• Book review of the communist manifesto
    304 replies, posted
[QUOTE=JesseR92;23011236]Technically families are communist a group of people working together to support each other. Communism with a group of 8 or less people works the more people you add the harder it gets.[/QUOTE] No, the more people who aren't motivated to work the harder it gets. For example, a huge group of scientists who are motivated more by science than greed could work together for the science.
[QUOTE=FreedomFighter;23011101]People from countries which were against the Soviet Union during the Cold War are usually brainwashed with anti-socialist and anti-communist propaganda - 'communism is evil' and 'communism and socialism are the same' is common sense to them. Capitalism has done a lot of damage to the mankind but communism isn't executed properly and turns into a corrupt dictatorship. We need a better system, I suggest a science and rationalism based one (not a greed and religion based one, like capitalism in most of the countries) - focusing on science and technology and using it for benefit of humanity, which would soon set it free from labor, dramatically increase life expectancy, fight most of the diseases and increase the human likehood of survival by spreading into space.[/QUOTE] You and many other people need to learn how to separate Capitalism from social conservatism and religion, because they are not the same. Its a convenient scape goat to just shrug off your opponents by saying "well your just brainwashed by conservative propaganda from 60 years ago when you were yet to be born" Why someone has come to accept false ideas is irrelevant in this discussion, and in other discussions a task to be left to professional psychiatrists. If someone really has come to accept false ideas, show them why they are false, don't just assert their falsity and claim that their proponents are brainwashed. That strategy is no way to win allies, or arguments.
[QUOTE=Novistador;23011385]You and many other people need to learn how to separate Capitalism from social conservatism and religion, because they are not the same. Its a convenient scape goat to just shrug off your opponents by saying "well your just brainwashed by conservative propaganda from 60 years ago when you were yet to be born" Why someone has come to accept false ideas is irrelevant in this discussion, and in other discussions a task to be left to professional psychiatrists. If someone really has come to accept false ideas, show them why they are false, don't just assert their falsity and claim that their proponents are brainwashed. That strategy is no way to win allies, or arguments.[/QUOTE] I know how to separate capitalism from social conservatism and religion. Capitalism creates an enveroinment which encourages lying, stealing and not the wellbeing of the mankind. Religion, in this society, disencourages science, on which a better system could be based on and is always used as an effective tool for manipulation.
[QUOTE=FreedomFighter;23011471]I know how to separate capitalism from social conservatism and religion. Capitalism creates an enveroinment which encourages lying, stealing and not the wellbeing of the mankind. Religion, in this society, disencourages science, on which a better system could be based on and is always used as an effective tool for manipulation.[/QUOTE] Capitalism in no way encourages lying or stealing, perhaps anarchy, or an oppressive dictatorship where one must constantly lie to officials, and ones friends(to avoid persecution by secret police), and steal food just to survive. But in order for Capitalism to be Capitalism it must have a government which protects the individual rights of its citizens, this is done by the passing laws(who's power is limited by a constitution), which are enforced by a police force, and deliberated in a system of courts. Of course a military is also needed for protection from foreign threats. In a Capitalist government those caught and convicted of stealing, or fraud would be sentenced accordingly and face retribution for their actions. If you want a good example of where lying and stealing gets you under capitalism take a good look at Bernie Madoff, where he is now, and the kind of horrible angst ridden life he lived before he got caught(so bad he said that being caught as actually a relief as he no longer had to keep up the lie.)
[QUOTE=$SLIMSWITCH$;23004216]If you guys really want Communism how about you pay a visit to North Korea, gotta love the freedom and excitment they have.[/QUOTE] north korea isn't communist [editline]09:11PM[/editline] [QUOTE=tomcat13;23004748]A common phrase for it is worker's state, in which private property is abolished and everything is owned by the state which is governed by a communist party. It's usually the form of government that forms in the wake of any anti-capitalist revolution when the revolutionaries realize that socialism cannot be democratically managed and that in practice it requires strongmen to force everyone to adhere to one national economic centrally planned philosophy.[/QUOTE] yeah, that is in no way Marxist. Ok, fine, call it a workers states. It's not communist. Just because one factor of communism is similar to a factor in a workers states, does that mean it's the fucking theory itself. Are you willing to tell me since abortions were legal in Nazi Germany, any system that allows abortion is now mirrored to Nazism? your shitty logic eludes me and no, lol, that's not how Socialism works. Then again, your image of the world is pretty black and white, you're either American Capitalist or a fucking pinko dictatorship.
[QUOTE=Conscript;23008006]Novistador's post is incredibly dumb. Gotta love the self-championed anti-communists that 'show us up' Why should everyone be equal? I think a better question is why shouldn't everyone be equal? Why should a small elite hold most of the wealth of an entire body of people? Not like it matters anyway. This question isn't central to marxism anyway. Do I exploit someone if I give them a job and profit from it? I suggest you read Wage labor & and capital. I'm on my phone and not about explain the whole LTV to someone. I could probably agree this thread's discussion is based on metaphysics and ethics. But if you're saying this is what Marxism is based on you only show a strong ignorance of it. I could show you, the 'die-hard' liberal, how your system fails and dissolves into dictatorship, economic stagnation, and bloody massacre. I could also disprove some of these things' relationship or communism as nothing short of cold war propaganda. Challenge that end please. I'd like to see another arrogant liberal fail at it, as hard as he believes communism does haha.[/QUOTE] [quote=Novistador]I think theres a little bit of "begging the question" going on in your question of "why should a small elite hold most of the wealth of an entire body of people",as you insinuate that the resources of the wealthy belong to everyone in your attempt to prove that they should be distributed to everyone. I would put fourth that unless obtained by outright forceful thievery, or fraud, it would be impossible for one to posses the wealth of another. As absent of these things(physical force or coercion) any wealth obtained by this "elite few" is obtained through a voluntary trade, in which both parties receive something that is to them, of greater value. In the case of the seller the money they receive is more valuable to them than their product, and in the case of the buyer, the product they purchase is of more value to them than their money, hence they make the trade. Often you'll hear examples where one will cite that a assembly line mechanic is not paid the full $40 000 that the car they assembled sold for. "why not" you'll year asked, "they performed all the labour that created the car". This of course neglects the fact that providing their labour is the only task for which they are contracted. Someone else mined the metals,smelted them,formed them into car parts, someone else produced the rubber, someone else built the tools, all of these things must be purchased(traded for) first, before the laborer can have any role at all. Providing the capital for these purchases is the role of the investors, they must decide which ventures will be successful and invest their resources accordingly, or risk losing all they put in. After the raw materials have been purchased they must be organized, it must be decided from whom to buy them from, how they will be transported to the site of manufacturing, and on what dates that transportation will take place. Then quantities must be decided upon based on supply and demand, and schedule's must be created for the actual manufacturing staff. These logistical functions are the role of the managers, and involve just as much, if not more, mental effort as a physical laborers job requires physical effort. Once all these elements have been drawn together and organized, a method must be found to assemble them into the desired product. If the work required for assembly is very difficult and specialized, or esoteric. Such as the manufacturing of spacecraft(specialized), the repair of 1920's grandfather clocks(esoteric(rare)) or sculpting and casting of bronze statues(specialized, rare, and difficult), then in order to entice a potential employee to deal with you, they will have to be paid a high wage. On the other hand, if the required work is menial, unskilled, or over saturated with potential workers. examples include garden labour(menial), assembly line worker or fast food employee(unskilled), or some job where supply exceeds demand. Then the wage able to be provided for the work performed will be low. It makes no sense to pay a McDonald's employee $50 an hour if there are 1000 other people(because no training is required) waiting to take the job for $10. Just like any other product, someones mental or physical labour is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. You may put hours and hours of effort into designing very effective hiking boots for tyrannosaurus, but if nobody wants them then the sad fact is their not worth anything. The same can be said for performing a service(labour) if your not skilled, or nobody wants your skills, you can expect to be paid less than a skilled worker whose service is in demand. The concept of value is always dependent upon the question "of value to whom" and "for what reason". Throughout every link of this chain of events everyone involved is so through voluntary choice, because they wish to trade value for value. From the worker who thinks his time and effort is worth trading for monetary compensation, to the investor who thinks the rewards of lending out his resources as venture capital is worth the risk of losing it. Now lets deal with two special cases people like to bring up so often, The rich who inherit their wealth, and so called "wage slavery". In the case of Inherited wealth, the most summary principle is "use it or lose it", what this means it that unless the owner of this inherited wealth invests it intelligently, that wealth is going to slowly decay until nothings left. This means that in order to continue living a lavish lifestyle they will have to put their resources in the hands of a capable person who will act as an investor, using those resources to start up or maintain businesses which provide products or services that people gain value from, and wish to trade for. If on the other hand they make incompetent decisions, or simply spend their money. They will eventually lose their wealth, with it being in the hands of those who create value (through their purchases). The question of why they should have the wealth in the first place comes from the individual rights of whoever gathered the wealth in the first place(through trade). The right to give your personal property to whoever you want is part of having a right to it. In the case of "wage slavery" I would contend that the term is both an absurdity and a contradiction. First of all one must note that a slave is a person who is, through force, held against their will and forced to perform tasks for which they are given no compensation. In legitimate cases of slavery(the american south)it was clear that the slaves had no say in whether they remained with their captors, or if they were to perform work. There was no option for them to resign and seek employment elsewhere. In the case of those supposedly chained by "wage slavery" they have every one of these choices and more. They have voluntarily entered in trade with their employer because they see an opportunity for them to gain value by dealing with them, and should that evaluation change, no one is holding a gun to their head and keeping them from working elsewhere. Now you may say "but they are FORCED to work somewhere, because they need certain things to survive" which is the equivalent of saying that someone is enslaved to existence. Like it or hate it a simple fact of reality is that if you wish to remain within it, your going to have to take care of the needs of your body. and the fact of the matter is that unless you want to toil in subsistence agriculture(which very few people do) your going to have to work to meet those needs. Very few people are willing to pay large amounts of money for someone to perform a service which is not very useful, easy to find employee's for, or unskilled, and if you happen to be one of these people your going to have to work a lot longer if you want to maintain a good standard of living. This is not slavery, this is reality, and to rebel against it is to rebel against the inescapable and demand either that people pay through the nose for something which is worthless, or that you become a ghost and cease having physical needs. Hopefully this basic lesson in economics helped some of you understand how not just manual laborers, but managers, and investors as well play an integral role in the functioning of industry. How the value of something independent of it being of value to someone is a silly concept. and how people can interact as traders, not slaves, masters, and mobs demanding redistribution. (let me just clarify one point by saying that although I contend that one can only have their rights violated through the use of physical force, and that those rights are not being violated so long as one voluntarily enters into an agreement. I am not contending that whenever one makes a voluntary choice they are making a good choice. It is ones own responsibility, and the role of their mind to discern good choices from bad ones.)[/quote]
[QUOTE=Novistador;23011998]Capitalism in no way encourages lying or stealing, perhaps anarchy, or an oppressive dictatorship where one must constantly lie to officials, and ones friends(to avoid persecution by secret police), and steal food just to survive. But in order for Capitalism to be Capitalism it must have a government which protects the individual rights of its citizens, this is done by the passing laws(who's power is limited by a constitution), which are enforced by a police force, and deliberated in a system of courts. Of course a military is also needed for protection from foreign threats. In a Capitalist government those caught and convicted of stealing, or fraud would be sentenced accordingly and face retribution for their actions. If you want a good example of where lying and stealing gets you under capitalism take a good look at Bernie Madoff, where he is now, and the kind of horrible angst ridden life he lived before he got caught(so bad he said that being caught as actually a relief as he no longer had to keep up the lie.)[/QUOTE] problem is, it's not even the illegal factor. There is so much deceit, praying off of peoples fears, wants, desires, etc. people die for money, people are killed for money, and people are miserable because of money. If capitalism isn't the most evil system known to man, then I don't know what is.
Communist Governments do not really work out well in the long run. It's not the doctrine of Communism it self but it's usually the Government and their corrupt thirst to stay in power.
Here's a poll: who actually read the book?
[QUOTE=Warhol;23012747]people die for money, people are killed for money, and people are miserable because of money. If capitalism isn't the most evil system known to man, then I don't know what is.[/QUOTE] [quote=On the topic of money] "So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? "When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil? "Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth. "But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.' "To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil? "But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind. "Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil? "Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil? "Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money? "Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money? "Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. "Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. "Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun. "But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves. "Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter. "Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. "Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.' "When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are. "You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists. "To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist. "If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality. "Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will. "Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out." [/quote]
The things you own end up owning you.
[quote]I think a better question is why shouldn't everyone be equal? Why should a small elite hold most of the wealth of an entire body of people?[/quote] I know this is cliche but it's not fair that a person who worked hard and devoted much of their life to becoming successfull should have to give up a LARGE sum of their money to a person who became poor because they bummed around. I emphasize large because I'm all fine with a small income tax take like maybe 15% because there are people who can't help themselves or are financialy stuck and should still be supported. But it would not be a good idea to spread wealth EVENLY because then all the wealthy people getting ripped will just leave and you'll be taxing only the less wealthy people.
[QUOTE=Novistador;23012834][/QUOTE] money hasn't been around since the beginning of civilization btw [editline]09:31PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Meller Yeller;23012911]I know this is cliche but it's not fair that a person who worked hard and devoted much of their life to becoming successfull should have to give up a LARGE sum of their money to a person who became poor because they bummed around. I emphasize large because I'm all fine with a small income tax take like maybe 15% because there are people who can't help themselves or are financialy stuck and should still be supported. But it would not be a good idea to spread wealth EVENLY because then all the wealthy people getting ripped will just leave and you'll be taxing only the less wealthy people.[/QUOTE] because ALL poor people bum around, right?
[QUOTE=Synaesthesia;23007728]Just to stress the point, I am not a Communist, if it happens to seem to anyone that I am. Communism isn't an ideal that I strive for, but I can understand why people do. The aim of Communism isn't to make everyone equal as such, but to remove the great inequality that is a large by-product of Capitalism. Marx was actually against everyone being paid the same wage, which is something a lot of anticommunists don't realise. Regarding the second question, I would consider that relationship to be an example of exploitation, but it's an integral part of the capitalist system and has become the norm. You are right by saying that this thread is focusing on just the politics and none of the real ideology, but I would say that you are wrong in the statement following, as all those things that you list were the results of the bastardisations of Communism and the ideas of Marx, (as it is, I presume, the 'communist' regimes in China/Russia/North Korea/Cuba e.t.c, that you are alluding to). Communists and Socialists are more often than not the harshest critics of those regimes, and don't want to be associated with them, as they are gross misrepresentations of what they believe. Communists don't typically believe that a classless society is worth ANY price, in lives or otherwise (which isn't to say that there aren't Communists that do believe that), but many would put their lives on the line for such a cause. Regarding your last statement: Just challenging something won't make someone change their mind, be it by exposing failure, or by questioning the justifiability, or worth, of an end's pursuit, as the end, and the probability of success thereof, would have to be focused on, and so if all Communist's really believed that the 'end' of a classless society is worth any means, as you say, then just challenging the end itself will do nothing by way of swaying their opinion - especially as the worth of an idea is just that, an opinion.[/QUOTE] Alright communists are just getting weird now, I thought communism was equality, isn't varied wages a product of capitalism? WHAT DO YOU WANT? [editline]11:06PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Conscript;23008006]Novistador's post is incredibly dumb. Gotta love the self-championed anti-communists that 'show us up' Why should everyone be equal? I think a better question is why shouldn't everyone be equal? Why should a small elite hold most of the wealth of an entire body of people? Not like it matters anyway. This question isn't central to marxism anyway. Do I exploit someone if I give them a job and profit from it? I suggest you read Wage labor & and capital. I'm on my phone and not about explain the whole LTV to someone. I could probably agree this thread's discussion is based on metaphysics and ethics. But if you're saying this is what marxism is based on you only show a strong ignorance of it. I could show you, the 'die-hard' liberal, how your system fails and dissolves into dictatorship, economic stagnation, and bloody massacre. I could also disprove some of these things' relationship or communism as nothing short of cold war propaganda. Challenge that end please. I'd like to see another arrogant liberal fail at it, as hard as he believes communism does haha.[/QUOTE] When has capitalism dissolved into a dictatorship?
[QUOTE=Novistador;23012662] I would put fourth that unless obtained by outright forceful thievery, or fraud, it would be impossible for one to posses the wealth of another. As absent of these things(physical force or coercion) any wealth obtained by this "elite few" is obtained through a voluntary trade, in which both parties receive something that is to them, of greater value. [/quote] It would be voluntary if there were no external influences on a worker that forces him to sell his labor. If you don't work, you don't eat. There is hardly any choice. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]In the case of the seller the money they receive is more valuable to them than their product, and in the case of the buyer, the product they purchase is of more value to them than their money, hence they make the trade.[/quote] That's not always the case. Sellers often have to sell cheaply, buyers pay dearly, or not at all which may leave either of the two cheated by capitalism. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]Often you'll hear examples where one will cite that a assembly line mechanic is not paid the full $40 000 that the car they assembled sold for. "why not" you'll year asked, "they performed all the labour that created the car". This of course neglects the fact that providing their labour is the only task for which they are contracted.[/quote] I've heard similar examples but nothing like this. It usually goes like An assembly line mechanic toils all year helping make cars. He makes 50,000 a year and lives off it, if just barely. The cars he helps make sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and the profit from them easily covers his wages in a day or two. Yet he works all year, helping make cars he is never paid for. The case is no different for the miner, the electrician, etc. All accumulate labor time which is unpaid but unfortunately part of the contract. Oh, but he is voluntarily engaging in this practice! He signed his name right here on this contract.. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]After the raw materials have been purchased they must be organized, it must be decided from whom to buy them from, how they will be transported to the site of manufacturing, and on what dates that transportation will take place. Then quantities must be decided upon based on supply and demand, and schedule's must be created for the actual manufacturing staff. These logistical functions are the role of the managers, and involve just as much, if not more, mental effort as a physical laborers job requires physical effort.[/quote] Yes, production is no small game. It's a difficult enterprise. Would you also have sympathy for the USSR's bureaucrat planners, too? Money paid by the business is accumulated by exploitation, and products bought are products of exploitation. And even if the capitalist himself did all the work of organizing it (which usually isn't the case, workers do that), the value of his labor is not equal to that of the value of the labor accumulated in the products he bought and the value of the labor to be put into by his work force. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]Once all these elements have been drawn together and organized, a method must be found to assemble them into the desired product. If the work required for assembly is very difficult and specialized, or esoteric. Such as the manufacturing of spacecraft(specialized), the repair of 1920's grandfather clocks(esoteric(rare)) or sculpting and casting of bronze statues(specialized, rare, and difficult), then in order to entice a potential employee to deal with you, they will have to be paid a high wage. [/quote] And yet you'll still find it's no exception. I guarantee he makes more statues then he's paid for. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]On the other hand, if the required work is menial, unskilled, or over saturated with potential workers. examples include garden labour(menial), assembly line worker or fast food employee(unskilled), or some job where supply exceeds demand. Then the wage able to be provided for the work performed will be low. It makes no sense to pay a McDonald's employee $50 an hour if there are 1000 other people(because no training is required) waiting to take the job for $10.[/quote] I appreciate it, but I know how the labor market works. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]Just like any other product, someones mental or physical labour is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. You may put hours and hours of effort into designing very effective hiking boots for tyrannosaurus, but if nobody wants them then the sad fact is their not worth anything. The same can be said for performing a service(labour) if your not skilled, or nobody wants your skills, you can expect to be paid less than a skilled worker whose service is in demand.[/quote] This is why I asked you to read wage labor and capital. Value is not price. A price is determined by supply and demand. Value, however, determines the relationship between supply and demand. Value is the cost of production, it is the standard in which all pricings are judged to be high or low. When I sell my hiking boots, I do not draw up a price arbitrarily (otherwise sellers would be ripping each other off constantly but a market forces us to be objective with our pricing), but something preferably above the cost of production. [quote=Adam Smith;4343]The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. [/quote] [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]The concept of value is always dependent upon the question "of value to whom" and "for what reason".[/quote] I agree, but this does not apply to a market. A market uses an objective means to determine value: Cost of production. It does not always reflect how me and your might value you it. Most foods are cheap because they are widespread, yet they are critical to our survival. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]Throughout every link of this chain of events everyone involved is so through voluntary choice, because they wish to trade value for value. From the worker who thinks his time and effort is worth trading for monetary compensation, to the investor who thinks the rewards of lending out his resources as venture capital is worth the risk of losing it.[/quote] You put excessive emphasis on voluntary as if we all live in our own little bubble, with our decisions entirely uninfluenced by the world around us. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]In the case of Inherited wealth, the most summary principle is "use it or lose it", what this means it that unless the owner of this inherited wealth invests it intelligently, that wealth is going to slowly decay until nothings left. This means that in order to continue living a lavish lifestyle they will have to put their resources in the hands of a capable person who will act as an investor, using those resources to start up or maintain businesses which provide products or services that people gain value from, and wish to trade for. If on the other hand they make incompetent decisions, or simply spend their money. They will eventually lose their wealth, with it being in the hands of those who create value (through their purchases). The question of why they should have the wealth in the first place comes from the individual rights of whoever gathered the wealth in the first place(through trade). The right to give your personal property to whoever you want is part of having a right to it.[/quote] I've never really seen a communism vs. capitalism debate where the communists made arguments against inheritance. I don't see the point of it, except maybe making a case for a socialist state taxing inheritance based on amount considered exploitatively (is that even a word) obtained. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]In the case of "wage slavery" I would contend that the term is both an absurdity and a contradiction. First of all one must note that a slave is a person who is, through force, held against their will and forced to perform tasks for which they are given no compensation. In legitimate cases of slavery(the american south)it was clear that the slaves had no say in whether they remained with their captors, or if they were to perform work. There was no option for them to resign and seek employment elsewhere. In the case of those supposedly chained by "wage slavery" they have every one of these choices and more. They have voluntarily entered in trade with their employer because they see an opportunity for them to gain value by dealing with them, and should that evaluation change, no one is holding a gun to their head and keeping them from working elsewhere. [/quote] So you basically just took a paragraph to say 'it's not slavery because they signed their name here'. Again, we do not live in a bubble. Workers work because it's their only means to live, there's not much more to it. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]Now you may say "but they are FORCED to work somewhere, because they need certain things to survive" which is the equivalent of saying that someone is enslaved to existence. Like it or hate it a simple fact of reality is that if you wish to remain within it, your going to have to take care of the needs of your body. and the fact of the matter is that unless you want to toil in subsistence agriculture(which very few people do) your going to have to work to meet those needs. [/quote] Here you deviate from defending capitalism to defending work in general, which I am not arguing against. I am arguing against capitalism and exploitation, not the fact that people MUST work to live. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]Hopefully this basic lesson in economics helped some of you understand how not just manual laborers, but managers, and investors as well play an integral role in the functioning of industry.[/quote] Thanks! But I already considered myself at least semi-versed in bourgeois economics. There's always something to learn though. [QUOTE=Novistador;23012662]How the value of something independent of it being of value to someone is a silly concept. [/quote] Ironically, your favored market is what introduced this concept. Marx just wrote a book on it.
[QUOTE=Warhol;23012747]problem is, it's not even the illegal factor. There is so much deceit, praying off of peoples fears, wants, desires, etc. people die for money, people are killed for money, and people are miserable because of money. If capitalism isn't the most evil system known to man, then I don't know what is.[/QUOTE] I'm not miserable because of money... Have you tried communism as the most evil system? [editline]11:10PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Warhol;23013057]money hasn't been around since the beginning of civilization btw [editline]09:31PM[/editline] because ALL poor people bum around, right?[/QUOTE] Money has been around since the beginning of civilization. Trade and agriculture are the bases of civilization.
[QUOTE=Earthen;23012662]When has capitalism dissolved into a dictatorship?[/quote] Seriously? Suharto, Francisco Franco, Fulgencio Batista, Syngman Rhee, Mobutu Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos, Ngo Dinh Diem, Chiang Kai-Shek, Juan Bordaberry, Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Suazo, Luis García Meza Tejada, Alberto Fujimori, Alfredo Stroessner, fucking hell I could go on. Don't you ever hear about people complaining about how the US installed shitloads of third world dictators during the cold war? Most capitalist countries in the world have had a dictator in some point (and a lot of them are concentrated in the third world). I would even qualify the nazi government as a capitalist dictatorship. As lenin once said, 'fascism is capitalism in crisis', and all of these men presided over a capitalist country certainly in crisis.
[QUOTE=Conscript;23016917] I've heard similar examples but nothing like this. It usually goes like An assembly line mechanic toils all year helping make cars. He makes 50,000 a year and lives off it, if just barely. The cars he helps make sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and the profit from them easily covers his wages in a day or two. Yet he works all year, helping make cars he is never paid for. The case is no different for the miner, the electrician, etc. All accumulate labor time which is unpaid but unfortunately part of the contract. Oh, but he is voluntarily engaging in this practice! He signed his name right here on this contract.. [/QUOTE] Unpaid for? The worker is paid the amount that he deserves. Anybody can do manual labour. Who is the one selling the cars, deciding where the cars are dealt, what cars should be made, designing the cars, making sure everything is shipped correctly? Those who have skilled jobs, they deserve more money because they are responsible for more. If you work at a shipping company then you should be paid more than the guy who just carries stuff. The reason being that you have more responsibilities, your job requires some skill. You have to make sure everything goes in its right place, make sure the schedule is managed, etc... Unless you want to be paid the same as some guy who is the coffee boy...? [editline]11:18PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Conscript;23017094]Seriously? Suharto, Francisco Franco, Fulgencio Batista, Syngman Rhee, Mobutu Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos, Ngo Dinh Diem, Chiang Kai-Shek, Juan Bordaberry, Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Suazo, Luis García Meza Tejada, Alberto Fujimori, Alfredo Stroessner, fucking hell I could go on. Most capitalist countries in the world have had a dictator in some point (and a lot of them are concentrated in the third world). I would even qualify the nazi government as a capitalist dictatorship. As lenin once said, 'fascism is capitalism in crisis', and all of these men presided over a capitalist country certainly in crisis.[/QUOTE] Lenin is the basis of all knowledge? as if. Those countries had difficult social situations. Diem failed because he was a terrible leader who discriminated against thousands within his country. Do you honestly think a modern European country with a competent leader would just collapse into dictatorship? And the insertion of dictators by the US was simply a remake of the Truman doctrine. Either extremes that could have controlled those countries would have been bad. Face it, extremes of politics just like extremes of emotion can be extremely dangerous.
[QUOTE=Earthen;23017110]Unpaid for? The worker is paid the amount that he deserves. Anybody can do manual labour. Who is the one selling the cars, deciding where the cars are dealt, what cars should be made, designing the cars, making sure everything is shipped correctly? Those who have skilled jobs, they deserve more money because they are responsible for more. If you work at a shipping company then you should be paid more than the guy who just carries stuff. The reason being that you have more responsibilities, your job requires some skill. You have to make sure everything goes in its right place, make sure the schedule is managed, etc... Unless you want to be paid the same as some guy who is the coffee boy...?[/QUOTE] God you can be a fucking idiot sometimes earthen. But that's why I love you. Prove that is the amount he deserves. The rest of your post doesn't. 'Anyone can do it' doesn't disprove the fact that he is forced to work longer then he needs to to live and isn't even paid for the time. [QUOTE=Earthen;23017110]Lenin is the basis of all knowledge? as if.[/quote] I'll just ignore this bit because you probably want me to :) (joking) [QUOTE=Earthen;23017110]Those countries had difficult social situations. Diem failed because he was a terrible leader who discriminated against thousands within his country. Do you honestly think a modern European country with a competent leader would just collapse into dictatorship?[/quote] So then what are you telling me here? that only the modern, european countries are capitalist? Or are you admitting you were wrong in your own way? Or wait, I know, is it that Diem is the only pro-capitalist dictator ever?
[QUOTE=Earthen;23017110]Unpaid for? The worker is paid the amount that he deserves. Anybody can do manual labour. Who is the one selling the cars, deciding where the cars are dealt, what cars should be made, designing the cars, making sure everything is shipped correctly? Those who have skilled jobs, they deserve more money because they are responsible for more. If you work at a shipping company then you should be paid more than the guy who just carries stuff. The reason being that you have more responsibilities, your job requires some skill. You have to make sure everything goes in its right place, make sure the schedule is managed, etc... Unless you want to be paid the same as some guy who is the coffee boy...? [editline]11:18PM[/editline] Lenin is the basis of all knowledge? as if. Those countries had difficult social situations. Diem failed because he was a terrible leader who discriminated against thousands within his country. Do you honestly think a modern European country with a competent leader would just collapse into dictatorship?[/QUOTE] What's your opinion on monopolies.
[QUOTE=Warhol;23013057]money hasn't been around since the beginning of civilization btw [editline]09:31PM[/editline] because ALL poor people bum around, right?[/QUOTE] Way to read the whole post.
[QUOTE=Conscript;23017163] Prove that is the amount he deserves. The rest of your post doesn't. 'Anyone can do it' doesn't disprove the fact that he is forced to work longer then he needs to to live and isn't even paid for the time. [/QUOTE] ok, first of all, the only way someone can be forced to do anything is through the use of force. Physical force exerted, or threatened upon them by another human being. I've already put fourth that the idea of "your forced by the requirements of existence" is silly. Yes it is still an act you must carry out, but to compare it to violence from another human being is absurd. If you want to live you must aquire the things necessary to advance your life, here you have a choice of producing, robbing, or begging. Robbing will only work in the short term before you killed or caught, as your actions make you a liability to the life of everyone around you, Begging leaves your future not only uncertain, but destroys any self respect you may have, which leaves the question of why you would want to live in the first place. Production of some value is the only way to survive long term for a human being, productive human beings don't become liability to the lives of their peers, but help and advance them. Now in our civilized world of reason and technology, no one must produce all the products they wish to utilize, we have specialized and in our specialization become very good at specific things, allowing us to trade these very good things with others, and thus maintain our lives. So basically to live you have to work a job, or create one for yourself. Your contention seems to be that if businesses never made a profit, and (heres where I'm fuzzy) either always broke even, or use all profits to pay all employees equal wages, or gave all their profits in taxes, or something. They would only sell enough product so that every one of their employees could survive. Thus when one does make a profit, the employees work more than they would have to if they were just subsiding on the bare necessity's, or current requirements(without growth). But my main problem with this business model is first of all why you think any specific employee (physical laborer or otherwise) is entitled to more than they have agreed to work for, and more than their employer is willing to pay them. Sure the company makes a profit that is I suppose greater than their cost of living for lets say a year, but what entitles them to more of the profits than their agreement allows for, they are not the only people involved in the process, they didn't own the raw materials or tools, they simply sold the service of using them for a specific end, and were compensated for that service, according to a wage they accepted. But suppose some sort of worker is able to sell only enough of their product to subside for a year, perhaps they sell televisions. Where are they to get the components for these televisions?, How are they to handle any other of the crucial parts of bringing a product to market if all they posses is the ability to handle one link in the chain. I mean its all well and good to say that the profits from one HD television could pay for one makes living for a year, but if theres no way one man could ever produce such a product whats the use of saying such a thing, especially as a critique of making profits.
[QUOTE=Earthen;23016981]I'm not miserable because of money... Have you tried communism as the most evil system? [editline]11:10PM[/editline] Money has been around since the beginning of civilization. Trade and agriculture are the bases of civilization.[/QUOTE] right, earthen, the guy who doesn't know what the FUCK communism is because of his anti-soviet angst capital and trade are two very different things. [editline]01:50AM[/editline] [QUOTE=Earthen;23017110] Lenin is the basis of all knowledge? as if. Those countries had difficult social situations. Diem failed because he was a terrible leader who discriminated against thousands within his country. Do you honestly think a modern European country with a competent leader would just collapse into dictatorship? And the insertion of dictators by the US was simply a remake of the Truman doctrine. Either extremes that could have controlled those countries would have been bad. Face it, extremes of politics just like extremes of emotion can be extremely dangerous.[/QUOTE] you missed the point, you asked where capitalism has dissolved into despotism. he gave a ton of examples [editline]01:51AM[/editline] wait, wait, wait... are you implying Franco was not a dictator?
[QUOTE=Warhol;23018794] you missed the point, you asked where capitalism has dissolved into despotism. he gave a ton of examples [/QUOTE] You can't have a Capitalist dictator, its a contradiction in terms. The principle of a Capitalist government is that it serves only to protect individual rights through the police, military, and courts. Not to redistribute wealth, promote any specific ideas, promote any specific industry, set prices, set wages, give welfare, or run any specific industry. Capitalism acknowledges that the only way you can violate someones rights is through the use of forces, and it seeks to banish it from human relations. Once you get a dictator telling someone what industry to invest in, how to operate your business, what ideas to believe in, or just generally robbing and murdering you cease to have capitalism. You may have some form of social democracy, or pure democracy, or socialist dictatorship, or fascist dictatorship, But once the government becomes the initiator of force, thats no longer capitalism. You can't say the same for communism, while Capitalism is founded upon protecting its citizens rights, communism( or socialism in the only way it will ever exist in government) is founded on telling its citizens what to do , based on what it thinks is bes for everybody as a whole. There is no way to do this without force, once you have widespread use of force by the government you have dictatorship, this is precisely what socialism advocates whether you wish to admit it or not. A Socialist/Communist government which doesn't use force against its citizens to steal their wealth and redistribute it, or force them to do business a certain way, or in a certain area, or prohibit things arbitrarily, isn't a communist one. It's a Laissez-faire Capitalist one in a society where for some reason or another all the citizens choose to live and do business according to Marxism. What we have today is a mixed economy, where the government uses force against its citizens in the form of taxes, and regulations. Yet hasn't reached the point of outright dictatorship. We do not have capitalism.
[QUOTE=tomcat13;22999319]I understand the differences perfectly. Socialism and National Socialism both originated in the labor movement, and were influenced by the idea of creating a utopian society through the creation of an ubermensch, or, a "better human." A human that was devoid of greed and vice and did not suffer from hunger and sickness. For socialists it was to be done through "the emancipation" of labor first through a dictatorship of the proletariat over the means of production and eventually the dissolution of all classes and private property. For national socialists it was to be done through selective breeding to create a genetically superior human by encouraging (or forcing) people who had a genetic disposition to favorable traits to reproduce and discouraging (or forcing) people who had unfavorable traits from breeding. I know my history and I know the political and philosophical history of these movements. I'm not as ignorant as you would like to believe.[/QUOTE] socialism, contrary to national socialism, doesn't have one specific branch. socialism takes inspiration from numerous ideals and societies prior to the labour movement. i tend to shy away from the word 'ubermensch' because of it's attachment to the nazi state. as do the vast majority of socialist organizations today. [QUOTE=tomcat13;22999319]They were all idealists who believed they could create a better society by examining society, and then declaring one particular element within society to be "bad" or the "enemy" and then trying to eliminate it. That is the trademark of all authoritarianism. That we will all be better off we just get rid of "those people." Socialism and National Socialism/Fascism both did this.[/QUOTE] and? i'm not really sure how this is a retort to any point i made in what you quoted. as a sidenote though, just because socialist governments did do it, doesn't mean they should have done it. [QUOTE=tomcat13;22999319] First of all, these lasted for how long? How many people lived under them? Were their economies devoid of poverty and did they have a fair and equal distribution of equity and power? You're dreaming if you think this was the case.[/QUOTE] i'm not your history teacher, you have both the time and the knowledge to find these out on your own. if you have an issue with one of my examples, raise it. [editline]01:16AM[/editline] [QUOTE=Novistador;23019243]You can't have a Capitalist dictator, its a contradiction in terms. The principle of a Capitalist government is that it serves only to protect individual rights through the police, military, and courts. Not to redistribute wealth, promote any specific ideas, promote any specific industry, set prices, set wages, give welfare, or run any specific industry. Capitalism acknowledges that the only way you can violate someones rights is through the use of forces, and it seeks to banish it from human relations. Once you get a dictator telling someone what industry to invest in, how to operate your business, what ideas to believe in, or just generally robbing and murdering you cease to have capitalism. You may have some form of social democracy, or pure democracy, or socialist dictatorship, or fascist dictatorship, But once the government becomes the initiator of force, thats no longer capitalism. You can't say the same for communism, while Capitalism is founded upon protecting its citizens rights, communism( or socialism in the only way it will ever exist in government) is founded on telling its citizens what to do , based on what it thinks is bes for everybody as a whole. There is no way to do this without force, once you have widespread use of force by the government you have dictatorship, this is precisely what socialism advocates whether you wish to admit it or not. A Socialist/Communist government which doesn't use force against its citizens to steal their wealth and redistribute it, or force them to do business a certain way, or in a certain area, or prohibit things arbitrarily, isn't a communist one. It's a Laissez-faire Capitalist one in a society where for some reason or another all the citizens choose to live and do business according to Marxism. What we have today is a mixed economy, where the government uses force against its citizens in the form of taxes, and regulations. Yet hasn't reached the point of outright dictatorship. We do not have capitalism.[/QUOTE] you're confusing capitalism with the ideals of western democracy. capitalism is an economic theory communism is a socio-economic theory capitalism is not a system of government
[QUOTE=Novistador;23019243]You can't have a Capitalist dictator, its a contradiction in terms. The principle of a Capitalist government is that it serves only to protect individual rights through the police, military, and courts. Not to redistribute wealth, promote any specific ideas, promote any specific industry, set prices, set wages, give welfare, or run any specific industry. Capitalism acknowledges that the only way you can violate someones rights is through the use of forces, and it seeks to banish it from human relations. Once you get a dictator telling someone what industry to invest in, how to operate your business, what ideas to believe in, or just generally robbing and murdering you cease to have capitalism. You may have some form of social democracy, or pure democracy, or socialist dictatorship, or fascist dictatorship, But once the government becomes the initiator of force, thats no longer capitalism. You can't say the same for communism, while Capitalism is founded upon protecting its citizens rights, communism( or socialism in the only way it will ever exist in government) is founded on telling its citizens what to do , based on what it thinks is bes for everybody as a whole. There is no way to do this without force, once you have widespread use of force by the government you have dictatorship, this is precisely what socialism advocates whether you wish to admit it or not. A Socialist/Communist government which doesn't use force against its citizens to steal their wealth and redistribute it, or force them to do business a certain way, or in a certain area, or prohibit things arbitrarily, isn't a communist one. It's a Laissez-faire Capitalist one in a society where for some reason or another all the citizens choose to live and do business according to Marxism. What we have today is a mixed economy, where the government uses force against its citizens in the form of taxes, and regulations. Yet hasn't reached the point of outright dictatorship. We do not have capitalism.[/QUOTE] uh, i said dissolved... Capitalism is economic, despotism is both. the problem here is you're looking at capitalism through two lenses. The idealist lens, which is bullshit, and the lens that it's good because it solely produces capital. [editline]02:24AM[/editline] btw, your massive walls of text are nothing but redundant shit
[QUOTE=Chippay;23019317] you're confusing capitalism with the ideals of western democracy. capitalism is an economic theory communism is a socio-economic theory capitalism is not a system of government[/QUOTE] Sorry but your wrong. Capitalism is every bit as much a social system as communism is, at least Capitalism properly defined and protecting individual rights. When you have a system of government that protects individual rights, you have Capitalism, Laissez-faire at least. What people decide to do with their rights is their own business. Democracy can be every bit as oppressive as dictatorship, and the fact that you can have social democracy proves this. If one man violates anothers rights, its no different than if 100% of his countrymen vote to violate that mans rights. Something is not just merely because a majority of people vote to do it. Democratic elections are a fine way to choose officials but as a principle of government can be every bit as tyrannical as dictatorship. [editline]10:28PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Warhol;23019501]Capitalism is economic, despotism is both. [/QUOTE] Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
[QUOTE=Novistador;23019575]Sorry but your wrong. Capitalism is every bit as much a social system as communism is, at least Capitalism properly defined and protecting individual rights. When you have a system of government that protects individual rights, you have Capitalism, Laissez-faire at least. What people decide to do with their rights is their own business. Democracy can be every bit as oppressive as dictatorship, and the fact that you can have social democracy proves this. If one man violates anothers rights, its no different than if 100% of his countrymen vote to violate that mans rights. Something is not just merely because a majority of people vote to do it. Democratic elections are a fine way to choose officials but as a principle of government can be every bit as tyrannical as dictatorship. [editline]10:28PM[/editline] Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.[/QUOTE] capitalism is social? in what fucking reality?
[QUOTE=Warhol;23020107]capitalism is social? in what fucking reality?[/QUOTE] Its a social system, a system governing the interactions between human beings(social) So this reality. Don't tell me you cant tell the difference between a social system and socialism.
What does socialism have to do with this? dude capitalism capital capital = money christ...
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