Capitalism versus Communism Thread.

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Suppose the police shoot first and wonder about it afterward?

In the Old Days they used to hang thieves. If things get bad enough the Old Days could very well become the New Days.

ruveyn

Police would not shoot someone for just stealing some food from the shops. In cowboy polics state America , I would not be surprised the police shoot and ask questions later. Hollywood imitates life literally in America. America has the highest crimes rates and highest imprisonment rates per capita in the world.

Many people get away with shop lifting despite the CCTV cameras. Pick pocketing is a skill perfected by the Eastern Europeans and you would not feel a thing.

Last edited by Dark_Lord_2008 on 19 May 2011, 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Who doesn't have the means to buy from grocery stores other than the homeless and the vast minority of the poor?

http://www.insideronline.org/archives/2 ... overty.pdf

In the projects I grew up in, AOL, cable TV, AC, VCR's, walk men, etc. weren't unheard of. The majority of the poor in the states and Canada own things like AC, colour TVs, DVD players, cable/satellite, fridges, and laundry machines then they don't face starvation as much as they face financial insecurity:


http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... ert-rector

ValentineWiggin wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

Given the higher autonomy that modern society grants us, it's not that capitalism somehow corrupts our nature

No, it only incentivizes the very worst parts of it, as opposed to the others

Socialistic systems do not incentivize anything but mediocrity and dependence. They sure as hell do not incentivize compassion either since you can't bribe people into being compassionate. In fact, the Netherlands tried paying people to give blood, which resulted in less people giving blood than if they were to donate. You can't incentivize things that have intrinsic motivation. Anyways I don't see anything wrong with incentivizing people to be efficient, innovative, and have more autonomy over the fruits of their labour through less taxation and regulations. Stuff like fraud and embezzling are already illegal and strict anti-trust laws are ideal.

I'm no minarchist so I'm not for abolishing social welfare completely and we obviously need some economic regulations so we don't end up with massive pollution and clear cut forests. Social welfare should only be for those who are physically disabled or mentally unfit for functioning in society through no fault of their own. Other than that, the rest would either be more suited for workfare or should go to private charities for absolute emergencies.

ValentineWiggin wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

There would be no capitalism among tribes since there is no infrastructure

Um. What? A hierarchical group of social animals can be said to have an infrastructure.

Hurr hurr no s**t social beings need an infrastructure to function. Way to put my statement outta context, cuz this is the part you broke off into another quote which puts the whole statement into context: [b]like the ones modern society has established. Nowadays you can go down to a grocery store or a food bank rather than hunt with your tribe and go through long periods between food, so this is what convenience pertains to. We are much more autonomous in modern society. Modern society is a medium through which resources and communication can be accessed, while your tribe back then would be the medium for those things.

Hataz gon hate, so you gots ta keep stackin. Anyways my idea of social welfare is to teach people how to fish rather than give a fish a day. I'd much rather have self-reliance instilled in those who are struggling than dependence. Note that "self-reliance" isn't synonymous with "To hell with em" but more along the lines of giving em what they need to rise above their plight rather than doing nothing more than sustaining em. Private charity can give fishes in the case of absolute emergencies. Can you name a developed country where starvation is the norm among the poor? Even in the US which is more capitalistic than Canada and Europe, only a small minority of the poor are even close to starving and when they do starve it is usually temporary.

Ohhh yeaaahh I come in my pants every time I take my puppy down the nearest football field and give him a nice little punt. I love how your post is riddled with loaded language, sensationalism, and smearing. I also love the way you try to box me into a lose-lose situation so that:

• If I am not for completely abolishing social welfare, I am a hypocrite rather than a believer of a mixed economy that leans towards capitalism
• If I am for completely abolishing social welfare, I am an indifferent sociopath or a sadistic bastard who gets his dick hard from the thought of the poor dying in the streets, which is STATISTICALLY BS for the vast majority living under the poverty line and is nothing more than your sensationalist garbage

GSP put it best: "I was not impressed by your performance". All that being said, please show me where I said I wanted to completely abolish social welfare.

Likewise it is hardly "Barbaric" or "Socially Darwinist" to advocate a system which grants greater economic autonomy through lower rates of taxation and less regulation, neither of which are inherently lethal (unless you're talking about TOTAL deregulation, which I don't stand for). Stay classy though Bethie, loaded language, sensationalism and smearing doesn't help your credibility at all nor does it even put a dent in mine. I'm made of flesh and blood just like you are, so disagreeing with you doesn't make me somehow morally inferior. But hey what do I know? I'm just a knuckle dragging savage.

You just kind of owned yourself. You implied that capitalistic countries are more likely to result in people starving. So... you kind of admitted defeat. Good game.

Implied huh? Or is it more like you failing at interpreting my statements? Cuz I clearly said only a small minority of the poor are even close to starving and when they do starve it is usually temporary. It is normal in any developed country for it to be a small minority among those below the poverty line. This doesn't imply that it is better or worse in the states compared to other developed countries. The reason I pointed out that the states is more capitalistic than Canada and Europe is cuz of the liberal perception that a significant amount of the poor starve in the states, which is complete BS.

Under extreme capitalism/corporatism: Eugenicist corporate managers are regarded as the scum bags of the Earth. Blood sucking vampires running large companies into the ground and getting p[aid bribes by government to do it. No real audit is ever conducted on the large companies, only a pretend audit is conducted on private Big corporations.

Share holders have lost lots of money on public share floats as the corporate management suck the blood out of the company to line their pockets. Same thing has happened to almost every other former government company turned private company. With private companies fewer workers are needed and the workforce is downsized to help boost the managers pockets or is that the company's bottom lie.

You make a good point. By and large Middle Management and the Board of Directors are not very capitalistic. They are aparachiks.

ruveyn

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible understanding of economics.


- How do you own all fishing poles? Are you somehow preventing other people from producing fishing poles? Do you somehow have enough money to afford all fishing poles?

- Why do you own all fishing poles? What profit incentive is there to buy up all fishing poles? Wouldn't it be more profitable to sell all the fishing poles, rather than hoarding them for some irrational reason?

- Why do you get most of the fish? Wouldn't it be more profitable to sell the fish to other people, thereby providing them with a source of food?


The scenario you just described exists only in your head. In reality there is no psychopath with enough money to buy all fishing poles whilst preventing people from manufacturing more fishing poles, and some psychotic desire to use this money to prevent people from getting access to fish.

LOL tell that to the homeless people who walk the streets of my little city picking up people's garbage to make a few cents. Oh yeah, capitalism really took good care of them! Also I am sure everyone in my little capitalist-laced corner of the Earth will agree with me when I say this: capitalism is creating LESS opportunities here. All of our factories are shutting down and being sent overseas so the greedy private owners do not have to pay people here even lowsy minimum wage, but can rip off a bunch of people in third world countries with lower labour standards. Not only are THOSE people being taken advantage of, but the capitalist system is giving OUR jobs away to those people and we are left stranded with less and less opportunities, forcing the young to head out West to search for something more (often with no luck).



Bull! My father was a fisherman, then a manager of a lobster pound. He worked 364 days a year, 16 hours or more a day. He did very hard, very strenuous labour in both jobs (being manager gave him harder work not less), all in an effort to try to keep up with the bills the private companies of our capitalist society send him. Now, because of his endless hard and physical labour, he is on permanent disability and has trouble just walking from room to room because of all the arthritis he must suffer through every day (both hips, both shouldars, and his spine are all completely killed by the arthritis). I have never met anyone who work so hard--we should be the richest people in the country by your definition, yet we are only working class. Now my mother must support the entire family, and works so hard at her job that she is completely exhausted every day. The harder she works, the same amount of pay she makes. We are still working class.



And even the disabled and aged are not taken care of. My dad, who can barely move is getting ripped off by the government every single day. My elderly relatives are given enough money to stay well below the poverty line. How generous after all the hard work they did over their lives to contribute to this capitalist society!!



A communist society gives people what they need and people offer (work-wise) what they are able.



Great system if you enjoy equality.



National Socialism is an authoritarian dictatorship. It is neither socialism nor communism--both of which are despised by National Socialists. Likewise, I despise them too.....



....and share nothing in common with them!

The communist society that adheres to all that true communism teaches would be ideal and would be the only way to realize true equality through politics. True, many communist societies have turned out bad in the past (ie. Stalin, no, just because I am a communist does not mean I like or agree with the things he did!) Likewise, many capitalist societies are also bad. So if we look at American capitalism, and base our opinions on capitalism by looking at how it manifested in the western societies that are American-like, we can also point out the many things that went wrong through that system. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Jobs are lost to those overseas (and increasingly to computers). So-called free trade isn't even really free since it takes advantage of the people on the other end. There are many studies and documentaries that show that the people that grow our bananas, pineapples, and coconuts are not living some euphoric capitalist-based existence. They are degraded, miserable, and work harder than a lot of the people in our countries since they do a lot of the physical labour that many of the people here cannot seem to do for themselves anymore. Capitalism does not breed equality, fairness, or opportunities for all.

Socialism = Communism.
Communism = Nazism.
Government = Organized Crime.
Police = Thugs.

Don't care. Done reading.

Who let you out of the bunker?

Where do you live? I can't refute this argument until I know this.


Right, those bills your father obviously agreed to pay. What were the bills for? Spending your way into debt isn't an argument against capitalism.


Except that's the false premise, communism doesn't cater to the demands of society, and there's a very simple reason why. I already outlined this a few pages back, so I'll quote it for you. What's also interesting is no one has even attempted to refute my argument yet.

"Anyone that is anti-free-market has not read or understood F.A. Hayek's theory of price signals. Want me to explain why this is extremely important and relevant?

Communism worked when tribalism was still at large. Why? If you're living in a tribe, how many people do you need to allocate resources for? 20 people? 30 people? Not very many. You could easily ask everyone in the tribe what resources they needed and share them accordingly. Not only this, but during this time we used very few resources. Wood, stone, meat, berries, etc. Not many things at all.

Now compare that to a modern society. There are almost 7 billion people currently living under our global economy, and there is literally an unfathomable number of resources in use. Now tell me how the hell you're going to organise and delegate an unfathomably large number of resources? How are you going to decide how many microchips to produce? How many tubes of lipstick? How many nails? And we can go into even more depth than that. How many SAB-C515-LN microchips do we produce? How many tubes of candelilla wax lipstick of the colour wine red do we produce? How many 6 inch as opposed to 9 inch nails are you going to produce?

Price signals are currently the only known way of allocating resources in the best way possible. Why? It is simple economics: If a resource is in high demand, its price will increase, and entrepreneurs will begin producing that resource. If a resource is being over-produced, its price will decrease, and entrepreneurs will begin producing the resource less. Simple, right?

And it is for this very reason that when you remove the price system, and allow a market to be centrally planned by a government, it will always, always turn out horribly. No government can correctly allocate resources in an efficient manner, it's simply to large a task. So what happens is you either end up allocating too few resources (e.g food during Mao's regime, resulted in over 40,000,000 deaths from famine, food in Venezuela, the housing crisis in Cuba, etc.), or you end up squandering huge amounts of resources.

Want an example of squandered resources? Check out these ghost cities in China. There was no demand for huge apartment complexes or shopping malls, and so huge amounts of resources were wasted, resources that could have been used to feed starving children living in poverty."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E[/youtube]

You also said that people contribute what they can work-wise.
This is also patently false, and it's obvious why if you understand how competition works.
What drives efficiency and production? Competition. If I can find ways of producing something more efficiently, then I can sell it for less than my competitors and thus out-compete them, thereby making more money for myself. And this benefits everybody, if I can sell a product for less, more people can afford it. What was once a luxury for the poor may become easily accessible due to competition.

When you remove competition, there is no incentive to be more efficient, so less gets produced. This is partly what contributed to the famine of Mao's regime in China. If you have a bunch of farmers that earn the same wage as their neighbour no matter how much food they produce and no matter how efficiently they produce it, then they have no incentive to compete and less food gets produced overall.


Great system if you enjoy famine.


I want someone to attempt to refute my argument regarding price signals.

using a singular country as an example proves nothing about socialism in general.
i live in a pretty darn socialist country and we enjoy a lot of benefits from it, with an economy that looks a lot better than the american per capita after the crunch, one of the lowest finacial inequalitites in the world
you can believe that has nothing to do with the fact we have such socialist policies.

Which country? Why do people keep saying "in my country, such and such happens" without actually naming the country?

One of the funniest beliefs is that the Scandinavian countries are socialist while the USA is an absolute free market. The USA isn't a free market, and the Scandinavian countries aren't even close to being socialist.

Here is a map of countries that have actually declared themselves to be socialist (under any definition of the word) at some point in their history:

[img][800:625]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Socialist_states_all.png[/img]

Half of them appear to be in Africa and South America which are economic basket cases.

ruveyn

im from denmark,

most western countries are a mix of ideologies and as such they dont show up on that list, or others like it.
which is also why you dont have a "completely free market" as well.

we can continue arguing over terms but it wont get us anywhere.
when i read the title of this thread i read it as capitalism v. socialism as thats what i thought was meant.
the labels and brands people use are only that and carry little meaning in themselves.

so while we might not fit the definition of a strict socialist society we do have a more socialist view of how to shape our society, on good and bad.
personally i dont think any of the two can function alone, i barely recognise them as complete systems as they are over simplified to start with.
what i would like to see is the stop of the radicalization, the us vs. them mentality, from both sides,