I always heard it as Churchill talking about liberals and conservatives, not capitalists and socialists (or republicans). Apparently that’s a misattribution, too, though!
Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a 1799 journal that John Adams once said “A boy of 15 who is not a democrat is good for nothing, and he is no better who is a democrat at 20.” (semi-unreliable source)
Capitalism is an economic system, not a political or social system. It is fully compatible with economic interventionism. If you have a democracy and a capitalist economy, then everyone shares control over the economy - just not ownership.
It is ownership over the means of production that is the primary differentiation between Socialism and Capitalism.
If you believe that people should be allowed to own companies, tools, factories, property, infrastructure and/or raw materials, you are probably a Capitalist. If you believe all of them should be collectively owned, you are likely a Socialist.
If you believe some things should be privately owned and some should be collectively owned, you’re somewhere in between. Since few people believe in non-socialized infrastructure, outlawing non-profits and coops or privatizing everything, most of us fall in this camp.
Jefferson definitely wrote that Adams said that, but it needs a little context. In the quote, Jefferson claims Adams was talking about democrats vs. aristocrats. Basically Jefferson claims Adams said only the naive children believe that just anyone should be allowed to be vote and once they get older, they’ll come to realize only a hereditary ruling class should be be in charge.
Adams and Jefferson had a bitter political rivalry that started after Washington decided not to run for a third term. During the 1796 election, Adams’s camp claimed Jefferson was an atheist and a coward. Jefferson’s camp claimed Adams was a monarchist and pro-aristocracy. Jefferson continued to stoke the pro-aristocracy flames and ended up beating Adams in the 1800 election.
So while Jefferson might have written that Adams said that… mmmm… I’d be wary if he actually said it verbatim or Jefferson’s memory was a bit clouded from hating Adam’s guts and running against him for President at the time.
Of course there are other interpretations of the quote as well. For instance, since this was at the dawn of the democratic republic in America, only older people would even remember the aristocracy.
There wasn’t a Democratic Party in the U.S. until 1833, so I think we have our answer!
In 1799, there were the Federalist Party and the anti-Federalist Party, which was known as the Democratic-Republican Party (and was Jefferson’s political party!).
No, because democrat is not the same thing as “supporter of the Democratic Party”.
There’s more of them than you think. A significant number of rich folks love pollution because they hate natural commons.
I used to read the quote at face value. The idea that if you haven’t accepted capitalism by the time that you’re 40, you haven’t thought it through. At least according to the person who wrote or said it.
Now I read it more as a cynical satire on the stages people move through in their lives. “All your peers will give you a hard time if you’re for capitalism when you’re 20. But if you’re against capitalism when you’re 40, they will give you a hard time too.”
Maybe that’s a valid way of looking at the way peer groups affect views. Even if it is, I don’t think it’s a meaningful way of approaching the subject of capitalism vs. socialism.
Anyway, I don’t pull the quote out at all. 
I don’t think it is limited to rich folks. There are plenty of people who intentionally pollute because they’re ideologues. Of course, if you tell them someone is going to build an oil refinery or hell, a dump upwind from them, even the most laissez-faire capitalist will suddenly be all about the natural commons.
It’s absolutely a jobs program.
A really shitty very anti-social jobs program.
But ya know… its better to be loved then feared, but feared works. For nation-state politics.
It ruins a bunch of innocent people’s lives, and is a scourge on humanity. Ya know… killing people and blowing shit up.
Spending Six trillion tax dollars on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s a great deal of money. Enough to buy Afghanistan and most the best parts of Iraq. Enough to create a flying Kurdistan and give them power armor and let them reign indiscriminate justice on our enemies. And have enough left over to reform campaign finance, and fund schools and social programs. Its SIX TRILLION DOLLARS!
Wasting it. It doesn’t produce six trillion dollars worth of stuff… not goods or services. It destroys more shit. And for what. Power?
Money. To steal 4% off the top of a cost plus government contract, then destroy the lives of servicepeople. Send them home. To take the war home with them.
So that’s pretty horrific jobs program. But it does come with the shittiest government healthcare system ever… the VA.
All that money on those programs, particularly SS, doesn’t disappear upon being issued. huge chunks of commerce depend on it as much as the people that receive it, and around and around it goes.
Lots of that military cash goes up in smoke, gets concentrated to a few, putting aside the mayhem+cost of.
Social Security isn’t exactly the government spending money on programs for citizens. It’s separate from the general budget, it has it’s own exclusive funding mechanism, and while the government does have the Social Security Trusts loan it money (which it pays back via Treasury Bonds), the money in the Social Security Trusts is not available for congress to spend on anything else.
as if someone in the government really loves the dark blue hue. can we define dark blue as colour for education spending?
Anarchy in the UK isn’t just a Sex Pistols song…
The UK has no written constitution. Can the Queen dissolve Parliament? We don’t actually know. If she is popular and the government is not, and there is good cause, then I reckon she could. Do the military owe loyalty to the Crown or to Parliament or to ‘the people’ whoever they are? Again, if the mob marched on Buckingham Palace, they would defend it, but they would not fire on the crowd if the Duke of Edinburgh asked them to do. Well, that’s my guess, but we don’t know.
The UK has a state religion, with the Queen as head of church. That does not make us a theocracy, but 26 bishops do sit in the House of Lords, which may seem a bit weird.
Oh, yes, the House of Lords? Isn’t that almost gone? Not really. Though the papers delight in reporting the odd batty hereditary peer that wants to know about UFO secrets: they do a lot of useful work in actually drafting sound laws, which is something the House of Commons skimps because they are busy angling for soundbites and headlines.
There is the European Parliament. This is our conscience - it gets us to address Human Rights, Global Warming, clean beaches and other sorts of thing our own rulers might neglect because it was not cheap or convenient to do.
There are also political parties, and local government. There are emerging computer-based bodies such as 38 Degrees. There are the traditional forces of the media; balanced by the BBC. It’s all a glorious mess. And some of us like it that way.
Anarchy is drinking Earl Grey tea, eating Digestive Biscuits, and waiting for the rain to stop? Our Album Covers Totally Lied To Us, Dude.
Reading so many posts about socialism from people who are quite obviously not socialists and know so little about it is like playing sheet music written by people who neither know music theory nor care to play an instrument: it can be done, but it isn’t pretty.
But there are some good posts in the mix up there.
Funny thing, but people saying they do not support capitalism usually do. How do you not support capitalism these days? Move into a cave? And I’m not even talking about the obvious cases who take anti capitalism as a fashion statement and mail order their choice of Che Guevara, Dalai Lama, or Osama bin Laden paraphernalia.
How about “I do not freely choose to support capitalism, it is forced on me if I choose to survive”?
See that chart is MISLEADING on what we REALLY spend money on. You posting it is rather disingenuous, IMHO.
That chart is DISCRETIONARY spending, vs what is MANDATORY spending.
Most of the social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, etc are in the MANDATORY budget. They have a set amount they MUST allocate to it. The discretionary budget is what congress then hashes for the other departments. So the fact the Military is mostly discretionary I guess is GOOD, because we can more easily lower it. But when you compare OVERALL the budget, it is only like 16%, which I still think is high, but dwarfed compared to other programs.
From the site your image comes from:
Here is how it breaks down Mandatory vs Discretionary.
You Already posted the Discretionary spending, here is the mandatory spending. Note no military (unless it is hiding in the OTHER sliver).
And again, the chart I posted with total spending, but from the site you linked. 60% of the budget already goes to SS, unemployment, and Health Care.
If we cut the military budget in half, and put the other half toward university tuition, it would be about $90,000 for each kid expected to graduate high school this year. At a lot of universities, this is 4+ years worth of tuition. Not every kid who graduates high school will choose to go to university, there would be money left over for adults who wish to go back to university each year we only spend $300B on war mongering.
Those saying there’s no way we can afford free university are probably trying to protect their plush military supply contracts.
Social market economy seems to have worked decently for this one weird country.
Could be and always should have been better, but looks good in international comparison.
They slowly get away from making the holders of capital pay their share there too.
Without “Capitalism” you can’t afford enough “Socialism”.
Those two are not opposites.
Apples and oranges. But you want to make a good fruit-salad.
