Socialism vs. Capitalism, again...

[RogueLeader]

If someone is in a coma then they will be given medical treatment and supported until they can work. Obviously you can't expect someone who has been injured to work.

 

[Donnellizer]

Originally posted by Domino
Darwin's idea of evoultion and the rise of the powerfull over the weak is a sad but very true rule by which almost everything in this world goes by.

Close, but Darwin clearly meant survival of one SPECIES over another. Did he mean one businessman against another? No. That is known as social darwinism, which Darwin himself never even spoke of. It is not one human against one human, it is all humans against everything else. In other words, the strongest SPECIES survives. Not the strongest MEMBER of a species.

Social Darwinists argue that the poor should be left poor, as this would take away from the rich, thus making the human race weaker. Does that really make sense? If the wealth was spread equally, their "strength" (to the materialistic; money) would remain equal. So, obviously a social darwinist is not looking after the human race as he would claim to be, he is merely looking after the first world. Now, wouldn't humans be better suited over other species if we were all at an equal level of possession? It's only logic.

 

["Sp!ke"]

The one thing I dont understand about Communism is how it is to be implemented in to society...why would, for example, Bill GAtes want to share all his gold with his fellow microsofters when there is no one to stop him from keeping it...

 

[RogueLeader]

He wouldn't. That's why you kill him.

 

["Sp!ke"]

"He wouldn't. That's why you kill him."

Is that a bad joke? I would also like to know how you would kill him. The state would protect him, and you dont abolish the state very easily either, why would the politicians give up to a handfull of anarchists, because you are surely outnumbered, despite your comment on "a few million commies in the states" i doubt a few millions would do, and I doubt even more that they are all ready to fight a battle for their "freedom" vs an superior force in every possible way...Oh wait you just kill them, right?

 

[RogueLeader]

The state would protect him. That is what the state does, protect the powerful from the freedom fighters. For that reason the workers must take the state first. They destroy the state and replace it with their own. It may seem unlikely to happen, but historically it has happened with regularity. The Paris workers after the Franco-Prussian War, the Germans workers after WWI, and the Russian workers at that same time, have all done it.

 

["Sp!ke"]

"The Paris workers after the Franco-Prussian War, the Germans workers after WWI, and the Russian workers at that same time, have all done it."

Is it just me or is this a pattern I see: Fragile goverments with zero support from its minions, and also zero control over its minions(except for the military power over them,which wasnt very great either...), the US is NOT a fragile goverment, the us have enough agencies (FBI, CIA, SS and so on...)(New discovery: Secret Service is the US version of the germen SS...or maybe not)) to keep its minions under control and can easily discover and dissolve any extreme freedom organizations before they become a real threat against the goverment.
Simply put: Its not going to happen in a country with a strong goverment, or any country with a strongly US influenced goverment as the US will gladly help third world nations maintain dictators and other facist regimes...

And do you go off line very often? It gets annoyng not knowing if ill get a response...

 

[RogueLeader]

Germany and Russia were very authoritarian governments. When a government is powerful, it is a sign of its inner-weakness. The only time a government needs power is when it knows it is in a time of crisis and no longer has support.

Proletarian revolutions also benefit from the advantage that the bourgeois state needs proletarians for its coercion. The military is made up of working class people. If they decided to join the masses, the state is ****ed.

 

[jaunty]

And Cholo Grande, all i can say is HELLO CAPTAIN ANARCHY! (insider)

Indeed though, Goat is right. We'll never acheive anarchy. Too many people are too greedy and too power hungry for that. I would like to mention something though, that is an example of how communism can work.

In Sydney, there is a suburb, basically dominated by what I call coffe-shop communists (or Captain Anarchy, if you understand it ), they're posers, but that isn't the point. Point is, there aren't any cops there. Because we kicked them out.

Another thing that isn't there, is crime. The crime in the area is limited basically to traffic offenses. There's no drug dealers, no whores, nothing. The reason there aren't any, is because the community got together and decided that any of the above would be beaten out of Newtown (said suburb).

It works perfectly. Now lets assume Newtown to be a country, and the pigs to be a govt. Eye-opening, no? So thus, one of the many steps to communism, and one of the biggest (abolitition of the state) has been achieved, and worked.

You don't need police, you don't need the state. Wake up.

 

[Donnellizer]

Jaunty, you got to have the police! Because if you don't have the police, you'd be killing each other in the streets!

 

["Sp!ke"]

"Germany and Russia were very authoritarian governments. When a government is powerful, it is a sign of its inner-weakness. The only time a government needs power is when it knows it is in a time of crisis and no longer has support.

Proletarian revolutions also benefit from the advantage that the bourgeois state needs proletarians for its coercion. The military is made up of working class people. If they decided to join the masses, the state is ****ed."

Are we forgetting the fact that the majority dont want communism?

 

[jaunty]

You're forgetting why the majority don't want communism; They don't know what it is.

They've been taught that communism is fascism with free food, not that it's essentialy an anarchistic society where everybody is equal, and everybody is treated well.

 

["Sp!ke"]

"They've been taught that communism is fascism with free food, not that it's essentialy an anarchistic society where everybody is equal, and everybody is treated well."

I know, thats what i thought until my first encounter with RogueLeader a few months ago...But school isnt gonna teach us anything but: communism = "fascism with free food" so still the majority isnt gonna support it and any attempt to enlighten that majority is going to be pretty futile...since they "know" that its evil...

 

[jaunty]

States get brought down, it's what they do. The world will learn one day, and they'll learn purely because they have to.

Eventually, we'll run out of resources, and only the über-rich will be able to live comfortably, then people will realise where they went wrong, and then they'll change their ways.

 

[BobTheFearlessFish]

i have only skim read the rest of this post, ill go back to it after this, so i apologise if this has already been said, though i dont think it has.
the thing that i dislike about capitalism that makes communism appealing is that although people may say that capitalism gives rewards to those who deserver them it does not, it gives rewards to those who can better exploit others within the capitalist system. in communism you get payed for what work you do, in capitalism you get money for the work that others do, bill gates doesnt make however many million a day because he works 24/7. he makes that much because he exploits those who work for him. in a very simplified analogy communism would be getting rid of bill gates and splitting the profit that he would make between all the workers in microsoft.

 

[RogueLeader]

Are we forgetting the fact that the majority dont want communism?

Everybody (in the proletariat) wants communism. All workers are naturally socialist. Workers want the things socialism brings: good benefits, shorter working hours, better working conditions, higher wages, and job security. Most of the good conditions we have today in the U.S. (minimum wage and the 8 hour work day to name a couple) were the results of the Socialist Party's program. The reason workers do not join the socialist movement is they either do not know anything about socialism or are misinformed (just look at all the people who think communism is totalitarian because that bourgeoisie Uncle Sam says so), or are simply apolitical.

 

[Cholo Grande]

Eventually, we'll run out of resources, and only the über-rich will be able to live comfortably, then people will realise where they went wrong, and then they'll change their ways.

Just wrong. It's an impossible scenario that could never happen.

Everybody (in the proletariat) wants communism. All workers are naturally socialist. Workers want the things socialism brings: good benefits, shorter working hours, better working conditions, higher wages, and job security. Most of the good conditions we have today in the U.S. (minimum wage and the 8 hour work day to name a couple) were the results of the Socialist Party's program. The reason workers do not join the socialist movement is they either do not know anything about socialism or are misinformed (just look at all the people who think communism is totalitarian because that bourgeoisie Uncle Sam says so), or are simply apolitical.

I don't disagree that most workers want these things, but you need to remember that most workers have a 6th grade idea of how an ecconomic system works. Look at California's "deregulation" fiasco. The state set limits on what a power broker could charge for KW/h. This was done because of the fear of rising cost to consumers. The "logical" solution? Cap them. Ok then we have Clinton who basicly halted all expansion in regard to production. What happened was a decrease in supply on a massive scale.. the power companies were strapped because they didn't have the funds needed to do the rush expansion necessary to just keep up with demand.

This isn't the same point, but a similar one that can lead toward the same logical conclusion. State interverntion in business CAN cripple it. Everyone has this picture of large companies as these HUGELY profitable enterprises. Federal regulations and tax structure (not to mention unions) have caused most of these businesses to operate on VERY low profit margins. Just for example, gas retailers make an average of 2% profit on the gasoline they sell. I'm not talking about after rent. That's profit after COST. That's why mom and pop operations in that area are dwindling where they used to be the main place you'd buy fuel. More an more stations are owned by the actual oil company because a link in the chain between manufacturer and consumer has to be removed to make it a worthwhile venture. This is a VERY simplified explanation of this and I could write you pages on each of the underlying causes, but it boils down to federal regulations and taxes have eaten into their profits so deep that it has HURT the small business owner.

Business needs to be free to persue profits. They money earned by business is payed to employees. Employees of a successfull highly profitable company have larger salaries on average, position vs position. This money translates into consumer spending that feeds companies that have to hire more workers to meet demand that feeds more money into the economy, ect ect. Demonizing corporations is VERY popular with the general populace. It's so easy... they're rich you're not. This countries own recent history shows that heavier taxes on the upper incomes slows the ecconomy. Companies will cut jobs to maintain profits, less workers, less money being spent and right back up the chain to hit the richest double. But a corporation doesn't take losses in a direct sense, the stockholders do. Which in your communist system would be the workers themselves.

Look at Delta Airlines. The union pushed and pushed for more money for pilots. They got it, then they asked for more... never mind that they are the highest paid pilots in the industry. The union continued to push for money, after all what worker doesn't want more money. Well the airlines hit hard time and people are losing jobs now. Take a look at (might have the airline wrong) SouthWest Airlines. They had a much lower payscale compared to other airlines... I think they're not unionized.. not sure. Anyway, I think they are also the only airline to have not had MASSIVE layoffs. The moral? What the worker thinks is in their best interests is not always best for them. They shouldn't presume to know how to run the company. Even without the recession and the terrorist crap, if the unions continued ot get the pay hikes that they wanted the prices would rise, less people could afford travell and eventualy the layoffs would have happened anyway, just maybe at a slower pace.

Ok that's alot of crap to say that government manipulation of companies (or ownership) is bad for an ecconomy. All current countries (that I know of) who use such systems suffer because of it. A rich country would not just be suddenly poor, but the ecconomy would not flourish as it would under pure capitalism.

 

[RogueLeader]

You are still arguing against state capitalism, not socialism. Socialism only wants governmeny ownership insofar as the government as we know it is destroyed and replaced with one that is equivalent to the people. The state in its current form is a seperate entity that rules over us. To give something that is unaccountable ownership of the things we depend on, like the economy, would be moronic. But in true socialism the people themselves are the state, and therefore state ownership is community ownership.

 

["Sp!ke"]

"Everybody (in the proletariat) wants communism. All workers are naturally socialist. Workers want the things socialism brings: good benefits, shorter working hours, better working conditions, higher wages, and job security. Most of the good conditions we have today in the U.S. (minimum wage and the 8 hour work day to name a couple) were the results of the Socialist Party's program. The reason workers do not join the socialist movement is they either do not know anything about socialism or are misinformed (just look at all the people who think communism is totalitarian because that
bourgeoisie Uncle Sam says so), or are simply apolitical."

They may want "good benefits, shorter working hours, better working conditions, higher wages, and job security" but they dont want communism cos thats just evil...may i suggest a name change from communism too "everybody-richism" or something like that because youll never get communism in such a well educated nation...seriously(well half serious considering i havnt slept for at least 30hours...) communism will never happen in the US simply bcause of people like Gates and thousands of others that live "the American dream" which for me in general means: Being better and richer than your neighbour, and they like feeling that they are worth more than their fellow beings, I know people like it simply because Iam richer than (nearly) everybody else around here and I like it and I wouldnt want it any other way.
I dont think people can handle being just the same as everybody else...dont bother responding if it sounded weird, it might have been....


Btw.on the education bit, I heard that harry potter got re named from "The Philosophers stone" to "The Sorcerors stone" since US kids were among the only ones in the world not understanding the meaning of the word "Philosopher"...

 

[TheViper]

Sorry I've been too busy to participate. Hope to jump in later.