Why capitalism?

Your thinking of a 1D political map, libertarianism and marxism are not on the same political axis thus independant of each other.

 

I don't think that a large popullation would be handle such a system. As a popullation grows people start to form groups and, for lack of a better term, factions. Plus there arises this want to be independent and to be in control of one's own self, and what ever that entales.

That's a very bigoted thing to say. Not all CEO's are like that I'm sure. It's seems that the model of capitalism we're using is flawed. Capitalism isn't a bad thing by nature; the rut us Americans, and the rest of the world, seem to be in is related to a misunderstanding of capitalism.

Capitalism is not about the gain of wealth, it's about putting that wealth back into the community by purchasing things that you need and want, investing in research and technology for better products. It presents also a healthy degree of competition to want to invest in research and technology. This is purely from a buiseness standpoint.

Capitalism is about need. I'm a carpenter's apprentice right now, in a few years I'll be a professional, I choose this profession because there will always be a need for carpenters, and as long as I keep ahead of the game, I'll always be working, those who can't keep up get weeded out. It sounds ruthless I know, but that's how nature is.

Communism in general is impossible. When you start to get down to the details of it, you come out with is Socretes' "The Republic". Plus to it puts a tremendous strain on the sociaty to be responsible for themselves and everyone else. There are going to be people who feel, 'Hey, I don't need to work, I'm going get what I need anyway.' And on a large scale over time a capitalistic system will arise from a communist system.

 

Depends on your brand of Communism. For example under Illich if your too lazy to pick your own food (and can't con someone else to do it for you) well tough luck, you have "access" to enough food so the goverments and communities fulfilled its responsiblities.

Another thing, I'm being silly but I can see public service messages like "Are you fat weak loser with no hope of a love life? Join the road crew, the pounds will just melt away with back breaking labour and you'll eventully be a musle bound jerk":H Today people pay money to gym doing basicly the same thing to get in shape so logically under Communism you'd have shallow jerks doing back breaking labour in hopes the work out would eventully lead to hot babes drooling over them.

Really since under Communism you have everyone in the work pool you don't have that hard with rotation of labour you can alot of freetime. You can in theory only work for 3 months then on for 3 then off for 3 and so on, so work won't look all that bad like it does today since before it drains you burn out you off getting be as lazy as want for a nice long 3 months.

 

Yeah but the problem I have is that, the people who do the crap, unskilled jobs that are no fun to do get paid the worse. They then get trapped in the hole of not earning enough to get trained or buy things they want and even have to do without some things they need while the people doing the mind-expanding jobs like engineers, product designers etc. get paid a shitload, more than they need BUT because they are doing a complicated (therefore interesting) job, they think they've earned it and owe nothing to those that work for 5 pound an hour.
I think if everyone got everything for free we would do most or all the high end jobs for free because they are fun, a challenge and they improve our status, and I think if we were allowed to do these types of jobs as a reward for doing crap jobs then everything would be cool and smooth. Without all the extra work generated by money (accountants, banking, tax inspectors, bailliffs etc. etc. all these are well paid people who consume far more than they need to) life would be easier for us as a whole.

 

...

 

FREEDOM (oldest anarchist magazine in the world, from 1886 I think), 8 January 2005:


£144 million
Total money raised by Band Aid from 1984 up to November 2004

£150 million
Ethiopian debt repayments to the West, 2004

P.S. - Ethiopia, one of those countries in which hundreds of thousands of children, amongst others, starve every year (in India it's millions). This "debt" is fake, of course, it's based on usurious, very high interest rates, artificially increased value of the dollar in the 70s etc..

We shouldn't, for instance, disregard the fact that in six of the eight years from 1990 to 1997 underdeveloped countries actually paid out more in debt service (the only reason they are still “indebted” are the usurious interest rates) then they received in loans (The total transfer of money from the poor South to the rich North is in this period is $77 billion!

 

communism while ideal in a perfect world goes against much of what is human. what i mean by this is humans by nature are selfish, they wont stand for being told what job they must work, what clothe they wear, how big of a car they can drive. its survival of the fittest, thats mothernature right there, id rather trust her than marx. i think some socialist principles are appropriate such as universal health care coverage (were basically already paying for it just aint getting it), a free daycare program for working mothers, and generally anything else that assures the poor, orphans, and elderly arent allowed to be left to die. those things can be paid for by cutting the pentagons budget, and slightly raising taxes. notice i said slightly, ill never stand for the goverment taking all my hard earned money.

 

Are we selfish due to mothernature or have we learned that from society?

Oh and communism doesn't necessary mean being told what job you must work.

Cool

 

^i contend were selfish by nature, some say society, but i think society is just part of nature i mean were else would it come from if not from human nature.

 

Well we wear clothing (well most of us) and that is not part of nature, so society can be differnet from nature. Also there are examples of coperation in humans be from nature or society.

 

Psy Fox ... what would you boil it down to?

 

Me I think greed and coperation is a emotion and we can do both. Just like we are capable of both love and hate yet I do suspect the society might makes us lean towards its culutre norm since we seem to be a bit like sheep, taking note on how other are reacting. You know like laughing at something not funny because other people are laughing this is why canned laughter works.

 

humans are a unique species its not fair to say we have to act in ways of other animal species, it is in our nature to build and shape the world around us, to create religion and culture.

it is in our nature for most of us to wear clothing, because its in our nature to create and make, therefore i see what we produce to be very much part of what is human.

you say cooperations as if their some kind of robotic entity, their groups of powerful PEOPLE, greedy people, but people doing what most of us would do with their power, abuse it.

 

Yet there are tribes that don't wear clothing, thus proof clothing is not natural instead cultural. Meaning if it was up to our nature all of us in warm climates would be nude most the time.

There is other cooperation, for example take Linux. A operation system built through cooperation for free.

 

what about us from cold climates, i need my boots, jacket and gloves or ill die, darwins survival of the fittest.

 

Right that is functionality yet would you go nude in public in a heat wave to keep cool?

 

1. Humans are born without the capability to survive on their own.
2. Thus humans are necessarily social.
3. Humans are born with innate instincts to take what they must (can) to survive regardless of the source.
4. Thus humans are born selfish.


what say you?

 

We obviously aren't thinking about the same thing. I'm a libertarian communist - "the free development of every individual is the precondition of the free development of all." Capitalism is death to freedom. The right to have private property over the means of production means that most people are actually denied the right to have property - which should be collective rather than private, socialised (self-management through workers' councils) rather than nationalized (bureaucratic state tyrannies like the Soviet Union, which was a class society)...Communism has existed for thousands of years: if we disregard that primitive societies were very egalitarian, the idea of communism was present in ancient Greece (especially Athens), it was practically implemented in early Christian communes and heretic sects during the Middle ages (pacifistic anabaptists, Brothers of the Free Spirit etc.)...in modern times during the Paris Commune (1871) which lasted for a month before it was savagely crushed, 30 000 Parisians slaughtered and many more sent to overseas colonies as forced labourers, during the Spanish Revolution in 1936-7, partly during the Hungarian anti-Stalinist uprising in 1956.....

 

Thanks Marx. I think you are a little confused. Please explain to me the real difference between having the means of production privately controlled (which is a far, far, cry from having it nationally owned) and controlled by a workers unions (which is rather similar to having it nationally owned)? The right to own the means of production does not, as you and Marx contend, deny people the right to have property. It does not result in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. What it does do is offer incentives for people to ensure themselves a better position in the scheme of things. It is inevitable that some people are going to be able to do that and others not. That is the nature of things. Some people are just better than others are. Is it enough, by ‘it’ I mean the fact that every match has a winner and a loser, to suggest that all opportunity should be taken away and placed in the hands of a ‘workers council’? Pardon me for saying, but that is tyranny.

As for whether or not having private control of the means of production is a poverty trap, the state of the world disagrees with you. The United Nations has a term called “medium development”, it describes people that are not exactly amoung the rich, but are definitely not in poverty. How do you explain the fact that during the last twenty-five years the number of people that have gone from below poverty to medium development is 1.9 billion? That the number of people in that ‘class’ has grown from 1.6 billion to 3.5 billion? That is over half of the world’s population. That is what having private ownership of the means of production has done.


Feel free to spout marxist theory about how the way ‘they’ do things is going to create more poverty.

It is all myths, gentle revolutionary, just myths.

 

I haven't read the numerous responses, so forgive me if what I say is redundant. It seems there should be a middle way, a synthesis, to use a hegelian-marxist term between communism and democratic capitalism. No one can deny that the Soviet Union did better under Lenin's NEP, somewhat similar to, but smaller in scale, as the current Chinese model.

In all societies, esp. democracies, it boils down to choice. Do we want the hope for a lavish lifestyle, or do we want to secure basic needs? There is a balance somewhere in between that needs to be flexible based on the current social needs of the day.