Why capitalism?

Bold assumptions, m6m. Care to give a logical connection about any of them?

 

OK, Companiero, I won't talk again about the politics of the Balkans before WW2, because here we our views are clearly opposed. Indeed, prior to 1938 I see Romanian democracy as a functional democracy. Of course you can mentain your opinions, but so do I.

About the internal liberation from Antonescu's dictatorship (I still have an hesitation to qualify that regim as fascist, but OK, this is not important for our debate), I think it would be realisable even without the victories of the Red Army (the case of Cuza's dictatorship in 1864-1866, who was overthrown with no external pressure or contribution), but OK, it's very possible that the dictatorship would have lasted up to the natural death of the dictator, like it happened in Spain. On the other hand more likely is to asume that Carol's II regim would have lasted (the protests of September 1940 who caused his downfall werea direct result of the prior events of that year, which are a part of WW2).

OK, maybe I messinterpeted your appreciation about what was going on in the Balkans and the rise of dictatorships, but you cann't denie that it was a genral tendencie in Europe and from this point of view, we cann't treat our region as a special case.

But, you also missenterprated some of my asertions. Remeber I said "powerfull development" of industry in the '30s and not "powerfull industry". It's not the same, so I wasn't clearly talking about Britain. What I was saying it was that immediatly prior to the war the industry with national capital was rapidly growing. I wasn't saying we were then an industrial power already. Far from it.

Well, you did some homework, but you exagerate I think out of polemical reasons. First of all Romania din't gave up more then half of its teritory in 1940. Yes, USSR took entirely Basarabia (Moldova of today) and Northern Buconvina, but Hungary received only Northern Transylvania (not the entire province, as you sugest) and Bulgaria Southern Dobrudza (again, not the entire province). That's a third of the national territory at most. And it wasn't exactly without fighting. Well, this is just a detail, but when the Red Army entered in the city of Hertza, which wasn't historicly a part of Basarabia or Bucovina, the Romanian troops there resisted. And the only teritory truely conceded was Southern Dobrudza. Romania and Bulgaria signed a treaty about this in 7th September 1940 and procedeed to a population exchange. In the case of Basarabia and Northern Bucovina, the Soviets requested those by two ultimatums, threatening with war. Before accepting, the Government tryed to gain the support of the allyes. As the Little Antanta existed no longer after the occupation of Czechoslovakya, and France, the main ally, was defeated, they try to obtein the support of the Balkan Antanta (Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey and Romania), but they declined. Also, the Government tried to gain Germany's support, but their response was to accept. What the Government did was to accept to evacuate the army and the administration, but not to recognize the new borders. Romania keapt its right to act when the conditions will be right, and exactly this happened in June 1941. The war was generaly approuved up to the moment when Antonescu decided to continue the advance east of the Dnister. Only then the Oposition (ilegal but active) started to disaprouve the war and some ten generals resigned as a protest. Northern Transylvania was given to Hungary by Germany and Italy. Ribbentrop and Ciano, the foreign affairs ministers of the two fascist powers, met at Viena on 30th August 1940 and dictated Romania to evacuate this teritory. It was a punishment for the antifascist polithics of Romania from the '30s and again the Government accepted the evacuation of army and administration, but nothing more. And history repeated in August 1944, when Romania declared war both to Germany and Hungary and up to the end of October liberated Northern Transylvania.

OK, this is history, but your point, sorry... As you can see Romania participated to WW2 exactly to liberate its territories, not to fight international communism or international fascism. Many thousands of people dyed on both fronts to restablish the 1918 borders. If you want statistics I can mention you that, looking at the human loses in WW2, Romania had the second place in the coalition against USSR, after the third Reich, and the fourth place in the alliance against Germany, after USSR, USA and UK (the fact that Romania wasn't recognized as a cobeligerant at the Paris Peace Conference in 1946-1947 is due to the Soviets who, if that status would be recognized, would have been forced to decrease their demands of war damages). So, with one exception, Romania didn't conceded its territories, in 1940 it was only about porsponing the reaction. The Gigurtu government and Carol II thought that the survival of the Romanian state is more important (it was obvious that a war against USSR could result in the distruction of the entire state). Well, it's a whole debate here if their decision was right or wrong, and I personally think that an immediate resistance would have been a better option on a longer therm.

But, actualy I never said that Romania in the '30s was a military power. I was talking about industry. If you see a direct link between, let me remind you that a highly industrialised society like Czechoslovakya gave up its territories in 1938 without a fight and later, in March 1939, was complitly invaded again without a single gunshot. Remember how easily a great power of the time like France was conquered, with very few real fighting in June 1940. On the other hand, Poland and Finland, who were far from being true military powers or even highly industrialised, resited bitterly to their invaders.

You continue to insist with similarities between Romania and South America. Look, both regions used to be very rural and agricultural, but the similarities end here. In South America, the great landowners increased their power since the independence, they eliminated the initial revolutionaries who were trying to build true capitalistic societies and took control of the state. And using the state power, they started to spoil farmers of their lands to inlarge their properties. Also, they blocked national investments in industry to prevent the rise of a real capitalistic class. In countries like Romania, the great landowners started to loose their power with the 1848 revolution. The lower part of their class turned into an urban bourgeoisie, developing other activities then agriculture and promoting the reforms I mentioned you. As a result, after the 1919-1921 land reformation, the great landowners stoped being a force in the society and also we can notice the rise of an industry which wasn't dedicated only to the extraction of raw materials. As much as you try to find similarities, the two evolutions are actualy in reverse. And about Russia, the resemblance with South America today is a social, not echonomical one: both regions have a very rich upper class and a very poor lower class, with very thin or no middle class. In Russia this is a direct result of communism, who redistributed poverty, and so in the '90s very few managed to becaome rich, while the rest got even poorer then they were before.

Anyway, beyond the fact you keep insisting to aply "raw capitalism" to a country who went directly from communism to a pseudo-capitalistic controled market, you're doing a good analysis about monopols and oligopols and the role of the state in oligarchic societies. So, do you remember Yukos? The way that Putin took control of the company and started to sell it piece by piece to its main competitor, who is about to become a monopol? Gather more information about the evolution of Russia since 2000 and you'll see what is going on. Putin initialy gave the impression he is against all the oligarchs, but soon became obvious he is acting according to a group of economical interests also oligarchic, but who support him in power. Yes, he eliminated some of them with good reason, there are no angels here, but in the same time he helped others. As an example, Gazprom is the great beneficiary of the disruption of Yukos. About the democracy, you're a little funny. You cann't accept there was democracy in the Balkans in the '30s, but you consider Russia a true democracy! First of all, Russians are the most unlucky nation of Europe. They never experienced demcracy in their history, no matter how imperfect that democracy would have been. Building a functional democracy is not so easy. I won't denie Russians didn't attempt it, but it was overwelmed by corruption during Yeltsin and is undermined by Putin now. Didn't you notice that in a huge country who's only hope of good development of all its regions is federalism, Putin centralised the state administration and decreased local authonomy? Didn't you observe that a victim of the war against the corrupted of Yeltsin was by "chance" the free media? Have you payed attention to the last presidential elections? None of the important party leaders, the usual candidates like Zhiuganov or Zhirinovski, didn't run this time. Why?

Well, your rethorical question... What "bloody capitalists" in Russia after 75 years of communist rule? Those guys rised from the socialist society, they weren't created in that second, and they took over the economy by corruption and sometimes even worse methods. What I was saying is that communism made that possible by stoping most of the people to acumulate capital. They got out poor, so they had no way to take control on economy and stop the few ones who knew how to use the system in their advantage. And also the beaurocracy who was corrupted to let that happen was the communist one. Remember, there was no revolution in Russia, the beaurocrats stayed in their chairs during the whole thing.

Look, democracy is the best type of government because it prouved its superiority during time. Many great minds, like Plato or Marx, were against it, but their model of society when it was tryed in real life prouved much worse. Well, in a way Marx is the subject here. Plato, with the "Republic" is a precursor of facism...

About private investments versus state direct control of companies, again, which society was more efficient?

 

Bold?
Yes, but only because we've spent so much effort to bury it so deep.

Bringing up the sex and death of our motivations after so much time repressing them is an unusual occurance.

Though I'm certain you've run across some part of this before.

The stress connection:
It's believed that our ancesters fell under a stressfull climatic shift.
Creating and reinforcing behavioral patterns that strongly motivate us.

Fear is the main characteristic of stressed behavior.

The connection between stress and the fear-behavior of Primates is ever present.

As is the connection between fear and our physical biology ever present.

With Fear, the anus restricts and your gripped with a helpless need for strength.

That's a mind-body asscociation; an anally preoccupied need for strength.

Submitting to the will of a Leader becomes a symbolic act of homo-sexuality.

The Leadership structure becomes a sybolic sexual hierarchy

A homo-erotic pattern of behavior.

There are no mere coincedences...
It's no coincedence that we begin whinning, and grasping 'mine, mine,,give me, give me, during the anal-stage of our sexual development.

The need to own, control, organize and aquire comes from a pattern of association with grasping anal-retentive pleasures.

A homo-erotic pattern.

Also, it's no mere coincedence that Civilization is hierarchical, or that it begins as a response to the migratory stress of that same climatic shift.

Nor is it a coincedence the Civilized Man is considered a stiff-lay.

That's ok, because we got all this:
The Business, Politics and Religion of Civilized Man is hierarchical, Sexual.
What we lack in courage we make up for with abundance.

 

m6m, I agree with your almost freudian view on human behaviour and society and I already knew that theory. With one exception, where I disagree, it's sexual, bot not necessarily homosexual. This interpretation in a way excludes females, who can be both the dominated and the dominant individuals. Actualy, things are more subtile (and by the way heterosexual relationship doesn't exclude anal sex).

 

I'm always happy to find some one who recognizes the Primate Sexual Hierarchy at work.

The latent homosexuality, and homo-erotic impulse is the only way I can explain anal-retentive behavior.

The female is the prime mover in this dynamic.
Patriarchal Civilization is the perfect expression of a Matriarchal momentum.

First, she is the 'canary in the mineshaft'; she's the first to be gripped by fear.

She's the first to become insecure, and the first to embrace a 'fight or flight' dualism in our collective sub-conscious.

In other words, She 'took the first bite of the apple'.

She was the first to seek the 'security and authority of the father symbol'.
The alpha-male.

She uses the competition for status within the alpha-male hierarchy as a guide to her 'natural selection'.

She's the top-dog.

She's the bitch that gave birth to Civilization. A face only a mother can love.

Subtle is being polite, down-right deceptive would be closer to the truth.

Deception is the most effective Primate strategy for sex and survival in a hierarchical environment.

Ego, The Master of Deception, must increase to handle increasingly deeper deceptions.

Sex and survival in an increasingly complex hierarchy takes an increasingly complex ego.

It deffinitely INcludes 'anal-sex'; what else can a female do with a Civilized-Man- Homo-eroticus!

 

Unfortunately Romania wasn’t isolated in political (and millitary, if u like) vacuum. In fact, it was involved so much, so that any independent internal developments not in accordance with the environment were impossible. Even Yugoslavia as an occupied land (where anti-fascist movement was very strong, maybe strongest in Europe) would have been unable to overthrow the fascist regimes without Germany being strained on all sides.



I’ll stick to Romanian policies just a moment more. It as a grave historical blunder to name Romanian participation in the Fascist coalition a “liberation war” (”..As you can see Romania participated to WW2 exactly to liberate its territories, not to fight international communism..”). The ideology of fascism is based exactly on such kind of rethorics of liberation, united, powerful nations and rest of the crap. No country participates in a war from noble reasons, unless it’s drawn into (which wasn’t btw). What you term liberation, another country will term occupation, such as the example with Transylvania. I know Hungary has historical pretensions over that land, which had maintained Hungarian culture for centuries, so I wouldn’t be too hasty in your place to conclude that “Hitler awarded Transylvania to Hungary in order to punish Romania for “anti-fascist” (puh-lease; maybe anti-German, but anti-fascist?!) policies in the 30’s”. Ppolitical decisions arent brought to punish someone, or from pure emotions; they always have a pragmatical background behind them. Its quite possible that Transylvania were transferred authorities to appease another (more important, more powerful) fascist regime with hawkish apetites.

On statistics, you have a very bad source if that’s how you think the numbers are. First of all, the UK and USA didn’t have nearly the number of loses that other countries have and they don’t rank even in the top 10 and much less top 3. Top ones are as follows: USSR (around 10 millions millitary and 10 millions civilians), China, Poland, then at forth comes Yugoslavia (300,000 soldiers and over 1 million civils), and I don’t know the rest of the list on the side of the Allies, but it sure aint Romania in the top. As for the Nazis, unless Romania lost more than around 2 million millitary, i think (as in the case of Japan), it would hardly rank number 2 even on the other list. But as they don’t have a point in the discussion, its better o leave it at that.



The reasons why Czecoslovakia and France fell so quickly rely more on other elements, than the invalidity of the notion that industry has anything to do with a country’s abillity to stand against an aggression, but I wont talk about that “trivia”.

Also, its evident that we can never agree on the degree and nature of pre-war economical development of Romania.

Again, you bring this point which is hard to sell even to 10yearolds.

Allow me to make an analogy. We live in a society which treats everybody equal in the face of court. If by some chance, that equal treatment was abused some day (in a moment of institutional weakness) by the very people, that such system was created to protect from, i.e. mob criminals, and they use the one-month trial period to plan an escape and succeed, can you then blame the system which treated everybody equally simply because it produced the equality, whose very existance, enabled inequality through abuse to happen? If yes, then you set impossible moral standards to follow, and illogical by the way, since the only system that would not stand guilty facing your goddess Justicia would be the one that presupposes inequality as the natural state. As a matter of fact, when I think about it, that’s the exact system that you are in favour of.

Agreed here. His nature of man of power in a capitalistic society dictates that. Yet still, he cant be compared to the “achievements” of his colleage Jeltzin, and while he manages corruption and injustice, at least he doesn’t mass-create it.

Democracy has nothing to do with the internal territorial organization of the country or corruption in government. By saying there is no democracy in Russia, it implies no free elections and no free speech, both of which are present in Russian society. Putin enjoyed a huge support during the last elections and was elected with the vast majority ,and that’s a fact, no matter how unhappy with their choice you are. After all, democracy isnt perfect and “occasionally” gives results that don’t go with how you think it should go.

As for your assesment that Russia should favor increased local authonomy, political decentralization would be a disaster for any multicultural nation-state which wants to keep its integrity and unity. Sure, the US are a good example, but their structure and national character are completely different than that of European nations. Decentralization, sure is a good thing, but transfer of legislative and executive ingerencies, working toward greater independence from central government, not more efficient management, which is exactly what “increased authonomy” implies, would only harm Russia in the long run. Otherwise, I wouldn’t like to speculate on the degree of Russian decentralization, because I’m not familiar with the laws.

Communism and capitalism arent types of government, they are social systems. In this sense, Marx wasn’t a true opposer of democracy, Lenin was. Creating an artificial juxtaposition between communism and democray has been a stepping stone for capitalist propaganda these past decades. and still is. Also, the Marxist model wasn’t tried in practice, not even Lenins model, only Stalins.

 

About the asses, the sex and all that goes with it, I’m not in the mood to start another long debate , so i’ll just state that such theories were (are) attractive to some rather occult circles of psychoanalists, and not the mainstream scientific community, mainly because they hopelessly lack a great deal of empirical confirmations. Add one, of you know (but please don’t let it be, of the type of, your personal latent homo desire to get penetrated from behind )

 

Psychoanalisys itself is concidered occult by the mainstream scientific community.

Nobody wants to be stripped naked exposing their hairy smelly Primate impulses.

Our egos work hard keeping our naked motivations hidden.

Hidden behind the drappery of Politics, Business, and Religion.

Try to empirically confirm that!!!

 

Umm, yeah, tis whole a one big conspiracy. Scientists of the world have plotted against the truth, because they care more about how groomed they are than to discover the unknown.

 

There's no scientific conspiracy, it's just Neuro-congnitive science is still very young.

Yet the link between animal biology and Neuro-cognitive patterns of behavior is indisputable.
We just don't know how to measure it well.
So it's still very intuitive, or occult as you call it.

What then is the importance of bringing up the subject of our Primal
impulses?
It's NOT to free us from chasing our Political, Economic, or Religious tails around in endless and predictable reactionary arguments over 'Why Capitalism'.
Rather, it's to remind us that, despite our ego's denials, our actions are motivated by the same impulses that one can observe in the Primate-House of any zoo.

 

Throughout this entire thread, no one has bothered to mention the concept of corporate welfare, which I think really should be a discussion. What many people on this site denounce as capitalism really isn't capitalism but corporate welfare-at least as I see it. True capitalism is based upon the idea that the market is open to virtually all and that the individual in question should be allowed to engage in that business with the least amount of government interference so long as he is not deceitful in his business practices. When true capitalism exists, pure competition rather than monopoly and oligopoly is the result.

By contrast, what happens when corporate welfare, corporatism and merchantilism are allowed to thrive is that when a business reaches a certain pinnacle and that business gets the government to pass laws that will in effect try to curttail further encroachments by smaller competitors into that market. In addition to laws passed, other perks such as donations to the corporation in the form of tax money also result. Corpoarte welfare is actually closer to totalitarianism than a free market would be.

Be sure to check out:
www.progress.org/banneker/cw.html
www.corporations.org/welfare/
www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/corplaw.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare
www.lpnc.org/issues/corporate.html
www.endgame.org/subsidies.html

 

Well, here we go again. This time, I'll start to use numbers, for every topic in discussion.

1) First of all I never said Romania is isolated. I was just talking about the possible faith of Antonescu's regim if history would have another course, but I never denied that the defeat in front of the Red Army had no contribution in his overthrow in 1944. Actualy it had a big contribution, no doubt about that.

2) Fascist rethoric... Look, the fact someone was fascist doesn't mean he cann't be right. Remember the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and USSR's participation at the invasion of Poland, the attack over Finland in November 1939, the ocupation of the Baltic States and finaly of Basarabia and North Bucovina. I know USSR claimed later its participation to WW2 began with the 1941 Nazie invasion, but history prouves otherwise. So, about Romania's entering the war, you can consider the beginning of full scale hostilities in 1941 that moment, but actualy Romania was in war since the 1940 Soviet agression. Because you cann't consider the demand of territories through ultimatums another thing that a pure act of agression. So, Romania was drawned into war and as long as Romanian troops faught on their teritory it was a war of liberation, no matter what kind of regim ordered this. Of course we can discuss as stop being a liberation war since the moment Antonescu decided to cross the Dnister, as I showed you a decision controversial then, at it is also now. But here you could put the same question about the moment in 1944 when Romanian troops crossed into Hungary... Because always it can be given the reason of complitly defeating you enemy. Remeber, Finland also joined the Nazies in 1941, but they stoped their advance when they recovered the teritories taken by the Soviets during the previous Winter War. Well, when the Red Army came back, Finland lost again those teritories. Also, the private mail between Antonescu and Hitler, who was also published, shows clearly that Antonescu was continuing Romania's participation to the East Front campain also to convince Hitler to reestablish the western frontiers of the country, as naive as it sounds. We can see in this part of the war just one thing which clearly isn't just based on the liberation idea: the ocupation of Transdnister. It's a region with a centuries old important Romanian minority, in 1924 the Soviets even created an autonomous republic for them, but, excepting a short episode in the 17th century, that region was never part of a Romanian state.

3) Transylvania. Well, you're right about the opposite views of beligerant states, but often in history you, as a third part, can pinpoint who has more right. So let's get to the facts. The Hungarians arrive in Pannonia in 896-900. According to "The Story of times long passed", also known as The Story of Nestor, the oldest Russian historical writing, and the "Gesta Hungarorum et Hunnorum" written by Simon of Keza, they found in Pannonia a mixed population of Slavs, Early Bulgarians and Romanians. Even the Hungarian historians who try to dismiss those sources admit that the Romance population in Pannonia resited at least til the 8th century. After the conquest of Pannonia, Arpad starts a series of wars with his Eastern neighbours. In what is now Crishana he engages the "duke" Menumorut. The struggle ends with the marriage between Arpad's son and Menumorut's daughter. Later he fights the "duke" Glad in what is now the Banat. Again, it ends with a compromise. This episodes are described in "Gesta Hungarorum", the work of the anonymous notary of the king Bela II or III. The same source became very detailed when it gets to Inner Transylvania. It describes the land, the population, formed of Romanians and Slavs, the ethnicity of the ruler, "Gelou, quidam Blachus"= Gelu, a certain Romanian. A Hungarian chieftain, Tuhutum, attacks him and after a bloody battle, takes his throne. Well, all the frotresses mentioned in the account, were discovered by archaelogists. There is few information about the following century, but it is prouven fact the settlement of the Szekely, who were the Hungarian vanguard in Transylvania, in Crishana, in the West. Around the year 1000 there is no longer a state in Crishana (most likely united with Hungary when Zulta, as son-in-law, inhereted Menumorut), but the southern part of the region is controled by the Banatian ruler. This time the attacker is Stephan I, the christianiser of the Hungarians. He defeats Ahtum, the succesor of Glad, which event is described in "The Legend of St. Gerard", and Gyula, the descendent of the usurper Tuhutum of Inner Transylvania (again "Gesta Hungarorum"). The events become after unclear again, but we can see the Szekely moving on the Tarnava rivers. In 1113 the Hungarian king appoints a prince of Transylvania, but there are signs this kind of institution wasn't accepted, therefore in 1176 is appointed the first known voivode of Transylvania. This tells a lot, because this title, which initialy at the Slavs meant military commander, became to the Romanians the title of the ruler. And the voivode of Transylvania had the atributes of a ruler, supreme authority in the province, subordonated only to the king of Hungary. Also, this title, from all medieval Hungary, appears only in Transylvania, where, along the ruler of the region, it was used by Romanian local nobility. Anyway, the 12th century is clearly the moment when the entire province was complitly conquered by the Hungarians, because only then the Szekely finaly settle in the central area of Romania where they live even today, where they were granteed authonomy. Authonomy was also granteed to the German settlers arrived around the year 1200 and to the Romanians living along the Carpathians. Since the 13th century we start to have clear documentary data about Transylvania. All those documents prouves that Romanians form the majority of the population. Even more, in the Transylvanian Dieta, a sort of state assembley, the Romanian nobles were equal to the Hungarian and Szekely nobles and the Saxon towns leaders. Things started to change after 1366, when as a result to the failure in stopping the rebelion of Bogdan, former voivode of Maramuresh, the largest Romanian authonomy, and the independence of Moldavia, the Hungarian king decretes that only catholic nobles are recognized as aristhocrats (while Romanians were orthodox). Well, in 1438, after a great peasent uprising in Transylvania, even if both Romanian and Hungarian peasents participated, the leadership of the Hungarians, the Szekely and the Saxons meet and sign "Unio Trium Nationum" claming their communities as sovereign and equal nations of Transylvania and the Romanian majority just as "tolerated population". In the 16th century appeared also the Law of Verboczi, establishing catholicism, calvinism and lutheranism as official religions and orthodoxy just as "tolerated religion". After the fall of Hungary in 1541, Transylvania became an almost independent principality, vassal to the Turks (who occupied Banat and much of Crishana), led by a Hungarian aristhocracy, but with a Romanian majority. The Austrians take control in 1691, the Turks accept this in 1699. In 1700 emperror Leopold I , to insure his power basis, convince part of the Romanians to accept papacy, creating the greek cathoolic church, but the promised equality is not granted. Maramuresh became a part of the Austrian Hungary, followed by Banat and Crishana in 1779 (those regions were captured from the Turks in 1718), while Transylvania remanes a separate principality inside the empire. In 1848-1849 the Hungarians make a military attempt to recapture the province, but they meet a strong Romanian resistence. In 1863 Romanians finaly establish their equality with the Hungarians and the Germans, but in 1867 when Austro-Hungary is created, Transylvania is again included in Hungary, up to 1918 when the Romanians declare the separation and the union with Romania. So, nobody can denie that Hungarians played an important role and that during the 16th and the 17th centuries Transylvania in a way continued the Hungarian state, but also nobody who's honest cann't denie the role of the Romanians in the history of the province, the fact they were already here when Hungarians arrived and that they were always majoritary.

4) The statistics. First of all I was talking about the coalition against USSR: Germany, Romania, Finland, Italy, Hungary. Romania had the second number fo troops after Germany. As an example, at Stalingrad Italy had only the 8th Army, Romania had two armies, the 3rd and the 4th. But, let me remind you, Japan refused declaring war to USSR; only in 1945 USSR attacked the Japanese in Manchuria and Koreea. Now, in the war against Germany. China, let me again remind you, was in war with Japan. No Chinese soldier met a German one. There is no doubt that Poland or Yugoslavia had more loses then Romania, but they faught only in their countries and they were occupied by the Germans. The statistics I quoted you referes to the countries participating in defeating the Nazies in Europe with regular troops, not fighting as partisans an ocupation in their own lands, complitly taken by the enemy (as it is the case of Yugoslavia or Poland). Romania, like USSR, started to fight the Nazis in its own territory but then moved into Hungary, Czechoslovakya and Austria. The exact numbers are almost 540000 miltiaries participating at the operations and over 170000 of them killed in action. Which is the fourth regular participating force after USSR, USA and UK. Well, I'm sure if you count also partisan activities, other countries will take superior places, and if you wish to bring also the Pacific in discussion, OK, but here we were talking about Europe...

5) Come on, do you really think when I said communism is to blame for today situation in Russia, I was meaning the weakness of the judicial system in the '90s? And I say weakness because too often it wasn't about equality in fron of the law, used by criminals, it was about corruption and crminal organisations paying police, prosecutors and judges. No, my friend, what I said it was that communism tryed to complitly block any chance of private acumulation of capital, which is money. So, when socialism ended and capitalism started, very few people, usualy the former beaurocrats and secret police, but also criminal elements such as the guys who were in the black market bussiness before the fall of communism, had the needed money to invest. The great majority hadn't those money. Remeber that there were all sort of legal ways to limit capital acumulation before, and after how could you start even the smallest bussiness without money? Is this too unnatural for even 10 years old to buy it? It happened even in your country. What you refuse to realise is the fact that this was one of the commies greatest mistakes. And even maybe because in Yugoslavia small bussinesses were allowed, my observation in that particular case is wrong, it's not wrong in Russia after 75 years of communism.

6) Wow, I continue to be amazed how you denie the quality of the Balkan democracies in the '30s, saying that the fact they had free elections and free speech isn't enough, but on the same basis you consider Putin's Russia a democracy! Just that free media was a "colateral" victim of Putin's war against certain oligarchs (just a side effect, I wonder?). And what kind of free speech you have without a free media? Do you think that because you're allowed to say "fuck Putin" to your neighbour, you have free speech, as long as you have no way to make your opinion known throughout the country (because all media is again under state control)? How about Yukos, where justice system acted clearly at orders came from Kremlin? A democracy does not suppose an independent justice? The popularity of Putin prouves nothing. Hitler was popular. Castro too. People cryed at Stalin's death. But the fact that usual presidential candidates all together in the same time give up and put some totaly unknown to compete with Putin, don't you find at least a little weird? I'm not saying Russia is again like in Stalin's time, but is far from being a functional democracy and my worry is about the fact that Putin is slowly establishing a new dictatorship.

7) The risk of Russia desmembration in case of descentralisation. Look, Russia should give up some peripherial areas anyway. It would be better to negociate and grant independence to such territories, also asuring the continuation of the Russian echonomical interest there, then fighting absurd wars like the one in Chechnya. This is only imperial ambition who costs a lot of Russian lives for nothing. But if look on a map of Russia, you can easily see that except some peripherial regions such as Northern Caucasus or Tuva in Eastern Siberia there is no risk of disolution out of ethnical reasons. Most of Russia's regions have Russian majority and most of the ethnical authonomies are just enclaves surrounded by Russian lands, so they can at most claim more authonomy but any independence idea would be unrealistic. On the other hand, if you centralise too much you risk to have the Umberto Dinni effect and determine your own people to talk about separation. And at Russia's scale, this could be fatal. Remeber, Italy solved this problem by descentralisation, and it hadn't as many echonomical reasons as Russia to do it.

8) You cann't have true democracy without economical freedom, because it's in the human nature to compete and to get more then others. Democracy and communism could work together maybe at another less individualistic and ambitious specie, but not in humans. And, by the way, Marx rejected what he considered "bourgeois democracy" and he was talking about revolution as the way to overthrow capitalism and not about participation of socialists in the elections. He was talking about class fight and a period of dictatorship of the working class, notions which also excludes democracy.

 

thespeez, yes, but even Marx did that, believing that colonial imperialism and monopols are the last stage of capitalism. As many people here are marxist, you can understand what are they critising. It's hard to accept Marx was wrong and capitalism isn't necessarily evolving the way he predicted.

m6m, clearly we are primates and we have a primate behaviour coming from our natural instincts (another thing communists never understood), but as you said you are qutating from a young science and some interpretations I think are exagerated. Especially that homo-erotic thing... If you look deeper homosexuality and heterosexuality aren't so appart in behaviour. Just the partners differs really. But when you say the natural need of stability of the females gave birth to civilisation, you're right (think only the earliest farmers, so the earliest people giving up namdic lifestyle, were women). And, to explain this role of the females, you should also count maternity, which determines a rather different psychology of the femal compared to the male, who is the feriliser by definition.

 

Why capitalsim?
People want to be rich so they can buy lots of nice stuff. Get laid, have children and bring them up to be successful. Capitalism allows the winners to screw the loosers, really its that simple.

 

I tend to think that capitalism is turning into fascism.
In the end; or after world oil production peaks, none of this talk of capitalism will matter. That's just me.

 

Sandu, I agree totally!

When I say latent homosexuality, I'm talking about the latent homosexuality within heterosexuals.

I'm merely suggesting that the latentcy is obviously more prominent in a man who trades freedom for security.

I'm suggesting that it only becomes pathological, because insecure men despise their own inadequacy.

'Why capitalism', is simply because it is a socially acceptable and effective way to allow our latent anal-retentive impulses to be expressed.

Our impulse to bend-over to hierarchical authority.
Impulse to control, own, organize and aquire.
To abuse and be abused in the sado-masochism of competition.

Yes but,
Natural only in highly stressed-out females, neurotically preoccupied with stability due to shear hysterical death-fear.

Agriculture, the grasping desire to control nature and any spontaneity, is a highly effective expressions of our growing anal-retentive impulses. There's Civilization!

Not only maternity, but a great deal of our psycho-sexual energy is used to sooth our death-fear.

Call us Witch Doctors.

 

I'd say that's one of the fundamental misconceptions of capitalism, that is requires winners and losers. If you buy a new laptop computer, did you win or lose? If you buy a used car from someone, who won? If Greece imports textiles from Tunisia, who won? Sure people will lose jobs and companies will go under. But people can expect to have many jobs over their lifetime. And many of the most successful entrepreneurs failed multiple times before striking it rich. Over the long term and on the whole, capitalism creates winners.

 

No over a long period of time the winners and loosers just change hands. Not everyone can become a winner. Apart form the geographic reality that there isnt enough money or resources to make everyone a winner, or at least by western standards.

Im not taking about your average self employed person whos done ok. At the very top of big companies, people exert real power over governments. While im not big on conspiracy theory history tells us that people with the money have the power and its worth noting that today its companies, not governments that have the money. In much the same way the Catholic church was the power behind the throne of many european countries in the middle ages.

Im not anti-capitalist or pro-capitalist. we're a fairly selfish species and capitalism allows us to be selfish so it will survive. Things that require self-lessness such as communism are doomed to to failure.

 

Not really capitalism works because people are not completly selfish as if they were capitalism would not work as every city would have constant looting.

 

If that were true then countries would never develop. The rise of one economy would have to be followed by the decline of another. But that isn't true, we saw a massive recovery of Europe after WW2 and the rise of Asian economies, yet this was simultaneous with strong economic growth in the US.

This is the zero sum game myth, as if all economies cannot grow together. There is no basis for it.