Why capitalism?

Superior ranked IQ? As though you know mine? If you don't know I won't tell you! So there! Now if you'll excuse me, I must find a way to unlodge this crayon from my nose.

 

i studied this in class actually.

all the while fuckign up and exploiting everyother country, exploiting its OWN work force.
capitalism is socially destructive. we have passed from the community type, where relations are founded on loyalty, solidarity, community and so on, to society, based on nothign but money and the search for profit.
capitalism is a motor for exclusion ( the homeless, the jobless, precarity...)
its a meritocratic system, which doesnt take in account the inequality of chance, situation. and its socially dangerous, leads to tension and violence when the inequalities are too strong.
Not to mention the whole system oft he market capitalism is based on, is completely flawed, and it NEEDS government regulation not to go awol.
anyway, so basically it has a LOT of limits (enviromentally distructive), and not that economically efficient anymore.

 

capatalists barstewards........... /peace/

 

Oh, come on people! Do you prefere a system where the state establish exactly what you are allowed to own, to wear, what kind of music you shoud be listening, what books you should be reading, what you should think or not, how long is your hair allowed to grow? Do you want to work on the same payrole as another who does nothing but it's your collegue only because the country is not supposed to have unemployed? Do you think that because there are no owners and shareholders, but there are party and state responsables who have their own neighbourhoods and shops where you're allowed (and actualy forced to go) only if they want their streets cleaned without paying someone to do this, there is no exploitation? Do you think meritocracy is worse then a system where you're promoted for the ghift in kissing asses and denouncing your neighbours, mates, collegues and relatives for real or imaginary crimes? Do you wish a world in each after being injailed and tortured twenty years you are forced to become informer to be realeased? Do you truely want as engineers, teachers or just students to be taken to do agricultural work without payment? Or as drafted soldiers, no metter you like it or not, to be send in the construction bussiness as unpayed workers? Well, if you want all of that, welcome in communism! I had enough of it fifteen years, so I pass...

 

Well said, Sandu.

I'm yet to find an Eastern European on this board who actually supports communism.

 

Yes, you'll find many because life standard after communism is still low and in communism they had a guaranteed minimum: a job (as I told, it was not important if you would really work or not, but everyone had a job, and hippies desiring to remain unemployed to live a bohemian or artistic life were injailed for "social parasitism"), a habitation (usualy just a sort of matches box, but it was) and a pension after years of mediocrity. Actualy mediocrity is the basic rule in communism. And many people confronted with big difficulties now idealize the past and forgot what was wrong. A disease which didn't hit me fortunately, even I had my very hard times in the new capitalistic society (and I'm still struggling, there is still much to do). Another thing which motivates some Eastern Europeans to have communist nostalgias is the fact the that such a system always leave traces in human menthality and personality. Some older people just consider normal what the upper classes of the old regim did. Again I have to thank God 'cause in 1989-1990 I wasn't too young to understand what was going on, and even to participate to some of the events, but I also wasn't old enough to be already perverted by the regim.

 

You just found one, sort of. I can't say I actually support communism as such, but I am definatly against capitalism and think that communism is, despite its many faults, superior to capitalism. I'm not talking about extremists like Stalin, Mao or Kim who go against everything that communism stands for.

The main problem I see with capitalism is that it's simply an immoral system. You may live in the U.S and say that the system is working for you, and you are working for the system, and everybody is nice and happy. This is not the case. Capitalism cannot exist without exploration and/or war. Since exploration is no longer an option (at least until we start visiting other planets), only WAR can be used to maintain the cycle that you consider nice and normal. The only reason that your system is working is because your country is stealing from other poor countries and starting illegal wars. In the ideal world that we as hippies or pseudohippies strive for, capitalism will fail.

 

That is not communism, by definition communism has to have no class system meaning the farmer and garbage man has much say in the system as anyone else meaning like anarchy, communism can't have leaders, leaving direct democracy as the only way communism can function while still being ture to communist ideals.

Yes you have vanguards in Communist theory but it conflicts with the idea of a classless system since a vanguard would by definition be of a higher class then the rest of the people.

That depends on your idea of how society should work.

Again communist ideology demands no class system meaning since the so called "communist" nations had a ruling class and a working class they were/are not true communist states.

 

Easy there. Nobody said that a communist government has the right to tell you how to live. In fact, the hippie movement of the 70's was very powerful in the USSR and people grew long hair, read whatever they wanted, made their own custom clothing, thought their own thoughts and played their own music. Not everybody was a slave of the system! Sure, you could listen to the music published by Melodia, only use clothing from stores and read reccomended literature, but you were not forced to. Not after the thaw.

I wouldn't mind. Money isn't everything. I'd not be working for money, but just for the fact that me working benifits society and my own mind. I don't need a fat paychecque to satisfy me.

Again, you are criticizing a dictatorship and not communism. Such problems have nothing to do with communism as an economic system, but just with a way of running a country as established by Stalin. If you want to use such examples, I can show you many Free Trade countries that did the exact same thing.

Actually, the only time when I've seen engineers, teachers and students being forced to do simple and unrewarding jobs was in Canada, America and Israel. In the USSR, learning teaching or engineering was encouraged and finding a job in the field was not difficult. In fact, your education would be paid by the government entirely. Students only did agricultural work during the summers, and most of the ones I talked to so far claim to have enjoyed some time working on a farm in the fresh air.

The draft has existed in the US, Israel and many other Capitalist countries. If a serious war starts, the draft will be quickly re-introduced into capitalism. Actually, drafts have NOTHING to do with an economy. As for unpaid workers, again, I don't know what you are talking about. My friends who lived and worked in the USSR say that working as construction workers was a quick and easy way to make some extra cash for the family, and was done completly by choice.

 

Syntax and Psy Fox, did one of you ever lived in the USSR. What I wrote you about are things I saw and I lived myself. And your doubts are just insulting!

Communism is just a living nightmare. And I must add you don't even read correctly what I wrote. As an example, I wasn't talking about drafting or working in constructions, I was talking about using drafted soldiers to work unpayed in constructions. It's not the same thing.

It's easy to idealise what you only saw from a great distance, never living inside. And your soviet friends, what exactly were they before? Because, of course, every regim has its profitors, without counting the intensive brainwash which Soviets used.

You tell me about liberties of hippies? Yes, the '70s were a time of some relaxation in communist world, but later. In my country in the '60s hippies were allowed. In 1971 they were gathered by the police and their hair was cut. And please, ask your Russian friends exactly what the media and the movies in USSR were saying about hippies. And if any hippy could promote in a job without hiding his hippy identity.

Well, if you would accept to work and some other guy, officialy having the same job as you, do nothing, but both of you receiving the same reward (I'm not saying payment, this word seems to irritate you), OK! It's your problem. But before sating it, try to experience that.

You're saying I'm not talking about communism, I'm talking about dictatorship. Well, show me a single communist country which wasn't a dictatorship! Even more, those were the worst dictatorships, because they tryed to control (or at least supervise) every single aspect of life. Not even Hitler did this!

My impresion is you don't even know marxism. The theoretical idea is that trough revolution imperialistic capitalism is replaced by socialism. Marxist socialism is based by the supremacy of the working class from the heavy industry. What Lenin called "the proletarian dictatorship". After a while, trough evolution socialism turns into communism, where classes, money, town-village differencies and finaly the state itself disappear.

Now, what happened in reality? The so called socialist democracy, but who in the same time was the dictatorship of the working class (the communists had a twisted idea about democracy, saying that if the most numerous class imposes its dictatorship, this is a democracy- from the idea that democracy is the dictatorship of the majority), turned into a beaurocratic, freak controling dictatorship, and the beaurocrats became a sort of a feudal aristocracy, but not a private one, like in the Middle Ages, a state one. The communist state became the most totalitarian state ever existing. No socialist country evolved toward the disolution of the classes and of the state, as Marx asumed. All evolved toward an increasing powerfull state and an increasing isolated upper class, who even started to transmit its power to byological descendance, exactly like feudals once did.

Actualy marxism is full of flaws. Even in its historical analysis. Class struggle was never the engine of history, economy wasn't the only shaping factor of mankind, the so called sclavagist organisation, seen as universal for ancient societies by the classics of marxism was limited only to ancient Greece and Rome, all the other were protofeudal societies, imperialism and colonialism are not the final stage of capitalism, the heavy industry working class is not the dominant class of the future. People read Marx and Engels and you'll see what I'm talking about!

Communism is just a dead atheistic religion, so get real and get over it! Do you want to replace capitalism? Find something more original and more appropriate to humans, not for insects, please!

 

If that were true, you would expect the GDP to grow only in modernized countries, and decline everywhere else in the world. In fact, the GDP in almost every nation, rich or poor, is steadily increasing.

Economics is not a zero-sum game. You don't have to steal from someone else to become rich.

 

How can you people respond to criticism of the USSR and China by saying "That's not how communism is supposed to work"? Well, no kidding that's not how communism is supposed to work! That can't be used as an excuse for communism's failings, that is PROOF of its failings! You don't see capitalists responding to criticism by saying "Capitalism has never existed, because no country has ever adopted the philosophy of Adam Smith or Ayn Rand." If your system were actually feasible, you would think at least ONE country that adopted it would have moved in the right direction.

Did you ever stop and think that maybe there's a REASON that every command economy, without a single exception, has become totalitarian in a very short span of time?

 

Yes, and I know many other who lived their for many years.

I have friends who were songs of WWII soldiers, who were born and raised in Siberian Gulags and then released after Stalin's death to become regular citizens. They were most definatly not those "profitors" of whom you speak. Other people I know are engineers, doctors, etc. Not a single person I know has ever worked for the government, with the exception of one Spetsnaz soldier.

That is, to a large extent, true. Liberties were cut in some ways, but definatly not to the extent you described in your previous post. I've read books about Russian hippies written by those hippies themselves, so I know a bit about it. The 1971 gathering you describe did indeed happen, and was described in the books as well, I won't deny it! And yes, the media didn't like hippies just like the American media doesn't like them now. But it didn't stop them for playing great music, having long hair and living their lifestyles!

I don't have hte potion to experience it, but I am very certain that I won't mind.

Communism is a young system, and so is not yet polished. When capitalism was starting out, it had as many evil things associated with it. However, there are countries that are socialist (and I won't use the term 'communist' because as I stated before, I am not actually a communist, I am just defending a misunderstood form of government) in everything but name that are far from dictatorships. In some countries in Europe, taxes are very high, paycheques are very low, the government is responsible for free health and education for the citizens, etc.

Saying that you get this impression without having any evidence of it is very ignorant on your side. I am very familiar with Marxism, and what you just said.

True of many communist countries indeed, but doesn't have to be.

I am not saying that communism is to replace capitalism, and as I said, I am not a communist. I do believe that something should replace capitalism, however. And communism is, in my opinion, better than capitalism. At the very least in the sense that it doesn't require war and abuse of poor countries to function. It's a more moral system on a global scale. Capitalist Americans may have it pretty sweet nowdays, but they are doing it by stealing from the rest of the world. They wouldn't be so successful if they didn't own sweatshops in china. They wouldn't be so rich if they didn't invade Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Iran. Just look at what the US does to countries it conquers: it uses them as slaves, stealing their resources and installing puppet governments in them. The USSR, evil as you may call it, tried to rebuild those countries, fund actual schools using the Soviet education system (which by the way is among the best to ever exist, and if you lived in the USSR you'd have to admit it no matter how proudly you defend your point). Read the real stories behind the Taliban, Bin Laden and Saddam and you'll see the truth about your ideal Capitalist heaven. America is all about freedom and opportunity for its citizens. And those citizens care little about the freedoms that had to be taken away from people around the earth.

Don't call communism an "atheistic religion" before you learn the truth about capitalism. Looks outside of what your leaders are showing you.

 

The point is that the primary goal of communism is a classless society meaning if the goal of a nation is not a classless society (and they have yet to achieve it) then you can instantly say it is not communist since the classless society is the essence of communism for example the USA had a planed economy during WWII but no one would call the USA communist during that time, it is the classless society and only the classless society that qualifies communism as communism.

This is why USSR and China is not communism since their leaders didn't belive in a classless society infact they worked aginst the goal of a classless society making them nothing but single party goverments running planed economies disguised as Marxism.

 

well think about how people are...can you imagine most of the people you know being happy with having only as much as everyone else? Could you really imagine a doctor being happy making as much money as a gas station clerk? (As a general rule, I know there are exceptions) What about a lawyer and a laboror...even though the world couldn't run without any of them people like to think they are better than everyone else. capitalism gives everybody (supposedly) the oppurtunity to be better than others. That's what humans want as a general rule. The main reason communism or socialism has never worked is because the people who were supposed to be handling things got all greedy (as humans are wont to do) and used their power to trick the people while being rich still. See, nobody's even technically been socialist or communist because the idealogies of those require no rich people basically. But obviously it's not going to happen in our lifetime at least because that's as close as they've gotten, corrupt gov'ments and poor, poor citizens.

 

If you move the focus away from materialism = quality of life then it works.

Okay but is wealth and class the best measuring stick? Who is better a great artist living in some rat infested apartment but name will live on through the ages due his works (true immortality) or the boss that exploits his works to put himself in high society yet his name will be forgotten before he even dies?

Again how do you define being better then some else?

 

Indeed. When people measure their success by something other than money, their lives are a lot better. I know that I never used money to measure success, and can't imagine doing it any other way. Being rich is not equal to being happy! In fact, rich people, in general, are less happy than poor ones. And I say this because I know many people, rich and poor, and the poor ones have always been happier!

 

Well, can we move the focus away from materialism=quality of life? My point was that's how the general public sees things. I'm not sure what you're asking me with all this...I don't feel like the boss who expoloits his workers is needed in this world at all...the artists are needed, the gas station clerks are needed, cashiers in grocery stores are needed, teachers are needed, construction workers are needed, even CEOs are needed, but not when they are corrupt, does that make sense? Wealth and job prestige are the sticks they use in this society, I was just stating the way it is, it's not my opinion on it. I don't think a doctor is any more important than a teacher lets say, but, the doctor makes way more money and is respected more.(not by everyone but you know) What about a grocery store stock person or cashier? You'd be up the river without a paddle if there was nobody to stock the shelves at a grocery store or to ring you up. So they are just as important. I don't define anyone as being better than anyone else...I was stating the fact that having more money in this society gets you more respect. Why? You'd have to ask the idiots who think that way lol

So did you think I was meaning all that stuff like it was my opinion? I suppose I've gotten more cynical than I thought. I'm really the most ideological pie in the sky person you'll ever meet...I've just learned enough to know that people like things the way they are, and there's not anything we can really do about it. Even the people who are oppressed by the system still harbor ridiculous ideas of "moving up"

 

I just spent ages wrapping quotes and stuff only to have my reply fucked into the ether by the bastard computer, so I'll put something different to you instead...

Functional Anarchy.
Let me try to explain this succinctly. You have a program which is basically a framework for a "website" in which the user puts his skills, interests, etc. all kinds of useful information to get to know them or to decide if you want to know them. Instead of going on the internet however, the website goes on your computer, which you network up, locally, with your neighbours. First bonus - you don't have to pay for web-hosting.

If you have an internet connection, you get first dibs on that connection but the program gives free access to the web to anyone in your local area network in order of how far the computer wanting to access the internet is from your computer. Second bonus - free internet for anyone who doesn't want to pay for it. The person paying for it doesn't lose anything cos he has priority over the others but no one uses their full bandwidth all the time, he has surplus which he can give away.

People can look around their locality and find out about people around them without having to meet them. If there's a plumber in your area you can pay him cash or help him out in someway in return for him doing some plumbing for you if you need that done. If you don't live in a city you won't know how isolated it is, but no one knows each other. It's shite. Third bonus - the growth of community.

Anyway gotta go now cos I'm using an authoritarian's computer and he wants to use it. Seeyas