Why capitalism?

Earth is finite thus logically wealth has to be finite.

 

Not true. Things are only worth however much the market decides they are worth. We're nowhere close to exhausting any of the necessary resources on earth (at least not until we have an alternative resource), and we aren't confined to this planet anymore.

Even if you assume that we mined every resource from every nearby heavenly body, wealth would STILL not necessarily be finite because there are a lot of other things with value: intellectual property, human services, etc.

 

If that were true peak oil could not possiblity have any threat to the economy but it does as if oil output drops (due to having reaching the limmit of oil production possible on Earth and every year the Earth can only produce a fraction of the last) and there is no alternative then the wealth will shrink with the decline in oil.

 

Who told you this nonsense? We're nowhere close to reaching the limit of oil production possible. Better extraction methods are being developed all the time, and people are discovering more new oil every year than is extracted.

Remarkably short-sighted. We have enough oil to last 70 years at the bare minimum. There is absolutely no way that we'll still need it for even that long.

 

Sticking to the point the fact still remains that if you belive that oil output can drop with no alternative without reducing wealth then you know nothing about economics and this very fact proves that wealth is finite.

 

Is there not constant looting becase 1) people think its wrong. 2)they're afraid they'llg et caught? Well statistically whos more likely to loot/steal someone who has lots to loose or someone who has very little to loose? Do people loot/steal when theres little risk of getting caught. For example did Napster die because the worlds teenagers suddenly got a conscience or because they were suddenly afraid they'll get caught. If all shops only had honestly boxes and were neither manned/ nor had security cameras, how long do you think that shop would be in businness? Maybe murder and crimes like that people see as wrong but still I rekon that would happen far more often if fear of getting caught were lower.
The economy can't grow idefinately, I can give a lot of bizarre physicsal reasons for that, none of which are of any practical use. Though more practical ones are the use of natural resources on this planet, the days of an oil based economy are very much numbered. Our current standard of living cannot be supported, either the worlds population has to fall or our standard of living has to fall. Working in a shorter term, where obviously economic growth will grow, does its growth benefit anyone? Because its something like 98% of the planets wealth is owned by 5% of the popualtion or something. It seems to me that the economy can grow for as long as you like but it only ever seems to go to a small group of people.

 

Hi Sandu. Congrats on the football match tonight. Well deserved.

So, the Germans fighting the Soviets on German soil were actually “liberators” and thus morally right. Amusing…

For Gods sake man, are there ethnic geographical borders in Europe, neatly demarking where “one nation starts and another ends”?! What when they overlap? Is the dream of national unity the ultimate goal to follow?! Are wars with such goal justifiable? All these questions contain a strong fascist element (essentially, that’s exactly the philosophy of fascism), and seeing that unfortunately you follow a similar conception of history, I’m afraid our differences here a irreconciable, even on the most fundamental level.



I have no intention to enter in a discussion about which state has more right on Transylvania with you. Macedonians too have felt the bitterness of historical injustice, and I know it’s frustrating when much of the world has a twisted understanding of twisted facts. I just cant be sure whether it’s the Hungarians or Romanians in the role of victims. A Hungarian friend of mine (who lives in Romania btw) claimed also with facts that Transylvania is a Hungarian heritage. I opposed him as well, since I’m sick of “historical heritages” and “countries’ historical rights on certain territories”. But having witnessed the objectivity of how you deal with history from the previous posts, and the obvious ethno-centrist and nationalistic conceptions, I cant take any of what you wrote for granted, until I see an open debate between you and a Hungarian for example.

Fine, be pedantic, but in that case the statistics are irrelevant. (never mind the fact that the exact word you used was “human losses”, not “regular soldiers”) The contribution of Yugoslavia in the fight against Nazism is much more greater than Romania (whose contribution was actually favouring the Nazi cause; Its not possible that 170,000 died only in the period September 1944 – May 1945, but more likely that’s the whole number of millitary deaths), even though much of the time we’re talking about guerila activities in Yugoslavia. Also, you should be aware that the formation of the Yugoslav People’s Army began as early as September 1941, and it had all the features of a regular army (structural and organizational). In 1944 and 1945, the Yugoslav army was one of the mightiest armies in Europe, and entered in open frontal clashes with the German army, which resulted in the liberation of Yugoslavia (almost) entirely by domestic forces.



“ 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?”

Oh dear. No, you completely missed the point of my analogy. Uh, oh, just… never mind.

Uh, no. The main plunder of capital wasn’t about that at all. It was about illegally getting their hands on state capital. They got assets by buying huge industrial capacities for virtually no money, or illegally apropriating them altogether.

A second thing where you’re wrong is about the great majority ot having those money. Nothing can be further from the truth, since precisely in post-communist societies the great majority “posseses” (we can use that verb only in private property environment) the capital (either as bonds or stocks). The trick everywhere was how to accumulate this capital in as few private hands as possible, and as you see in different countries, it was achieved with varying degrees of effectiveness.



On Russian democracy:

“ you have no way to make your opinion known throughout the country (because all media is again under state control)”

Simple question: Are there or are there not privately owned medias in Russia? Can anyone open a private medium provided they fulfil the legal conditions?

I believe what you are trying to get across is the alleged government pressure on media, but that’s far from saying all medias are under state control.

“ 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?”

He he. Look, you yourself admit that Putin had massive support (2/3’s if i remember well), and all pre-election polls clearly showed that. Is there any political logic in entering a race you know you’re going to lose, and especially if you’re the leading figure of the petty opposition? Anyone who knows something about politics knows that it equals a political suicide, since after such shameful defeat, all the political credibility of the losing candidates is lost. Its normal that they’d let someone from the expendible party technocrats do the job, or very often they support independents, or boycott the elections altogether.



So, you admit that increasing authonomy leads to potential separatism, but argue that there are too few risky places like that in Russia. Entirely false assumptions, since there is a large number of ethnically based republics in Russia, where the indigineous population, as culturally conservative as it is, is prone to recent awakaning nationalism due to the collapse of the concept of communist equality. The process of aquiring independence is a political thing, not millitary operation, so its irrelevant whether these regions are surrounded by Russian lands, as you say. Russian decentralization is ongoing process however, but maybe its even more decentralized than Italy is. Please research the rights that Russian federal regions each have, and I assure you that its one of the most politically decentralized countries in Europe. I think you’re talking without knowing, from what I read.



“You cann't have true democracy without economical freedom, because it's in the human nature to compete and to get more then others.”

I feel like throwing up every time I hear the “human nature argument”. Is it in human nature to walk by hungry past a store which sells all sorts of foods, and restrain from stealing? Is it in human nature to stand still and smile humbly while your cheff shouts at you at work, while inside you hate his guts? Is this not what the natural beast-man was supposed NOT to tolerate? And yet somehow we manage to.

Its called “working for the common good” pal. And we do it all the time, like when you submit to the law. Limiting yourself, to get a more just and fair system. Tis the same.



Theres no need to lecture me about Marx, thank you. He was also talking about how the meaning of word democracy is raped with the capitalists perverted version of it. How can there exist a democracy where a majority is oppressed by a tiny minority? Communism is the only society with true democratic essentials. No, not parties, they arent what makes democracy, but an equal representation of all and working towards appeasment of the interest of the majority, and that is and has always been – the working class.

 

I think we're misunderstanding each other. You're right that wealth is finite, in the sense that here and now, there is a certain amount of value of all the goods and services in the world. However, the POTENTIAL for wealth is unlimited, as wealth is CREATED by people and not dependent on any specific resources. Capitalism seeks to utilize that potential as much as possible.

 

Yes but if energy supply is limmited then expansion is limmited thus potential for wealth is limmited by the energy supply.

If one day all the energy just wasn't there, the industrial world would just stop and potential for wealth would stop, this is the law of industrial economics.

 

This is typical marxist logic (combined with "make it up as you go along" economics, a Psy Fox specialty), a mentality stuck in the 19th century where capitalism means factories turning raw materials into manufactured products.

Energy input per dollar of GDP has been falling for decades. Did anyone notice that the oil price doubled yet the US economy has maintained strong growth? A rising oil price does not have to mean falling GDP. The US is a service economy, time to catch on to that.

The stone age did not end because we ran out of stone. We are not at peak oil production, nor are we going to run out of oil anytime soon. We haven't even begun to touch natural gas or things like the oil sands, the largest oil reserve in the world. This is just another sky-is-falling ghost story to promote collectivist economic agendas.

Income disparity is much less than wealth disparity, which is why wealth disparity is always quoted. India and China - together 2 billion poor people - have seen very strong economic growth. That is 2 billion poor people getting richer. This is not a small group of people.

 

Hi Companiero! Ha, ha, ha, nice! But I have to disappoint you, I'm not a footbal fan...

Well, you should understand that from the countries who participated to Operation "Barbarossa" in 1941, while Germany, Italy and Hungary were simply invaders, Finland and Romania were victims of previous Soviet agression and they have all the right to attack.

And another thing, in your view, the Serbs who struggled for independence and later national unity were fascists? Of course, nations overlap, and solutions must be found. National unity does not mean to try to include all members of a nation inside the same borders, but it means to have a nation froming the majority in a region to be allowed to leave in it own state, without being ocupied or splited. Of course, if those people agree to do that. So, I'm not saying as an example that Austria should becaome a part of Germany, as long as its inhabitants desire to be independent. But, in Romania's case, the Romanian majority of the provinces who joined the Romanian state in 1918 expressed this will. And, if you look at Transylvania's case, in 1920 the borders were drawn on ethnical and not historical criteria. Two counties, Bekes and Csongrad, who historically were part of Transylvania, but had at the beginning of the 20th century a Hungarian majority remained part of Hungary. Also, the Western Banat, who has a Serbian majority, became a part of Yugoslavia. Both regions have Romanian minorities, but in mai 1941 when Hitler offered to Antonescu the Western Banat requesting the participation at Yugoslavia's invasion. Antonescu declined. Look, nobody can demand to have a total national unity, unless it lives on an island, but also you can denie the right of any nation to have national state including most of its territories.

About Transylvania, of course, being Romanian I cann't be objective. But I tryed in my last post to present you just the facts with minimum comments to leave you to make your own mind. Now, the debate between us and the Hungarians is actualy around who was first in Transylvania, because nobody cann't denie that since the early 13th century Romanians were the majority, excepting the towns and the Szekely enclave from central Romania. One theory, of the continuity, says that Romanians descend from the Romanised population of Dacia, Moesia and Pannonia, so the Romanians are natives in Trasylvania. The other theory says the Romanians formed in the Balkans, south of the Danube, and migrated North under Slavic pressure. So, Hungarian historians try to say they arrived first in the 10th century in Transylvania and Romanians later. Today they admit they found the region populated, because there are clear archaelogical evidence, but they say they weren't Romanians, just Slavs and others. Also, they try to dismiss old written sources, like Nestor and "Gesta Hungarorum" saying they are deformed or place later events in earlier times. But this doesn't explain how the fortresses mentioned as residences of those "dukes" were found near places who bear the names mentioned in the medeval writings and they have the accurate age. Also this doesn't explain how the Byzantines, who controled the Balkans in the 11th century when they suppose the migration took place didn't notice such a large mouvement of population and how became Romanians majoritary in roughly the borders of ancient Dacia. And this theory does not explain why the earliest Romanian states are located in Transylvania and not in the Balkans as you would expect from a people originating from there. Actualy the earliest documentary references to Vlach polithical creations south of the Danube dates to late 10th century, while the Transylvanian states are mentioned in link with the Hungarian arrival around the year 900. Also, the first early Turkish historical writing "Oguz Name" talking about a 9th century war between Cumans and early Russians mentioned the Romanians as neighbours and allys of the Russians, which at that time had no link with the Danube (so Romanians were already North). Well, there are also the foreign historians, who are neither Romanians, neither Hungarians. Those are splited between the two theories too with one important difference. The ones who sustain the migration theory think that all clues leads to an early migration, somewhere between the 6th and the 8th century, prior to Hungarian arrival. Anyway, if you're curious, you'll find those also on the Internet. But you should know a little more about Hungarian claims, because just 15 years ago Macedonia and Vojvodina were part of the same country.

Anyway, I'm perfectly aware about the injustice regarding Macedonian history, how your country was divided in 1913 and how now Greece is dening you your history, your national symbols and even your name, and I also know about Albanian claims and Tetovo.

OK, I admit your point of view about Yugoslavian contribution in the war, I totaly agree with you about that. But, when I talked about 170000 Romanian soldiers killed between August 1944 and May 1945 I was exactly talking about that. Think that 540000 Romanians participating to the anti-Nazie campain were involved in very heavy battles like the crossing of the river Mures, the siege of Budapest or the battles of the Tatra Mountains. Al those fights were very bitter, with a very strong German opposition and both Russians and Romanians had very heavy loses. If you would look on a history of WW2 you'll see what I'm talking about. On the war against Russia, between 1941 and 1944 the loses were much higher. Romanians sieged alone for months the city of Odessa. They participated at the conquest of Crimeea, at Stalingrad, where the two Romanian armies present were decimated, in Caucasus, later again on the bitter fightings over Crimeea... I don't have know an exact number, but it's around 300000 in three years of war. So, don't minimise just because the big countries of the world use to talk about what they did, usualy forgeting about the smaller countries (I have a good example in WW1, when the Romanian victories of Marasesti, Marasti, Oituz and Casin were the only Antanta's victories in 1917, but in the usual TV documentaries about WW1 they are not mentioned).

Clearly most of the great post-communist fortunes were based on corruption. You reproduce what I repetedly said. But also what I said in my last poat is true. And socialist property, those bonds and share of population, let's get real. Socialist property was of the people in theory, but it was under total government control. I was talking about real money who could help you start a small but possibly growing bussiness.

OK, ha, ha, let's forget about the Russian judicial system.

Look, the only media, and especially radio and TV, which had the greatest public impact, which still exists in Russia is eihter state media or media which is owned by Putin's polithical friends. And this is a fact. About the last elections, actualy for a presidential challenger to participate, even without chance, does have a logic. It's the only way he remains in public conscienceness as a potential president. Not particpating means 8 years of rare public appearences, which can be fatal for anyone's polithical future. And is weird that all, very different guys, supposaly ended to your conclusion. If you link this with the other actions of Putin, the whole situation become suspect.

Russia is no longer so descentralised since 2000 when Putin appointed governers of larger structures, commanding in centralised manner all the regions and the republics. And again for most of those republics, independence would be just an illusion while they are surrounded by Russian territories and economicaly dependent on those Russian lands. About peripherial areas, granting independence would just eliminate a great source of troubles like the Tchetchnyan war.

"Working for the common good" only will never replace "working both for the common good and your own good". It's much more in the human nature. Remeber, you cann't force, pal, the whole society to be as idealistic as you are. Not without tragic effects which aplyed communism showed.

Sorry about your idea of democracy but:
1) parties are needed.- how else are the people going to express their different views strongly enough to be heard by anybody and how else are you going to assure the needed changing of the leaders before anyhting turns in dictatorship?
2) the marxist working class is not alone in the society.
Democracy is about difference. You cann't have it a much too equaliterian system who does not allow differences. Look at the attempts made in the past to mix communism with democracy, especially Gorbatchyov's attempt. Communism just crumbeled.

 

Yet the law of industrialization is that industrialization needs energy to run. If there was no energy then wealth will shrink regardless of how much of a service economy you have since food will not make it to cities due to no oil means the trucks don't move thus demand for service will drop as people focus on their time on tring to grow their own food. In other words you take away energy and you have forced de-industrialization.

This is the law of industrial theory and you can't get around it no matter what ideology you have. No energy, no industrial world.

 

First of all, the law of industrialization (like so much of the economic theory you expect us to debate here) doesn't exist, this is a made up concept. In fact in your last post it was "the law of industrial economics". Creating academic sounding labels for non-existant theories is not especially productive, although there is no "law of debate" that says so.

When are we really running out of oil? In decades, maybe longer, maybe much longer? What if you include the oil sands? How about natural gas? Nuclear power? Solar power? Methane? Ethanol? Methanol?

 

You act like the service industry doesn't need power but it does and if you are at energy capacity you can not power anymore computers and equipment needed to bring the services. Thus if you are at maximum energy capacity your economy can not grow.

I say it is law since most every economist states that energy is needed (in any form) to generate wealth and if you talk to scientist they will tell you energy is needed to do anything.

 

OK you've ignored this twice already, you should have had enough of an opportunity to come up with an answer by now (this is the "law of evasion"). Or are you going to ignore it a third time and pretend oil is the only source of energy on the planet?

 

That is not the point as I only used it to prove that energy is finite (even when we move off oil that new source too will be finite), you said potential for wealth is unlimited this is wrong, potential for wealth is limmited by energy in all forms from food to electricity.

 

Before I reply to Sandu;
Sorry guys, but i'm blatantly honest. It would be so much more productive if you used your time to read actual articles concerning the matter, than each others laughable theories.

 

I have and all I am stating is that the economy can't grow more then energy will allow, regardless of its form, which means the potential for wealth is finite.

 

Sorry, did we interrupt your limp apologies and rationalisations for communism and russian authoritarianism?

 

Sandu,
I’m aiming to finishing this debate. Theres no point to it going to eternity, when I consider I expressed my views clearly, albeit you often ignored them and continued forwarding theses I already refuted. Just a couple of final remarks.

Sandu, you seem to feel no guilt about your country’s action during the war, even though they fought for achieving national unity under fascist ideology. That I cannot accept. I despise the dreams of national states alright, but I can understand them. But even so, I still cant undertand the Machivelian approach to this ideal, which justifies such horrible regimes as fascism pursuing the cause, what you considered liberation.

And on the last bit, about “communist democracy”, I’m sorry you cant see past the already codified party system, which clearly doesn’t work in favour of the workers majority. Democratical groupings are of course necessary in every democracy, but the current multi-party system is pure oppression in a saten glove. And Gorbachov didn’t mix communism and democracy, he didn’t even attempt. He mixed Stalinism and liberalism, more likely.

Thanks, I enjoyed debating with you.

Others,
please proceed and ignore a friendly advice