America can do better than Capitalism

[NeverEndingMe]

There is in North Korea.

maybe you can get off welfare...and get a job?

 

[Que]

Honestly it's common sense and the fact that so few people do choose this is proof of our retardism. The reality is that history has shown that is the single best way forward.



Communism has not failed everywhere it was tried. I would address the rest of your post but the flaw there is so radical that it needs addressing.

The point to communism is not to take care of the poor and the downtrodden. The point to communism is husband resources so that, with the projected gains from central planning and control, the wave of prosperity will take care of the poor and the downtrodden; providing meaningful work, food, and shelter.

The problem is it never does any of that.

Someone posted up an article about Cuba. He was a journalist and enthused to help the Cuban people. The Cuban people at the time were enthused to help the Cuban people. He volunteered to help out while he was there on a working vacation on what sounds like the Cuban version of habitat for humanity. After hours and on weekends Cubans would show up and pitch in trying to build some public housing projects. The project floundered and eventually was abandoned and had to be torn down. It did not fail because of lack of effort. It failed for lack of skill and vision.

How does a society find those best at building? Trial and error. Those that succeed go on to build more and bigger projects, those that fail go do something else.

There is no place on earth that tried Communism and prospered to the degree their access to natural resources and human capital would suggest they should have during that period.

In the initial phase of Communism with the nationalization of private property, there is a slight. temporary bump as you consume the accrued wealth that you just stole. When that runs out, there is nothing to replace it with because productivity declines, not increases.

As you run out of money, you are unable to compensate and motivate your workers and in desperation must employ brutal oversight in order to get any output. What you end up with looks a lot like slavery.

You can dream of a Utopian future all you want, but don't pretend it has ever happened in the past in any way other than as I just described.

 

[mikey2much]

There he goes with the 47 percent thing again

I like your thinking but youre wrong. Oil companies will stay in the influence game whatever happens. Its the small-fry who stop contributing, and no pol cares about the small-fry.

This is the only difference between the two parties. The dems try and act like the working man counts a little bit, and the republicans say right up front that they don't matter.

Between the two, America is offered a sad choice indeed. What is equally sad is the way you don't see yourself as the rich guys who really run your party do. In their eyes you're just another niggar, deadweight humanity, something that needs to go away.

Why do you guys who have had to work for a living back these guys who have always had it given to them on a sliver spoon.

 

[PoppingTom]

The point to communism is not to take care of the poor and the downtrodden. The point to communism is husband resources so that, with the projected gains from central planning and control, the wave of prosperity will take care of the poor and the downtrodden; providing meaningful work, food, and shelter.

The problem is it never does any of that.

The problem is (or, in case of the DDR, was) that it did exactly this. But nothing more.

Someone posted up an article about Cuba. He was a journalist and enthused to help the Cuban people. The Cuban people at the time were enthused to help the Cuban people. He volunteered to help out while he was there on a working vacation on what sounds like the Cuban version of habitat for humanity. After hours and on weekends Cubans would show up and pitch in trying to build some public housing projects. The project floundered and eventually was abandoned and had to be torn down. It did not fail because of lack of effort. It failed for lack of skill and vision.

And how is this not a matter of organization?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

This is the only difference between the two parties. The dems try and act like the working man counts a little bit, and the republicans say right up front that they don't matter.

Between the two, America is offered a sad choice indeed. What is equally sad is the way you don't see yourself as the rich guys who really run your party do. In their eyes you're just another niggar, deadweight humanity, something that needs to go away.

Why do you guys who have had to work for a living back these guys who have always had it given to them on a sliver spoon.

I assure you the working man means squat to both parties.

 

[PoppingTom]

I assure you the working man means squat to both parties.

You want it like that.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

The problem is (or, in case of the DDR, was) that it did exactly this. But nothing more.



And how is this not a matter of organization?

see, you are a socialist .... union fucktard ... therefore you add no value to society. you only consume. so fuck off

 

[Que]

The problem is (or, in case of the DDR, was) that it did exactly this. But nothing more.



And how is this not a matter of organization?

There is "nothing more." Once you have consolidated industry in the hands of the state it is up to incompetent bureaucrats with no monetary incentive to make it a success. It will never work.

There is no incentive or need to innovate or improve because there is no "wasteful' competition.

It would work from an economic standpoint if technology, needs, and production were constant. But they aren't.

On paper you kill all the lawyers, bankers, accountants , and marketing guys and you no longer have to feed the dead weight of society. If the goal is to provide gruel to the remaining people it works on paper. You have the same farms, transportation, packaging and distribution channels available. Except productivity bleeds off.

Why stay up and plow that last 40 acres tonight when you can do it tomorrow? Why not stop the tractor and have lunch in the shade of that tree instead of eating one-handed between turns?

Why hustle to gather in the wheat ahead of the projected hail-storm when it all pays the same?

Why not steal a little along the way of the distribution chain, since it all "belongs" to "us" anyway?

You lived right next door and have no clue as to why one side of the wall prospered and one side floundered? The anemic side just needed more- what? More communism? More planning? More indoctrination? More re-education?

 

[Sean Renaud]

The point to communism is not to take care of the poor and the downtrodden. The point to communism is husband resources so that, with the projected gains from central planning and control, the wave of prosperity will take care of the poor and the downtrodden; providing meaningful work, food, and shelter.

The problem is it never does any of that.

Someone posted up an article about Cuba. He was a journalist and enthused to help the Cuban people. The Cuban people at the time were enthused to help the Cuban people. He volunteered to help out while he was there on a working vacation on what sounds like the Cuban version of habitat for humanity. After hours and on weekends Cubans would show up and pitch in trying to build some public housing projects. The project floundered and eventually was abandoned and had to be torn down. It did not fail because of lack of effort. It failed for lack of skill and vision.

How does a society find those best at building? Trial and error. Those that succeed go on to build more and bigger projects, those that fail go do something else.

There is no place on earth that tried Communism and prospered to the degree their access to natural resources and human capital would suggest they should have during that period.

In the initial phase of Communism with the nationalization of private property, there is a slight. temporary bump as you consume the accrued wealth that you just stole. When that runs out, there is nothing to replace it with because productivity declines, not increases.

As you run out of money, you are unable to compensate and motivate your workers and in desperation must employ brutal oversight in order to get any output. What you end up with looks a lot like slavery.

You can dream of a Utopian future all you want, but don't pretend it has ever happened in the past in any way other than as I just described.

You can't keep your stance straight and it's hard to argue with you because of it.

 

[richard_daily]

Can we learn from our mistakes and have a moral agenda the rejects Capitalism?

Imagine an Occupy a year from now raising the slogan "America can do better than Capitalism".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HP0L8vxAhc

Let's hope so. There has to be something out there that's better than what we have, and what we've had.

If not, we're not likely to last more than another 100 years or so as a species... and unfettered capitalism will definitely be a factor in our demise.

 

[PoppingTom]

There is "nothing more." Once you have consolidated industry in the hands of the state it is up to incompetent bureaucrats with no monetary incentive to make it a success. It will never work.

....

You lived right next door and have no clue as to why one side of the wall prospered and one side floundered? The anemic side just needed more- what? More communism? More planning? More indoctrination? More re-education?

You are praying, query.

But to answer your question: what about more relaxing lifestyle? More safety? More social care ? More individual importance?

I've seen both systems, and as much as I don't want socialism back, but these are the points where it can compete with capitalism.

 

[Que]

You are praying, query.

But to answer your question: what about more relaxing lifestyle? More safety? More social care ? More individual importance?

I've seen both systems, and as much as I don't want socialism back, but these are the points where it can compete with capitalism.

Being independently wealthy and retired would "compete" as well. Neither of those things happen because you will it so.

None of those things are available in a communist system because there is no capital to afford them.

More safety? Cite?

More "social care?" What does that mean? Welfare? Who cares? I wouldn't join a society in hopes of being "cared for" as opposed to having the opportunity to thrive from the labor of my own hands.

"Individual importance?" What does that mean? The guy that cuts sugar cane is just as important as a doctor in Cuba. So what? the doctor is paid $20 a month. How important do you suspect he feels?

Pretending the benefits of communism were ever available to anyone that lived under it doesn't bolster the cause for communism. It failed. Spectacularly in parallel to the thriving West German market.

Take the humble, ubiquitous VW beetle. Now tell me about a Trabi. Distribute your brochures on a university campus somewhere, you will have better luck.

I have had products stamped with pride, "Made in WEST Germany." No one bemoans the loss of a single product of East Germany.

 

[RobDownSouth]

That shit again?

It nevar ends, does it?

Next up: Martin Luther King was a REPUBLICAN and DEMOCRATS voted for Slavery!

 

[KingOrfeo]

Let us keep in mind throughout this discussion that there is more than one alternative to capitalism. The Stalinist model is only one of them.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Let us keep in mind throughout this discussion that there is more than one alternative to capitalism. The Stalinist model is only one of them.

Interesting how the kneejerk reaction from the mouthbreathers here is that "not capitalism = COMMUNISM!"

 

[KingOrfeo]

Let us keep in mind throughout this discussion that there is more than one alternative to capitalism. The Stalinist model is only one of them.

Here's another: See the Spanish Revolution. Mostly Anarcho-Syndicalist, with factories run by workers' cooperatives independent of the state. (The Stalinists, not Franco, ultimately put it down.)

 

[PoppingTom]

Being independently wealthy and retired would "compete" as well.

No. Because you have to be both independent and wealthy to have a relaxing lifestyle in capitalism.

More safety? Cite?

Oh, c'mon query, these are the cites you don't want to read. Y'know, these cites about how countries with restricted gun laws (off course, only cruel socialist countries can do that) have lower criminal rates and stuff.

More "social care?" What does that mean? Welfare? Who cares? I wouldn't join a society in hopes of being "cared for" as opposed to having the opportunity to thrive from the labor of my own hands.

Oh yeah, you say "from my own hands" like Hitler said to his generals "me alone was conquering Europe".

Social care in socialism is not welfare. It's people helping each other. Instead of "this boy will fall apart anyway" there is " we do everything to make this boy a sane part of society". Oh yes, this may kill a bit of individuality. But some people prefer non-individual non-threads over überindividual weird'os with guns, even if your independent wild free individual American gun carrying soul can never understand this.

"Individual importance?" What does that mean? The guy that cuts sugar cane is just as important as a doctor in Cuba. So what? the doctor is paid $20 a month. How important do you suspect he feels?

What about that:
You found a band. Nobody cares.
You sing about your love of chainsaws in living human flesh. Nobody cares.
You have a crazy show where you demolish the whole concert hall and everybody's on a riot after that. Nobody cares.
You go into politics and say at every possible time that the president is the worst of all murderers. And instead of anybody calling you crazy, people just discuss about the pink tie you were at speech.

You're of NO real importance. Compared to a guy in socialism founding a band and sings about wanderlust.

Take the humble, ubiquitous VW beetle. Now tell me about a Trabi. Distribute your brochures on a university campus somewhere, you will have better luck.

Oh, you can't speak about my points, so you take yours?

You know, that's why I say you're praying. I have more distance to socialism than you got, because I knew it, I can talk about it, about the cons and pros, and why we left it. You can only play the arrogant capitalism bastard we learned to hate in socialist school. Thankfully, I got to know people in capitalism which are more open and sensitive to the topic without being traitors to their system. Without these people, I would still think everything they teached us in school about capitalism is true.

It's you right to want a world full of bad people never changing their behavior, as it's my right to dislike that and advocate any changes in this case. It's funny how you advocate a world with trials and errors, thus fails, and defeat the will of people to changes that can fail, too.

 

[KingOrfeo]

See also the workers' "soviets" of Russia 1905-1917. They were self-organized, independent of management, the state, and any political party. A soviet (the word simply means "council") was as if a labor union local, instead of demanding concessions from management, demanded to be management, and attempted to act as if it were management, and sometimes managed to make it stick.

Lenin came to power on the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!" But the soviets were soon reduced to instruments of Bolshevik rule.

 

[PoppingTom]

Interesting how the kneejerk reaction from the mouthbreathers here is that "not capitalism = COMMUNISM!"

Even more funny to know we changed our system from socialism to.......uhm...socialism. I could have sworn it's a total different system I'm now living in....

 

[KingOrfeo]

"Individual importance?" What does that mean? The guy that cuts sugar cane is just as important as a doctor in Cuba. So what? the doctor is paid $20 a month. How important do you suspect he feels?

Enough that a lot of Cubans go to medical school.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Take the humble, ubiquitous VW beetle.

Which, like a great many technological and industrial developments, was initially a state project.

 

[BotanyBoy]

I assure you the working man means squat to both parties.

Because profit>people.

Welcome to capitalism.

Interesting how the kneejerk reaction from the mouthbreathers here is that "not capitalism = COMMUNISM!"

Oh and it's ALWAYS iron fisted Stalinist communism too....because there is no in between, just the GOP and everything else = communist, EVIL communist out to kill grandma!!

None of those things are available in a communist system because there is no capital to afford them.

And then there is this pile of bullshit....the idea that being a RWCJ republican in the US of A is the only way to have money...because everyone else is just so LW they don't have any money. That's why Alabama crushes lefty NY and CA's economy....CUZ PUBLICAN!! MURICUH!! and that's all the information they need. Because when you put the real numbers up? Only reason B'ama ain't crushing it is because communism from cali came and stoled it from hard workin' M'uricanz!!

RW= M'uricuh=Capitalism and clearly = Christian and everything else on the planet is broken.

LMFAO. It's like my old man....guy sits in Texas, screaming at FOX TV all day every day or having conversations with talk radio as he goes down the road. It doesn't fucking matter one bit what you point out in the real world, GOP'ism or bust...if you aren't voting (R) you are a socialist commie, the ENEMEY of (R) and thus the US of A because REAL Americans are freedom loving capitalist republicans. Until he wants to do some fishing somewhere other than some mud puddle shit hole or take a break from the oppressive TX summer.....then he gives the commie hippie child a call to get a visit in, after he puts his commie blocker lotion on.

It gets to be comical once you get over how fucking sad it is.....

 

[KingOrfeo]

None of those things are available in a communist system because there is no capital to afford them.

Stalinist Communism creates capital. Whether it does so as well as capitalism is a complex question, but it does create capital. The world is full of industrialized Communist and ex-Communist countries that were not industrialized before they were Communist.

 

[Dumpington]

I can't believe that we've actually got people here on this forum defending Stalin, defending Communism, and our course, the inroads of socialism into our own American economy.

Stalin was a mass-murderer second only to China's Mao. Nations with Communist governments build walls to lock their people in, and will shoot them if they try to escape (see: Cuba & North Korea, even today!)

And Barack Obama has added $7.5-trillion to America's debt to create jobs. This is the same Barack Obama who once called then-president Bush "unpatriotic" for allowing U.S. debt to rise by $4-trillion in eight-years --- Obama will have added $10-trillion by the time he's scheduled to leave office!

Yes, we all know today that President Obama lies, but back when he said that adding $4-trillion to our debt was "unpatriotic," he was actually being honest! He's NOT patriotic! Believe him!

 

[KingOrfeo]

I can't believe that we've actually got people here on this forum defending Stalin, defending Communism, and our course, the inroads of socialism into our own American economy.

Stalin was a mass-murderer second only to China's Mao. Nations with Communist governments build walls to lock their people in, and will shoot them if they try to escape (see: Cuba & North Korea, even today!)

I know. Doesn't matter. Those kinds of things only happen in authoritarian police states, regardless of ideology or economic system, and the only forces currently pushing America that way come from the right. What police-state Communism did tells us nothing about what democratic socialism or social democracy might do.