, disruption of fascist government, and preserved safety and prosperity for its allies alike. Even if the critics still argue that the soviet union was imperialist, they cannot deny that the nations of Libya, Sankara’s Burkina Faso, and Cuba succeeded in providing for their people in a socialist society despite being bombarded by imperialist powers. And the nations that are capitalist and do not commit acts of imperialism are poor and underdeveloped. Such as Somalia, Mozambique, brazil, and others. Let us compare them to the socialist nations that have a similar history of being colonies. Cuba has some of the best education and medicine in the world, China is the richest country in the world, Vietnam is the fastest developing country with an astonishing 4 percent per year development speed. Libya under Gaddafi was the richest African nation in the world. with oil cheaper than water, housing a right, and education free.  

These nations do work. Socialism does work. Better than capitalism in fact. It has almost every time. But capitalist powers must win the ideological war. So they bomb, invade, destroy, and propagate information about socialist nations and fund bad actors in them. Such as gorbachev and pol pot. Not even the welfarist nations of scandonavia that social democrats praise are guilty of this imperialism. Norway is heavily involved with the chocolate industry inn the DRC that is infamous for child labor. Aswell as being a part of interventions in the libyan civil war On the side of terrorists. 

In conclusion, Socialism solves the moral, economic, pragmatic, and imperialist problems within capitalism.