Most companies don't succeed, leaving the exploiting capitalist pigs with a loss.

Small business owners are not capitalists, as they often have to work, and tend to have few employees. Big companies often survive just fine, and routinely get bailed out by the government (the capitalists hate!) when they start wavering or screw up. The term "too big to fail" has a very concrete basis.

And yet for as long as the company operates, the workers get wages.

Wages are often reduced if the company is making less money, or even when the company is making good money. Then there are lay-offs and outsourcing. Workers do not benefit from this deal nearly as much as the capitalists do despite doing all the work, and do not need capitalists to run the industries.

Even without considering that without companies to work on, there wouldn't be paid jobs.

There would be industries run by workers to produce for the benefit of all, each receiving the full fruit of their labor in exchange for their share of the work, with no need for paychecks or wages that entitle to them to but a fraction of the value of the wealth they produce.

There would be self employment, I guess, but self employment, even in manual labor, is entrepreneurial, not hired labor in the sense company's employees are.

Yea.

Because what the 1% has is the peak of material advancement?

What the 1% has is ownership of the industries, which rightfully belongs to the 100%.

Because for 100% to have something, it has to arrive at all first, even if it arrives at different times to different people?

It can easily be distributed to everyone just as everything is produced.

Because what the 1% has is the peak of material advancement? Because for 100% to have something, it has to arrive at all first, even if it arrives at different times to different people?

Poverty is the default state.

In the days before the capacity to produce an abundance for all was a reality, maybe. Now there is no reason for poverty to be the default state, but rather abundance.

It's entirely normal and should be expected to measure the most removed from it as what the system can achieve.

The system of capitalism is designed to achieve keeping the wealthy in a powerful and privileged position, and the vast majority in the position of doing the work to maintain that privilege for them. In a truly Marxian system, the abundance modern technology allows us to produce today would go to everyone, not just a privileged owning few, and everyone would work to contribute to that wealth production, not just the vast majority who receive a fraction of it in return.

True enough that this doesn't measure how removed from it are the rest, but it is a good start in spite of that.

A "good start" usually amounts to remaining in the class you were born in, because it's not possible to purchase the huge, massively expensive factories to compete with the capitalists.

England was feudal sometime. British North America was never feudal.

The United Colonies were controlled by feudal England, and this occurred in the latter days of feudalism. The distance America had from England allowed its emerging mercantile capitalists, who were then mostly small-scale artisans, to finally turn on feudalism and make capitalism happen. But it did not have fully developed capitalism until America as we know it was established, and the colonies were fully independent of the English monarchy. The American and French Revolutions signaled the final death throes of feudalism and the full emergence of capitalism, with the capitalists, rather than aristocratic feudal lords and the church, controlling the economic order.

Would you say those unsocialist measures were a step in the right or the wrong direction?

Capitalism was a necessary step in the right direction prior to the Industrial Revolution, which made the next step possible... much as feudalism was before capitalism. And ancient chattel slavery before feudalism; and primitive communism before that.

Why can you not own it?

I won't own what I never said. I am glad to own my previous statement, which is something I have always maintained.

If Bernie was the Democratic candidate, versus someone more free-marketer than Trump on the GOP, would you vote against him because he was not socialist enough?

I think what you're asking me is this: Do I think social democracy is an interim step between capitalism and bona fide Marxian socialism?

I'll try to make this as succinct as I can. In actuality, social democracy was formed to save capitalism by making it less exploitative and rein in the worst of its excesses on the working class and the environment... i.e., to preserve the market system with these social programs and regulations, not as an intentional step towards eventually transforming it into a true classless, stateless, and moneyless society.

I didn't consider Bernie to be "not socialist enough." I considered him to be not socialist at all. Social democracy in practice since the early 20th century has never actually led to Marxian socialism, as it was intended to throw sufficient bones to the workers that they would allow class divisions to remain intact in exchange for a steady supply of these bones from the capitalist class.

I do, however, believe that for as long as it lasts/has lasted in any given nation, social democracy is a better and more compassionate iteration of capitalism. It has always "failed" in the past not because it isn't stable, but because the capitalists always invariably regroup and work on ways to dismantle all of the reforms over time because the class retains a disproportionate degree of power over the workers, and while they're distracted and pacified by these reforms, the capitalists work on incrementally bribing bureaucrats and pushing propaganda and various hysterias to get workers to agree with the dismantling of the reforms, and even to consider these reforms "evil." Small, third world nations who attempt social democracy are particularly vulnerable to this, because the G8 nations are quick to offer clandestine assistance to more business-minded insurgencies in exchange for being part of the new ruling elite following the coup.

The New Deal reforms in America eventually got largely dismantled because starting in the 1970s, America had lost the competitive market edge it had following World War II, along with the huge military investments it had thanks to the proliferation of the Cold War. This increased global competition between different national markets hit Europe, Canada, and Australia quite hard too, giving their respective ruling classes license to try and dismantle as much of their social democratic programs as possible, often with help and encouragement from America. It didn't succeed as much in these places as dismantling the New Deal programs in America did because in those countries the working class is not as quick to put their material interests aside in favor of ideological hype, as is the case with America. Ayn Rand would never have had the success in these other nations as she did in America, so she knew she had to start here.

Wouldn't you consider him a step in the direction you want, even if it isn't long enough for you?

Because I hold out hope that social democrats of today can be convinced to become Marxian socialists in the future--that is, if they can be convinced to turn on capitalism completely before the capitalists and their supporters convince them to turn on the social democratic reforms first--then the answer is yes.

Regarding Bernie specifically, though, I always knew he was a shill for the Democrats, and his admitting from the onset that he would support Hellary "if" she won the primary was a huge red flag (I knew, as well as you did, that the conclusion of the primary was pre-determined by the DNC and the "super delegates"). His hawkish foreign policy platform, which contradicted his progressive domestic policies, was another red flag.

Hence, my support for the Greens. Jill Stein is merely social democratic, but more so than Bernie was. The Greens also have a strong element that wants to repudiate capitalism entirely, but the recent mission statement of their national platform disavowing capitalism was vague enough that different elements of the Greens took it to mean different things. This includes those who call themselves "democratic socialists", who want to keep the market system intact, but have the industries and services be owned by all the workers, who compete with workers of other factories within a market system rather than cooperating with them as a unified whole to produce an abundance for all. They refer to this as a "socialist market," which is really oxymoronic compared to the Marxian conception of socialism as a system with no market whatsoever.

Sorry I made this a bit long, but I wanted to be clear to you.

My time to No True Scotsman. Unregulated kapitalism has never existed. :D

True, but here's the problem. The United States has much less regulation than the other G8 nations, who all have much more substantial social democratic programs, including universal health care. Though American capitalism isn't fully unregulated, it's by far the closest thing to it in the First World, and the results have not been more prosperity for the working class and less crises for the system itself. So the effects of de-regulation have been observed.

Well at least you admit that.

I can certainly praise your honesty!

Ha ha! You knew I was being ironic, Captain!

Whoa there!

Aren't you forgetting someone?

If I forgot someone, then obviously I wouldn't remember who that someone was, right?

Don't you think the workers who made the pen with which you wrote deserve their share too?

From the sales of the pen, yes. Not from the work that goes into a book. Then again, I didn't use any ink! And of course, a fully classless society would allow everyone who produced everything to obtain the full fruit of their labor, with no disparities that lead to people arguing who gets a "bigger" share. Nice try, though! :-)