What's so bad about capitalism?
- Thread starter corplinx
- Start date
-
- Tags
- capitalism
JK, did you ever stop and think that Communism was used as an excuse? The best example is Stalin. He wasn't a communist. He wasn't even a dictator of the proaeletrarians (I can never spell it right). If i remember reading the manifesto, Communist is an "Ordered Anarchy," if you will. The soviet union was anything but communist. But that didn't stop them from CLAIMING they were.
And a economic/political system don't kill people, people kill people through that system as an excuse.
As for the original thread, today's "capitalistic" society in the US is very different from that late 19th century one. In economics we refer to it as "mixed system" or "mixed capitalist," as the government plays a larger role than military/security spending. Communist is outdated, it was designed against captilist of the 19th century. Socialist, the new alternative, is where the government produces some/all goods.
If you think about it, there are many non-capitalist ideas in the US. For example, many service comapnies (gas, water, etc) in small towns are either owned by the government, or a monopoly. That's not capitalistic, or at least it's not competetive.
I think that capitalism in the US is a very good system in the US. It works extremely well with Americans; they have that sort of mentality. I think that throwing in a few social programs (health) and experimenting with market enviromentalist (Bush Senior anyone?) along with government involvement (real tax cuts, and or spending programs like in the new deal) would make the US better.
Gem
And a economic/political system don't kill people, people kill people through that system as an excuse.
As for the original thread, today's "capitalistic" society in the US is very different from that late 19th century one. In economics we refer to it as "mixed system" or "mixed capitalist," as the government plays a larger role than military/security spending. Communist is outdated, it was designed against captilist of the 19th century. Socialist, the new alternative, is where the government produces some/all goods.
If you think about it, there are many non-capitalist ideas in the US. For example, many service comapnies (gas, water, etc) in small towns are either owned by the government, or a monopoly. That's not capitalistic, or at least it's not competetive.
I think that capitalism in the US is a very good system in the US. It works extremely well with Americans; they have that sort of mentality. I think that throwing in a few social programs (health) and experimenting with market enviromentalist (Bush Senior anyone?) along with government involvement (real tax cuts, and or spending programs like in the new deal) would make the US better.
Gem
corplinx said:
Ken Ley? Oh, geeze, the list from the last two years is so long I don't even want to start.
You're (*&(* right we've come a long way. The latest bunch stole a whole lot more than the Railroad Barons.
No, Corps, don't take this as a call for communism. It's even more bankrupt. It's totally failed (sorry, Victor, that's how I see it.).
Enlightened capitalism, with some enforcement of ethics, does seem to work, but we have specifically abandoned that in the last few years.
Re: Re: Re: What's so bad about capitalism?
No, he's not confused. The latest FCC rules allow us to live in Max Headroom land, and no, there won't always be alternative news sources because the government controls access via radio/TV licensing, and the barrier to print media is very high.
corplinx said:
No, he's not confused. The latest FCC rules allow us to live in Max Headroom land, and no, there won't always be alternative news sources because the government controls access via radio/TV licensing, and the barrier to print media is very high.
dsm said:
Reference, please? I'm curious where you came up with such a number.
p.s. While you're at it, how many Americans died in the last century?
Sadly, it also happens under capitalism...
Ukraine.
Yes, people die in both. The government, itself, starves and murdered them in the biggest experiment in "communism" that ever happened.
Now, I know it's not "true communism" but what it shows is that "true communism" is an unstable thing that degenerates into "king of the hill".
Just like capitalism. Whoa, could it be there's human nature involved?
Jedi Knight said:
Every once in while, Jedi, you do get it right.
Congratulations.
One of the myths of communism is that the proles own the government.
The fact, in every case it's been tried to date that I'm aware of, is that it comes out the other way around.
Gem said:
Quite so. However, can you point to any state espousing communism that did not degenerate into that scenario?
"State Managed" means that somebody has to decide. They have all the power. It's all downhill from there, in every example we've seen.
Frostbite
Muse
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2001
- Messages
- 986
Oh, and another thing about capitalism is the environment. Nobody gives a damn about trees, but they're even more important than clean air and water. But I guess being super-productive and making lots of cash is even more important than the environment. And when the environment is completely destroyed, then they can start charging us for breathable air and clean water. Yeehaw.
Jedi Knight
Banned
- Joined
- May 21, 2002
- Messages
- 2,712
Originally posted by Gem
JK, did you ever stop and think that Communism was used as an excuse? The best example is Stalin. He wasn't a communist. He wasn't even a dictator of the proaeletrarians (I can never spell it right). If i remember reading the manifesto, Communist is an "Ordered Anarchy," if you will. The soviet union was anything but communist. But that didn't stop them from CLAIMING they were.
Gem, just because the Soviet Union didn't achieve pure communism doesn't mean that they were not a communist nation-state. They were.
The Russian Revolution was the 'taking people down to the lowest common denomenator together" as envisioned by Marx in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. The Stalinist purges later were the continuance of the evolvement of the communist state, based upon Marxist principles in communist development in the nation-state as it makes its transition to pure communism.
That means that just because the Soviet Union didn't achieve 'utopia' (a myth and pseudo-ideology), doesn't mean they weren't communists. They were. They were communists to their soul. I am pleased they fell and wish it were hydrogen bombs that dispatched them, not economic agression.
And a economic/political system don't kill people, people kill people through that system as an excuse.
Certainly, but the Communist Manifesto tells national thinkers to send people to hell together (lowest common denomenator), to break them of their previous construct. To think that there would be no loss of human capital during those transition purges is pretty hilarious.
As for the original thread, today's "capitalistic" society in the US is very different from that late 19th century one. In economics we refer to it as "mixed system" or "mixed capitalist," as the government plays a larger role than military/security spending. Communist is outdated, it was designed against captilist of the 19th century. Socialist, the new alternative, is where the government produces some/all goods.
Yes, the blending of ideology--the taking of some Marxist ideology and blending it with capitalist ideology. I am fluent with that theory and was exposed to it extensively in college. I am skeptical of it, however.
If you think about it, there are many non-capitalist ideas in the US. For example, many service comapnies (gas, water, etc) in small towns are either owned by the government, or a monopoly. That's not capitalistic, or at least it's not competetive.
Those are called public-private partnerships. They seem to work now based solely upon the susbcription value of the system and the economy. It may be trading one demon for another. When private corporations function as government, then there arises the potential for fascism but that is for another debate.
I think that capitalism in the US is a very good system in the US. It works extremely well with Americans; they have that sort of mentality. I think that throwing in a few social programs (health) and experimenting with market enviromentalist (Bush Senior anyone?) along with government involvement (real tax cuts, and or spending programs like in the new deal) would make the US better.
When a political candidiate promises the US Treasury in exchange for elected office, chances are that by giving away the labor of producers to non-producers he will get the office. That doesn't make it right.
The only reason why Communism has any gasp of credibility is because some Communist states possess nuclear weapons. If the Nazis possessed nuclear weapons, they would not have been propagandized against like they were. Communism is ten-fold worse than Nazism and yet is glamorized in US education circles, government and the private sector to a certain degree when it favors the corporation.
Communism however is a perversion of man, the most dangerous political ideology the world has ever seen and the greatest contributing factor to the genocide of humans ever in history.
I can't wait for the Star Wars missile shield to go into effect so the last bastions of communism can be completely and utterly destroyed by capitalists using every ordinance in the US aresenal. I would be honored to be a General Officer in that global ideological cleansing.
JK
JK, did you ever stop and think that Communism was used as an excuse? The best example is Stalin. He wasn't a communist. He wasn't even a dictator of the proaeletrarians (I can never spell it right). If i remember reading the manifesto, Communist is an "Ordered Anarchy," if you will. The soviet union was anything but communist. But that didn't stop them from CLAIMING they were.
Gem, just because the Soviet Union didn't achieve pure communism doesn't mean that they were not a communist nation-state. They were.
The Russian Revolution was the 'taking people down to the lowest common denomenator together" as envisioned by Marx in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. The Stalinist purges later were the continuance of the evolvement of the communist state, based upon Marxist principles in communist development in the nation-state as it makes its transition to pure communism.
That means that just because the Soviet Union didn't achieve 'utopia' (a myth and pseudo-ideology), doesn't mean they weren't communists. They were. They were communists to their soul. I am pleased they fell and wish it were hydrogen bombs that dispatched them, not economic agression.
And a economic/political system don't kill people, people kill people through that system as an excuse.
Certainly, but the Communist Manifesto tells national thinkers to send people to hell together (lowest common denomenator), to break them of their previous construct. To think that there would be no loss of human capital during those transition purges is pretty hilarious.
As for the original thread, today's "capitalistic" society in the US is very different from that late 19th century one. In economics we refer to it as "mixed system" or "mixed capitalist," as the government plays a larger role than military/security spending. Communist is outdated, it was designed against captilist of the 19th century. Socialist, the new alternative, is where the government produces some/all goods.
Yes, the blending of ideology--the taking of some Marxist ideology and blending it with capitalist ideology. I am fluent with that theory and was exposed to it extensively in college. I am skeptical of it, however.
If you think about it, there are many non-capitalist ideas in the US. For example, many service comapnies (gas, water, etc) in small towns are either owned by the government, or a monopoly. That's not capitalistic, or at least it's not competetive.
Those are called public-private partnerships. They seem to work now based solely upon the susbcription value of the system and the economy. It may be trading one demon for another. When private corporations function as government, then there arises the potential for fascism but that is for another debate.
I think that capitalism in the US is a very good system in the US. It works extremely well with Americans; they have that sort of mentality. I think that throwing in a few social programs (health) and experimenting with market enviromentalist (Bush Senior anyone?) along with government involvement (real tax cuts, and or spending programs like in the new deal) would make the US better.
When a political candidiate promises the US Treasury in exchange for elected office, chances are that by giving away the labor of producers to non-producers he will get the office. That doesn't make it right.
The only reason why Communism has any gasp of credibility is because some Communist states possess nuclear weapons. If the Nazis possessed nuclear weapons, they would not have been propagandized against like they were. Communism is ten-fold worse than Nazism and yet is glamorized in US education circles, government and the private sector to a certain degree when it favors the corporation.
Communism however is a perversion of man, the most dangerous political ideology the world has ever seen and the greatest contributing factor to the genocide of humans ever in history.
I can't wait for the Star Wars missile shield to go into effect so the last bastions of communism can be completely and utterly destroyed by capitalists using every ordinance in the US aresenal. I would be honored to be a General Officer in that global ideological cleansing.
JK
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
So much hate so much anger.
Strong the darkside is...hmm...
Funny thing JK you are espousing the group think ideals that you decry. Just nuke the communist countries, even you msut be kidding.
I guess that all those poor civilians chose to be communist and thats why we should nuke em.
Strong the darkside is...hmm...
Funny thing JK you are espousing the group think ideals that you decry. Just nuke the communist countries, even you msut be kidding.
I guess that all those poor civilians chose to be communist and thats why we should nuke em.
Jedi Knight
Banned
- Joined
- May 21, 2002
- Messages
- 2,712
Dancing David said:
If those civilians don't try and change the system, they are communists. It isn't our fault.
Communists are dangerous. They are worse than Nazis. Communist countries are more dangerous than Nazi Germany. That is why they are primary targets of strategic nuclear weapons.
JK
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
So they try and change the system and they get tortured or put in prison. Then you blow them up, wonderful.
I suppose the children are guilty too.
Churchill certainly seemed to feel that nazi was worse than commie.
I suppose the children are guilty too.
Churchill certainly seemed to feel that nazi was worse than commie.
Jedi Knight
Banned
- Joined
- May 21, 2002
- Messages
- 2,712
Dancing David said:
That's just because the commies didn't reach England yet so Churchill didn't understand what they were all about.
JK
Number Six
JREF Kid
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2001
- Messages
- 5,016
The word "capitalism" has become like the word "feminism." That is, different people have different definitions for the words and so asking someone what they think of it doesn't accomplish much. Until the people having the discussion have a common definition a disccusion seems pointless.
I think that too often people and positons get labelled pro-business or anti-business on the wrong basis. It seems that if you're in favor of a business making more money you're pro-business and if you're in favor of a buisness making less money you're anti-business. Instead though I think that people should focus on fair play. That is, if a business cheats it shouldn't be pointed out that business is bad but rather that the business that cheated was *anti-business,* at least according to the definition of pro-business I'm using where playing fair is a fundamental requirement.
Someone mentioned that capitalism is bad for the environment because people make money while destroying the environment. Well forget the word "captialsim" for a minute because as I said above the definition of that is murky, but just consider for a minute businesses that make money while destroying the environment. The problem isn't harming the environment per se but rather that the companies that do it often don't have to pay for what they're doing. In other words, if you harm the environment but truly pay the amount to fix it then fine. But if you harm the environment and don't pay to fix it when someone else will ultimately have to pay to fix it, you're in essence stealing. That should be considered anti-business, in my book at least.
I think that too often people and positons get labelled pro-business or anti-business on the wrong basis. It seems that if you're in favor of a business making more money you're pro-business and if you're in favor of a buisness making less money you're anti-business. Instead though I think that people should focus on fair play. That is, if a business cheats it shouldn't be pointed out that business is bad but rather that the business that cheated was *anti-business,* at least according to the definition of pro-business I'm using where playing fair is a fundamental requirement.
Someone mentioned that capitalism is bad for the environment because people make money while destroying the environment. Well forget the word "captialsim" for a minute because as I said above the definition of that is murky, but just consider for a minute businesses that make money while destroying the environment. The problem isn't harming the environment per se but rather that the companies that do it often don't have to pay for what they're doing. In other words, if you harm the environment but truly pay the amount to fix it then fine. But if you harm the environment and don't pay to fix it when someone else will ultimately have to pay to fix it, you're in essence stealing. That should be considered anti-business, in my book at least.