Ideas are not owned by single people. That is the greed that grendelsbane is talking about. The one thing you should always realize if you have a good idea is that if you didn't come up with it, someone else would. It is exactly that attitude, that "I came up with it so its mine", thats stops human progress.
"Capitilism works for one reason it thrives on every humans pinchant for greed"
We both have the benifit of living in the United States. But take a look worldwide and you will find out that capitalism DOESN'T work. Over 50% of the world's population doesn't make enough money to eat the minimum ammount of food to live on.
A woman in Vietnam working in a Nike sweatshop makes 20¢ an hour in American currency, working 6 days a week for 10 hours a day (thats about $50 a month). That 20¢ is $1.40 less than than the $1.60 required for food daily. Michael Jordan gets paye $20 million a year to advertise for Nike. If that woman lives to be 400000 years old, she will make as much money in her life as Michael Jordan makes in 1 year. Lets take a look at who is more important: that woman, who provides you your shoes that keep your feet warm and protected so you can live a more happy life, or Michael Jordan, who has done nothing but entertain people. That woman is giving you the basics to live, yet under your idea of a fair and just economic system she is starved to death so some billionaire executive can get a few extra cents. But Zund, your right, he had a good idea with the whole sweatshop thing, and he deserves to benefit from their suffering- your democracy at work.
Lets look at some other great ideas that got people rich. John D. Rockefeller had a good idea- illegally form trusts, force railroads to give him rebates, and coorperate espionage. What a genius. How about Bill Gates. He's a smart one, who else could come up with the idea of forcing other companies out of business to get their products and claim them as your own. Amazing, I wish I could come up with such great, if not criminal, ideas.
"workers utopia"? Communism is all about reality. Capitalism is the utopian idea. Capitalism makes the conjecture that all human nature is good and no one will take advantage of the system and squeeze money out of the poor. There are no checks and balances to the capitalist economic system. Anyone who wants everything can take it. Its all about selfishness. Whoever is willing to take the money will get it. Communism is all about accepting the fact that people by nature are greedy, and stopping it. You said it yourself, communism is about greed. As long as there is greed there will be people who squeeze the money and the life out of innocent people. But like you said, it makes capitalism work- for the top 1% of the world who controls most of the world's wealth. You appear to be confusing Communism with Utopian Socialism, too very different ideas. I can see you really don't know communist or socialist theories well, and I would suggest you don't criticize what you don't understand.
As for your patriotism, I can see clearly your type of person, a true patriot, for better or for worse. I can have nothing but admiration for someone who really feels the nationalism of their country, something that is rare today. However, I also see you are one easily affected by propoganda, the faithful servant of a government no matter what it does. A patriot should not be someone who serves a nation, but someone who serves the ideals of that nation. You clearly are a strong supporter of the ideals of peace, liberty, freedom, etc., that the United States stands for. But are you aware of the changes in our government since its inception? Our government is now one of the most powerful in the western worlds. The U.S. is one of the most frequent human rights violators of the first world nations. As we speak, we have liberals trying to take away our right to defend ourselves with guns, and conservatives trying to strip our freedom of religion. Is that freedom? Ask yourself, why did our government want to stop the spread of communism so badly? Why did the government illegally have communists leaders in America beaten and killed in during the Red Scares? Perhaps it is because the people in our government are the very ones that own stock in companies like Nike- they are the source of the problem, and a communist revolution would get rid of their grip on the laborers. So as a patriot, do you serve them, or justice? Just because you happen to have the luck to be a citizen in a wealthy nation gives you the right to live at the expense of half the world? If you had the bad luck to be born in Vietnam and started working in a sweathshop at 4 years old, I bet you would love capitalism then.
Capitalism is nothing more than an economic front for a plutocracy, exactly what we have in America. How many congressmen do you think are middle class or poor? Andrew Jackson is the one and only one president we have ever had that wasn't upper class. Funny how he turned out to be one of our best- he disposed of the corrupt wealthy national bank, and was the only president to pay off our national debt. I guess the capitalist idea that the wealthy are better people doesn't work.
Also worthy of note is that you seem to misunderstand the communist period of French history. France was at peace during the communist period. Everyone had work, and the people were happy. Once the economy was back on its feet, the people abandoned the communist workshops, and surprise!, hell broke loose again. Funny how history seems to constantly vindicate Marx's ideas.
And I also think you should look up the word Republic. A Republic is by definition a democracy, which uses representatives. Saying we arn't a democracy but a republic is like saying "we don't have a government, we have a federal government".
Sebu, I agree with you, people like Stalin are monsters, but they arn't communist. That is a huge misconception. People like Stalin and Lenin liked to use the name communist to try to trick the people into thinking they were for the workers, but in no way was the Soviet, Chinese, Cuban, or any other so called "communist" government of today a communist government.
As for the idea centralized economies always fail- lets look at the soviet union. As I said before, not communist, but a centralized economy will do. Under the soviet system, the economy, while not that strong (Russia never had a strong economy), was not failing. Now that they have reverted to capitalism, they are in serious debt and have a terrible economy. THere are lot of U.S. propoganda about the soviet economy too. For example, in the "famine" in the 60's and 70's when supposedly there was mass hunger in the soviet union, the average person in the soviet union still had 6x more food than the average person in the United States.