Capitalism versus Communism Thread.

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No. I didn't say that. I said Socialism requires evil to achieve it in its purist form. It is also true of capitalism but one doesn't have an example of pure capitalism at work to contrast with. Capitalism merged with Libertarian, Democratic, Judeo-Christian, Secularist, and Economic Liberalism creates the unique experience of the United States, so that is not a good example. But what I said is still true, and the examples above have made the case already.

What does 2 million in Iraq have to do with this? You keep bringing up numbers as if you are going to win at that game. Fine... Lowballing it for a second...100 million people at the alter of collectivism in the last 100 years. 250+ million is more accurate based on Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Musolini, and all the commie dictators of the Soviet Union, and I'm sure I'm missing a few fascists, or commie regimes who fit the bill.

The Mexican land grab was out of Slave-holder interest of the southern colonies to expand into that territory so that works I guess... I'm going to look into that. As for the the Philippines, that was by accident. We at war with Spain, and it was a biproduct of the war that we just got stuck with. We never intended to colonize that country, and the following years weren't that pretty either, but we couldn't just let it go. It is the impulse of the US to make everything Democratic because we pin all that is wrong with the world with the lack of Democracy. That is what causes this huge nation to move and do great good or evil in this world. I can make the case for that if you want... Just let me know.







umm.... I would seriously re-look back into that.... National Socialism was a movement in the early part of the last century and Nazism and Fascism both subscribe to the definition of national socialism both by their acts and by their party platforms. You are right that they worked to move people away from communism, but that was because there was a battle amongst the left for the hearts and minds of the populace. Nazism and Fascism was so popular because people identify with their group, ie same shared experiences, same language, culture, geography, etc. This is far more relatable to the common man then international socialism wherein a factory worker in Moscow would have more in common with a worker in Milan or Cleveland then a manager in Moscow who speaks the same language, shares the same culture, etc. This form of socialism just wasn't that popular in the first half of the century amongst the progressives and socialists of the early 20th century. It was hugely popular here in the US, and there is great evidence that we took most of our progressive inspirations from Moscow, and not Italy or Germany. British socialists like the Fabian Society tend to look to Bismarkian Germany and Nazism, yet there were many progressives from the US and UK who both also looked to Italy for inspiration. The great defining moment in socialism's history was when Stalin declared in 1928 that henceforth, any socialist group that wasn't loyal to moscow, could not be called socialist, they had to use the term Fascism. They were competing for the same people, and it was common for "redshirts" becoming "brownshirts" and for communists to be killed by the Nazi's. One socialist group killing another is nothing new in the human experience... It is important to note that

While largely socialist in its policies, the capitalism involved was State Capitalism. It was there to prop up the rulling party, and its' initiatives and obligations to the German People. It would be as if one were to blend modern-day Sweden(Socialism) with China(State Capitalism). That is what Nazi Germany was in its day.

Well that is true, and sometimes we do screw up. We ripped Panama out of the belly of Colombia just so we could connect trade between the two Oceans, to which I can imagine that Colombia was not too thrilled about that, and the entire central and southern America scared s***less. We are sometimes hypocritical as well, but the sum totality of our history is that idealism is our great motivator in this world. We don't always stick to principle, and sometimes we really get it wrong, but in the final analysis, economic interests pale in comparison to idealism.

@ MarketandChurch

Did you read my post properly?

I spent some time looking into that famine you brought up. The highest figures posted for the man-made famine you described was 6 million people. By sheer numbers, and to use an example you brought up, just the simple haggling over the territory between Hitler's Berlin and and Stalin's Moscow costed 14 million people their lives - and this is not including military loss of life - this is just civilian casualties killed off either through killing policies like Hitler wanting to make a new frontier out of that area of land, or indirectly through punishment policies aimed at increasing the suffering of the populace like Stalin's 5 year plans paired with his view that Ukranian nationalism was both evil and needed to be stamped out.

My comparrison was between India and China, you are obviously evading my point, are unaware of who Chairman Mao was or have trouble reading.

That doesn't mean that the Famine in India is any less horrific to the human experience, but on sheer numbers alone, there is no comparison of any examples you bring up, versus everything else that has happened in the last 100 years to the horrors of Nazism, Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Trotskyism, or any other form of collectivism. Why do you remove the great advances and innovations of Socialism from the horrors of its past or treat them as isolated incidents? This is removing Musolini, lenin, or Stalin from H.G. Wells George Sorel or William James... all socialist philosophers who influenced those dictators... Why do you only recognize the positives while excusing the negatives or minimizing the severity of the issue as being disconnected from socialism? You don't do the same for Capitalism... you take the good(I'm assuming you have at least a few good things to say about it) with the bad, but I guess that's how the beautiful perception of Socialism has been preserved for so long... you deny your past like the soviet joke: "The future is known, it's the past that's always changing."

I think you are mistaking me with someone. Where have I sung Socialisms praises? I think my consistent arguments have been against ideological absolutes and western capitalist bias. Socialism in it's supposed 'pure' form [marxist/leninist] is far from usefu -l history has demonstrated that. You have been arguing about economic systems using economic language and lots of spurious figures. Now you wish to discuss whole systems in abstract generalisations without [it would seem] acknowledging that every government ever has pretty much written it's own plan, each basically unique while using elements of more generalised models.
Mussolini was never a socialist, Hitler was never a socialist, Stalin while managing a socialist economy was a despotic totalitarian toe rag and his predecessor Lenin was an opportunistic pirate - are these the words of an appologist or supporter?

The economic system is directly tied to the political system, and one cannot remove one from the other as you and many others do. Textbook theories are adjusted to real-world conditions and variables, and just because some of the concepts of that theory are lost in its application, it doesn't make it any less of that theory... all that is indicative of is the difficulties in making it work in real life, and in some cases, to put it plainly, it just sucks.

This is quite a valid statement and equally valid as the reason why modern 'free market' capitalism is flawed and failing to deliver anything like a generally beneficial result. Adam Smith thye man given the most credit for encoding the principles on which it has been based and sold was a man of very specific virtues living in a specific place and time who pressumed that the wealthy accepted their responsibility to behave charitably and fairly, would yoy say that that was the reality in the 'globalised' world of annonymous corporate entities?

WWII was started by the Nazi's. Sub-sequent wars since have been a clash to keep benighted territories from being engulfed by communism and the horrors that often ensued. 100 million dead is a vast understatement, especially when you include all the soldiers who died in service of these regimes, and all the people who died indirectly as a result of one of these collectivist political religions.

Your closing comment is quite simply nonsense, I would suggest you need to do a whole lot of reading instead of reciting this mid cold war propaganda I would be happy to supply a concise reading list covering the various issues relating to the nature and history of and behind global conflicts since the rise of the Soviet Union [and obviously it's fall] It may take a few days as I need to visit a library to get full details but I would be happy to share.

peace j

Subsequent wars have been imperialist offenses against poor as ever-loving f*ck third world nations with leaders hostile to the West, who are as-....er, killed n crossfire, and replaced with transparent right-wing puppet governments sympathetic to the interests of the American corporatocracy, which gets quite the bad rep, since it is Western corporations who are nice enough to buy out, I mean, SUPPORT the nation's peoples, and allow all the men, women, and children fine careers in their new (no) competitive wage manufacturing jobs. This process is called "spreading freedom and democracy", and not only allows us to educate the mouthy sand nig- that is, human rights-abusing dictators on whose pen- GUNS are bigger, but also allows SUV-driving McDonald's-inhaling American Idol-watching suburbanites to be able to afford the fourteen curling irons and 3 flatscreen TVs and 120 piece plastic Tupperware sets that are the American dream, and their, unemployed, starving and smelly bum fellow citizens to witness what they could have if THEY wanted to work hard instead of making excuses and whining about being laid off.

Win, win, win.

So true. Although I find communism far too dogmatic for my taste (as well as way to totalitarian), one thing they do seem to be right about in their analysis is imperialism. The USA might not actually make a country into a protectorate, but they still exert just as much control over other countries as Britain did over their empire. And no one seems to clue in to the fact that instead of spreading freedom and democracy this way, they are using cheap labour so that Americans can have a lower cost of living.

@MarketAndChurch: You seem to be missing the fact that no one here is defending Stalin or Mao or Hitler (who, I repeat, was NOT A SOCIALIST!). I think everyone is in agreement that they were horrible people and the systems they instituted were equally awful. What we are saying is that there could, in principle, be a system of democratic socialism. Actually, from my reading Singapore has something a little like that: they are a democracy (albeit a flawed one) but there is a huge amount of state owned industry. And almost all of the housing is public. But people still have freedom of speech (outside of hateful speeches). And they have a harsh, but reasonably fair (at least compared to communism states) judicial system. It's not perfect, but it's decent. And I personally think that has more to do with culture than economic systems.

Interestingly, even self-proclaimed communists weren't all as bad as people like Stalin. There were several Eastern European leaders who wanted to allow their people more freedom, while maintaining socialism, and be more independent from Moscow. Poland even managed to carry out those policies for awhile. Unfortunately the USSR didn't approve and got rid of those leaders. Hard (pretty much impossible) to defend the Russians.

Forget books and work with facts. Compare the number of people who leave their native socialist countries to go to more or less capitalist countries with the number of people who leave their native capitalist countries to go to socialist countries. Count the bodies. That is where the truth is.

If you go according the vote by the feet count, capitalism wins hands down.

ruveyn

What are your thoughts on the growing trend in academic circles to at least make a cursory attempt to isolate relevant variables?

Was that really an assertion made? I guess someone missed the bit about the Reich ROUNDING UP AND EXECUTING THE "BOLSHEVIST SUBHUMANS".

One man's relevance is another man's happenstance.

ruveyn

Yep, multiple times (mostly by the same person). I've seen it on other threads too.

You are either a supporter of Good Capitalism/Freedom or supporter of Evil Communism/Slavery. There is no middle ground. You are either with us or against us.

Very funny Dark_Lord_2008....

Well as capitalism is of god and communism/socialism of the devil I give up, there is no point reasoning with absolutist morons.

Ponder this however,

Three primitive men have just constructed a raft which hopefully will enable two of them and their families to cross a waterway and colonise a visible island. The set of on their journey however they choose the wrong materials and their raft breaks up, the survivors are helped ashore by those too timid to try.

Should they abandon all hope of the origional venture or modify their plans and try agai? Perhaps should they listen to the muppets who can't even concieve of raft building and make a religion out of a failing worldview?

No need to guess what the answer is eh? USA USA USA

peace j

That sounds like the reasoning Stalin used. Either you agree with him on everything or you are really a capitalist, and should be sent off to the Gulag. Interesting you should use similar reasoning to an "evil communist."

Forget Books? Spoken like a true anti intellectual, stoke up the fires grandad, heaven knows those damn books might contain a few facts.

Now lets analysie your 'facts'.

Migrations of people occur as individuals percieve an opportunity to improve their circumstances in some way, usually the primary motivation is material improvement, a chance to have a better home, diet etc, a better future for ones offspring - ecconomic refugees. The second main motivator is usually seen to be the issue of 'safety and freedom' - political refugees.

You are quite right in saying more people have fled failing socialist/communist regimes however there are also constant ongoing flows from ostensibly capitalist countries to other ostensibly capitalist or actual capitalist countries. Given a balancing of numbers over say the last 300 years I would be surprised if it didn't balance out when one works things out allowing for population increase [per capita].

Now lets look at peoples desire for change within their own native locale since the advent of communalistic political thinking, what would you say the most common political manifesto of the worlds poplular 'revolutions' has bee? Well funnily enough they are overwelmingly socialist/collectivist, that these changes have for the most part failed does not deny this fact.
What has been the most common manifesto of all the military coups in the last hundred years? Overwhelmingly capitalist and usually in service to foreign interests.

As usual you have trotted out a slogan that the reactionaries in the USA have spouted since the Bolshiveiks hyjacked the Russian revolution, they appeal to a cynical narcissist on an emotional level and on the surface look good but never stand up to scrutiny, perhaps this is why you opt for the hands on ears anti intellectualism you frequently display?

Again peace j

Also, the people who have the most reason to flee socialist or communist countries are the rich. The people who would go to socialist countries are the poor (not to Communist countries, because they perverted socialism into totalitarianism and no one would want to live under that). However, the poor generally do not have the means to move (they're poor after all). They're kind of stuck in capitalism.