My thoughts exactly. Good post mrstickball.

That's not really a feature of capitalism, thats a choice of an individual.

At some point all fortune's started from zero and the men and women who earned them have every right to spend them however they want....after all they earned it. 

The point being made about equal opportunity is that the system does not pick and choose winners and losers...people get to decide if they win or lose through their own actions.  The rich kid who gets everything handed to him was chosen by the winners who have previously earned the right to make that choice, he is not chosen by the system of capitalism to be given that advantage. Even so, the kid handed everything can squander it all in 5 years, thus releasing that fortune to more capable hands.  Or he could prove skillful at managing it and create more wealth for himself and others through investments, inventions, etc.....Either way the money eventually makes it back into the hands of people who put the fortune to work for everyone by creating jobs, making products, providing services, and generally creating wealth for everyone motivated by the drive for their own wealth.

Neither capitalism or socialism play favorites, it is the people within those systems who do.  Under capitalism people can only play favorites as far as the money they've earned will allow them.  Under socialism they can play favorites ..pretty much indefinitely if they can get into the elite positions that make those choices.

Now the original post Manus responded to was wrong in that capitalism doesn't gauruntee equal opportunities in a day to day sense of everyone gets the same call-backs for a job.  But it does gauruntee a minimum opportunity for success that is more than reasonable.  Namely that if you work hard, apply yourself, never give up, and stay focused you will be successful to the extent that your talents and abilities can be.

I think a lot of people here are looking past what truly matters in economics, and its not terms like socialism or capitalism, its incentive.

Personal incentive is the sole driver of economic productivity, and it governs everything from overhead business decisions to what you are going to buy for diner. Contrary to what many here believe, there is no difference between communism and capitalism when it comes to this important characteristic, as personal incentive works the same in communist and capitalist economies. Which ever economy provides more personal incentive will be the economy that is more productive, regardless of what it calls itself.

Capitalism obvioulsy offers a lot of personal incentive, but it fails in many regards. Everyone from doctors to Wal-Mart employs (personal experience for both) create inefficiencies because of lack of personal incentive. There are doctors who make bad medical decisions because their personal incentives are misplaced, and there retail employees napping in the bathroom or fiddling in the back because they have no personal incentive to work when the boss isn't in sight.

The same can be said for communism. Stalinism, believe it or not, was very productive. The Soviet Union was the first country in space and Americans were afraid of the Soviets powerful economic machine, the problem was that the personal incentive here was personal harm (same goes for slavery in America). Nothing makes someone want to work harder than fear of being put in a gulag. This is not an acceptible form of personal incentive. Obviously, collective farms with no personal incentives for production (monetary or punishment wise), which is what many people think of communism as, is very unproductive. Why should I work hard if it doesnt benefit me? Same goes for many government workers and the above mentioned Wal-Mart employees.

However, some forms of communism can create more personal incentive and be more productive than their capitalist counterpart. That personal incentive is worker ownership of production. When Russian farmers were given the land that they once leased from feudal lords, they became more productive. When every effort that a factory worker puts into his product is returned to him, they become more productive. Some forms of Marxism, Troskyism, and Lenin's early Soviet Communism is an example of this, and it uses the same method of incentive as many businesses today, only to a much higher degree. Profit sharing, which many business do with their employees, leads to more productive workers. Imagine how productive all workers would be if they recieved full profit sharing, which is essentially what worker owns of production is.

You seem to understand and agree with why capitalism is a better system but can't bring yourself to acknowledge it.

You say what truly matters in economics is the personal incentive, and you're right to an extent.  Where you're wrong is that communism is nowhere near as good as capitalism at providing personal incentive, even within your examples you've got it wrong.

The Walmart example is bad because capitalism doesn't dictate that the employee work at walmart..in fact the example is bad because you aren't starting from the beginning..you're starting from the middle of the story.  This person who is working at a walmart probably doesn't have more than a high school education because he failed to work hard and apply himself in school.  Now his job opportunities are limited and you are pointing to him as an example of low personal incentive. Well its not that he doesn't have incentive...its that he failed to take advantage of the opportunities granted to him and now his opportunities are drying up because he applies himself less and less.  This isn't a problem with capitalism..this is a problem with the individual. 

If this person had an education and worked hard and applied themselves they would have tons of options and thus tons of incentive.  For example even if their hard work was not rewarded by walmart they could easily get a job with their skills and work ethic at another business that has a greater use for (and thus a higher demand for) those skills.

So he either has no skills and that is his only job because he failed to take the opportunities (ie its his fault), or he does have the skills to get a better job but for whatever reason doesn't get a better job with those skills (still his fault). 

Moving to the Doctor example this is actually an example Obama used in support of health care recently...before he had to back off of it because doctor's took great exception to the implication that they would put personal financial interests over the health interests of their patients.   I find it highly suspect that this is the case on any significant scale and I'd ask you to put forward proof that it is widespread before furthering the argument.

As for the classical view of communism you mention, you pretty much hit on why it sucks...you're forced and threatened to do things. However when you compare this to Walmart employees it is really just nonsense. The communist worker is forced into that position where they have to work with no possibility to move up, the walmart employee put themselves in that position and had other options.

In your final paragraph you're advocating workers owning a share of the product they make, the problem with this of course is that you're not asking the workers to invest in an equavalent share of the company.  Almost anyone can invest in the company they work for in the US and thus purchase the rights to a share of the profits their work produces.  Additionally companies can implement such structures in their own business to increase efficiency (and many do).  Keeping it on a business by business decision rather than a government mandate allows the idea to be fluid and responsive to changes in the market and competitiveness rather than rigid and unresponsive (as all legislation is).

In short if you implement the idea free-form under a capitalist system it can work, but if you force it on companies under a pre-set government plan you're quickly going to create a scenario where your nation's companies are not competitive and jobs start flying out the door to other countries where workers recognize that all they are doing is pressing buttons and that this work is outsourced.  The other option is to create a government beaurocracy that manages it...but already I think we can see why this method is doomed to fail....

edit: On this last point I just want to point out that the workforce can choose not to work at companies that don't provide those incentives and that in this way it is certainly appropriate for workers to look at their skills as their own business and make smart decisions for themselves.  But like a business that raises its prices they have to make sure their product is worth the price or their customers (employers) will look elsewhere.

Concerning the Wal-Mart employee, capitalism does dictate how they operate in the same sense that communism dictates how a collective farmer works.  My point here is that in both systems is that personal incentives can lead to people to be more or less efficient.  If the Wal-Mart employee has a chance for meaningful advancement he can be more efficient, if he gets a has a commision for sales he can be more efficient, if he is involved in profit sharing he can be more efficient.  The driving function is personal incentive, and it doesnt matter what name it goes by, whatever system provides more personal incentive will be more productive.

In each system you will have 'un-driven' people who did not advance themselves and end up working at Wal-Mart.  Still, that person is influenced by personal incentive.  Put a person in Wal-Mart without much supervision and he will barely work, but take that same person and only pay them for how much they personally work and they instantly become more productive.  Think of the old time coal mining days when miners put their stamp on carts of coal they personally produced which was much more productive than just paying them to go into a mine for a day.

Concerning the above quote.

The form of ideological forms of communism I mentioned does not force people into positions.  Just as in capitalism, workers are free to choose their profession and they have opportunities for advancement.  The only difference here is that advancement would be decided by the workforce instead of by the ownership, much in the same way labor unions elect a leader.  You could argue that this can be inefficient since the workforce may not be as knowledgable of the business as the ownership, but I would argue that ownerhip's tendency for favoritism and inheritence also leads to inefficiency.

Furthermore, in the ideological form of communism I mentioned, workers invest a lot more into their company than they do in a capitaliost system.  When workers own the production, say 100 workers own a cement factory, they invest everything into that factory.  If the factory in not profitable, every worker will lose money.  Compare that a typical captialist system, say where those 100 workers having a garuanteed salary of $50,000 a year with some of their retirement in stock options, they actually have less invested with the welfare of the business.

I'm unsure if you are just expousing on the virtues of a command economy, or really know what the USSR's GDP was during the introduction of Marxism.

Notice the major increase during Gladnost and Peristroika?

Notice how Russia's GDP per capita was within 15-20% of the United States during the last Tzar's reign? What about the fact that GDP per capita saw no increases between 1925 and 1940 among the Soviet Union? Why was it that by 1970, US per capita was over twice that of Russia?

I think your also not understanding the difference between a command economy and a free market economy. In a command economy, the soviet union was able to pick & choose, based on leaders' goals, what to invest capital in. They decided that a space program would be good, and got to space first. But the fact of the matter is that the US was able to invest far more heavily and totally destroyed the USSR in the space race because they could invest more capital, as our economy was many times greater than the USSR.

You just came out of left field there. Lets not forget that Russia experienced a costly Civil War and two World Wars from 1914 on, one of which involved the seige of their capital city Moscow, while the United States has not fought a war on our soil since 1865. You'd be suprised how much a war, ie your cities being totally leveled, has an effect on your economy.  Not to mention the United States happily rebuilding their allies economy while the Soviet Union was with held from those funds (if my history serves me right it was initially voluntary for Stalin's reasons of pride).

There are many other localized factors here the countries you mentioned, specifally America had easily accesible oil in Texas while the USSR has hard to get oil in frozen Siberia. Saudi Arabia has easy to access oil, which is the sole reason their GDP is greater than that of some of their neigbors, such as Egypt.

The only difference in efficiency between a command an market economy is who makes the best decision.  A private company can invest in a ten billion dollar space hotel and lose their ass.  Obviously, the business in a market economy has more incentive than the government to make the better economic decision, though I fail to see how a form of communism where workers owned the production (and elected a president to run the company) would cause them to make economic decisions different than that of a private business.

So then what kind of benchmark are you using, exactly, to state that Stalinism had major advantages over other forms of commerce and government?

The same argument you are giving about the negative impact of wars and GDP in Russia/USSR could be applied to Western Europe as well. The difference would be that Western Europe had much, much, MUCH faster growth post-WW2 than Russia did, despite being in the middle of all the fighting (whereas Russia had far more land that wasn't damaged in the war). Furthermore, what resources does Japan or South Korea have that China does? Why are they so much better off? You can do a line item comparison of every Warsaw Pact nation and see that large amounts of government control have had atrocious effects on the results of national growth.

Damn my multidudinous editing.

I'll repeat what may have been missed from my edits:

Obviously, a private business in a market economy has more incentive than the government to make the better economic decisions, though I fail to see how a form of communism where workers owned the production (and elected a president to run the company) would cause them to make economic decisions different than that of a private business.