Capitalism wins. Its the epitome of nature, those that cannot succeed are at the bottom and those that can get to the top.
Poll: Capitalism VS Communism VS Socialism
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Just because it had Socialist in the name doesn't mean it was actually socialist. Ultimately, it was just Fascism with the added joy of racism. And Fascism was basically just Nationalism with the added joy of Socialist bashing and bullshit rhetoric.JMeganSnow said:
I'm not trying to personally attack you on one small thing you said but I like to throw around my knowledge of totalitarian regimes. Plus, I agree with pretty much everything else you've said.
With regard to the UK health system - yes. Those people waiting months to see a specialist could go private and see one the same day, if they had the money. It's a capitalist system, a crappy health service for the poor and a fantasic one for the rich, so your example was extremely poor.JMeganSnow said:
As for the Nazi remark, I don't see many Jews being herded into gas chambers by socialist governments at the moment, so let's not use examples like that eh? It smacks of Goodwinns law.
I think none of these are good alone. We need to find a way to combine them.
I like the "for the people" attitude of Communism, and the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" part as well. But the problem is usually the state ends up with all the power and money, and edges out everyone else. Being equal is great as long as we're not all equally screwed. Let the state control the physical infrastructure that *everyone* needs (i.e. mass transit) and the people control the means of using it. Different companies could issue different rail cards that give different benefits but we could still all ride the same train.
I like the "anyone can be anything" and "everyone has a chance" parts of Capitalism. But one person or group usually ends up with all the power and money and edges everyone else out. We need to put limits on the money cycle; pricing, profits, and wages, so that things do not spiral out of control like in the West. Profit is fine, but limits must be maintained to ensure fairness. As long as prices and wages are kept properly balanced limitless profit will not be necessary. I would rather our society become one large mini-mall than to see a few corporations strangle the life out of our economy. The two parts of Capitalism I like should be equal, as in "everyone should have an *equal* chance.
I like what John Rawls said about how society is better off if one improves the welfare of others.
Call that combination system whatever you will.
I like the "for the people" attitude of Communism, and the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" part as well. But the problem is usually the state ends up with all the power and money, and edges out everyone else. Being equal is great as long as we're not all equally screwed. Let the state control the physical infrastructure that *everyone* needs (i.e. mass transit) and the people control the means of using it. Different companies could issue different rail cards that give different benefits but we could still all ride the same train.
I like the "anyone can be anything" and "everyone has a chance" parts of Capitalism. But one person or group usually ends up with all the power and money and edges everyone else out. We need to put limits on the money cycle; pricing, profits, and wages, so that things do not spiral out of control like in the West. Profit is fine, but limits must be maintained to ensure fairness. As long as prices and wages are kept properly balanced limitless profit will not be necessary. I would rather our society become one large mini-mall than to see a few corporations strangle the life out of our economy. The two parts of Capitalism I like should be equal, as in "everyone should have an *equal* chance.
I like what John Rawls said about how society is better off if one improves the welfare of others.
Call that combination system whatever you will.
Nah just meant that youre taking the fanboy attitude that cant see anything but good on his own ways and sees only crap on others.JMeganSnow said:
You claim that capitalism preserves rights. Companies are essentually miniature planned economies responsible only to investors through money. Their only job is to maximise profit through all means possible even if it means using things like child labor and breaking the law (if theyre unlikely to get caught). The only reason typical company would help enviroment or provide workers with better conditions is to make more money which can come through maintaining a competent workforce or better PR for the company, but only as long as it gives them some benefit. Thus they need to be controlled through regulations and rules, like maximum work hours or minimum wage so they dont exploit regular workers too much. If drugs (other than alcohol) were allowed on western nations, how long do you think it would take to have companies selling drugs to people? Heck, they would even aggressively advertise it to kids if it would be possible...
About the situation at US. You guys pay more per capita on healthcare than any other country in the world because of your broken system that doesnt even provide universal healthcare, heck your immunization rates are behind African countries so quit the bloody insurance system and introduce a public one which will actually costs less than the current system.. That and abolish much of that huge standing army or turn it into a drafted one.
If I had a theory that if I threw money in the air, it would double before it hit the ground, would that be a good theory? No. Because it has no basis in reality.Lord Harrab said:
People are always saying: Communism is a good theory...
But its not. That's not human nature, and to try and making people conform to it you you are required to create a gigantic watch dog state that tries to keep people in line and working for "the greater good." Needless to say, you have to keep free-loaders and Scrooges from controlling who gets in the government--or else the handouts would exceed the pay in (free-loaders) or communism would naturally break down into capitalism (Scrooges). Once you start restricting the people's control of their own government, then you're only a hop skip and a jump away from Stalin taking power and making your life hell.
Not to mention that Communism requires you to mandatorily redistribute wealth and resources. And how the fuck do you make decisions based on who gets what, when and why? The US economy runs like a machine, and requires little government intervention.
In Capitalism, someone grows the corn for a profit, someone ships the corn for a profit, someone processes the corn for a profit, someone ships it again for a profit, and someone sells it in a store for a profit. You have a complex chain of events that self-orders because people are striving naturally to make the most of their resources.
In Communism, the government needs to decide who grows the corn, needs to decide who ships the corn, and where it gets shiped, needs to decide who process the corn, how much of the total corn you process, and when you process it, needs to decide where to ship the processed corn, and then needs to distribute the corn "equally" to all the people.
Which is fucking hard to do. It requires coordination and efficiency on a massive fucking level, and it also requires a gigantic bureaucracy to manage it. And the two, if you don't know by now, are mutually exclusive. Bureaucracy and efficiency are never heard in the same sentence, unless you're talking about said bureaucracy's lack of efficiency.
And this is precisely one of the biggest problems with communism. Not human nature, not free-loaders: How the hell do you manage a large country like that?
Good luck. People will suffer, mistakes will be made. The net happiness will not exceed a Capitalist system, just the people who suffer and the exact cause of their suffering might change. Only those causing them to suffer will switch: from private reprehensible citizens to the public State, which is not reprehensible by definition (see above).
EDIT:
Fucking this. Communism by definition is restricting the freedoms of people to choose how and when and why to use their resources. It necessitates that some high power make arbitrary decisions about those choices, and to me that is scary and wrong.JMeganSnow said:
Socialism is diet communism. 'Nuff said.
This is a bad poll.
Capitalism and socialism are economic philosophies.
Communism and Anarchy or political Philosophies.
Consumerism is neither.
You can capitalist dictators (Pinoche), communists (moder day China, does that count?) or capitalist anarchists (Ron Paul/libertarians)
You can socialist dictators (Cuba), democracies (Scandinavia), communists (Soviet Union) or anarchists (Noam Chomsky, Israeli Kibutzes)
I personally lean towards a democratic/anarchist socialism.
Edit: I'm assuming when people say anarchists, they aren't referring to anarchist primitivism. Anarchist primitivism is stupid. I'm using the term to refer libertarianism or anarcho-syndicalism.
Capitalism and socialism are economic philosophies.
Communism and Anarchy or political Philosophies.
Consumerism is neither.
You can capitalist dictators (Pinoche), communists (moder day China, does that count?) or capitalist anarchists (Ron Paul/libertarians)
You can socialist dictators (Cuba), democracies (Scandinavia), communists (Soviet Union) or anarchists (Noam Chomsky, Israeli Kibutzes)
I personally lean towards a democratic/anarchist socialism.
Edit: I'm assuming when people say anarchists, they aren't referring to anarchist primitivism. Anarchist primitivism is stupid. I'm using the term to refer libertarianism or anarcho-syndicalism.
Look people, arguing with JMeganSnow is as absurd a thing to do as there ever was. She is clearly another deluded devotee of Ayn Rand who fails to see the intrinsic flaws in her own system, and, like all fundametalists, does not make for good debate. Actually, scratch that last part, she's at least rational, which is more that I can say for Ayn Rand.
To all Randists: If competition is something to be worshipped, then surely me shooting you in the head and taking all your money is perfectly acceptable. After all, it's simply an extension of survival of the fittest, and so, by thine logic, perfectly reasonable. And beleive me, the only thing standing between me, and your death, and indeed vice verse, is all in my head.
And to screw with Uszi:
In capitalism, all things happen up until you describe until we have the issue whereby the gap between rich and poor becomes so grotesque that the springs break as:
1. Prices rise so much and people's wages is do not, leading to a demand deficet, leading in turn to producers going out of business and a further rise in prices and indeed nobody getting any better off. Exemplar: Great Deppression, 1929-45.
2. Said middlemen (i.e. supermarkets) take so much that they manage to not only precipitate a demand-crisis but also a supply crisis by forcing so many actual producers out of work that they get mercilessly schnaaied, resulting in rising prices and...here we go again, a demand crisis.
3. A demand crisis is not inherently a bad thing UNLESS you have people who want to consume, but can't because of what can only be termed as plain old greed.
4. Ayn Rand is the only writer of the last three hundred years to actually have the stupidity to propose laizzais-faire, because everyone agrees that the state is a neccesary part of an economy. Smith himself (Father of capitalism) argued for the induction of public goods by the state, even Friedman accepted them as a given. All that is left are the radicals, and beleive me, radicals are as extreme and deluded as any communist.
To all Randists: If competition is something to be worshipped, then surely me shooting you in the head and taking all your money is perfectly acceptable. After all, it's simply an extension of survival of the fittest, and so, by thine logic, perfectly reasonable. And beleive me, the only thing standing between me, and your death, and indeed vice verse, is all in my head.
And to screw with Uszi:
In capitalism, all things happen up until you describe until we have the issue whereby the gap between rich and poor becomes so grotesque that the springs break as:
1. Prices rise so much and people's wages is do not, leading to a demand deficet, leading in turn to producers going out of business and a further rise in prices and indeed nobody getting any better off. Exemplar: Great Deppression, 1929-45.
2. Said middlemen (i.e. supermarkets) take so much that they manage to not only precipitate a demand-crisis but also a supply crisis by forcing so many actual producers out of work that they get mercilessly schnaaied, resulting in rising prices and...here we go again, a demand crisis.
3. A demand crisis is not inherently a bad thing UNLESS you have people who want to consume, but can't because of what can only be termed as plain old greed.
4. Ayn Rand is the only writer of the last three hundred years to actually have the stupidity to propose laizzais-faire, because everyone agrees that the state is a neccesary part of an economy. Smith himself (Father of capitalism) argued for the induction of public goods by the state, even Friedman accepted them as a given. All that is left are the radicals, and beleive me, radicals are as extreme and deluded as any communist.
Have you actually even read anything by Ayn Rand because that's basically exactly what she is arguing against?Fondant said:
It's not perfectly acceptable, it's fucking retarded because the inevitable conclusion is that you will run out of people to shoot and will starve to death.
I can't believe that it took four pages for someone to make this distinction. To repeat and embellish, capitalism and socialism are opposing economic systems.Pseudonym2 said:
Communism is a political system that uses socialism. It is also an authoritarian government, which sums up my opposition to it. It sounds great, but when you give people too much power they tend to forget their principles, if they ever even had them.
Anarchism is harder to define. It is less of a political system than a lack thereof. For those who want to read more about anarchism, for those who believe that anarchy can only lead to a society without any modern conveniences, for those who believe that anarchy would be a regression to primitive society, I point you to: www.anarchism.net.
The Nazi system was a totalitarian system. It used certain socialist elements, but only the ones that gave the government more power while leaving the rich with their money.
Ron Paul is not a libertarian. He may claim to be, but only in name alone. American libertarians, at least the ones we hear about, have the conservative and more authoritarian social beliefs of the Republican party whilst believing in more extreme capitalism than what we have now.
And I as well lean towards a anarcho-socialist systm.
I say it won't because human nature doesn't change that much, woman's rights are not the same as human nature. I mean there are still people who discriminate against women and we can never 100% get rid of that type of people, that is the same that no matter how much brainwashing you do you can't convince everyone to abide civilly by communist standards. No I am not comparing female right to brainwashing if you think that you are missing the point.Dele said:
Liberalism, Right-wing anarchy, or something like that?PatientGrasshopper said:
Wait *Looks through the thread* I'll just walk away slowly.