Communism

Post yr thoughts please. I am not living in a communist nation but I live in a communist lifestyle as much as can be allowed .... I believe in it. Actually, I dont want to say BELIEVE' rather I agree. I will not say why......for the sake of not having to argue and shit. But honestly.....what do u think....do u think it would destroy things or improve. and dont get lost in all of that hogwash about not everyone would be for it and it wouldnt be all successful and shit cos of people cos i mean, hell, thats with anything right.....yet we have to decide apon one thing or another. i dunno. just a thought. gonna go to sleep now. ta ta

Communism is about as bright as pure capitalism. We need a balance. We need capitalists to make money and create jobs. We need socialists to curb the greedy tendancies of the capitalist and spend money for social programs. Communism removes the incentive to work harder by regulating worker's pay. If you get a raise, EVERYONE does. If you remove the reward for better production you remove the incentive for people to produce more. Most "communists" I know listen to too much Rage Against The Machine and spend very little time actually working... they shop for Ernesto Guevara shirts instead. Long live the worker my ass

[Edited on Nov 26, 2003 by FrozenFoodGod]

I have to agree w/ FrozenFoodGod communism is a perfect way of life for perfect people but people will never be perfect. We do need to find a way to curb rich capitolist from destroying the world.

I'm sorry but you're wrong about capitalism's greedy tendancies. That is not capitialism, nor does true capitialism exist today. And social programs can exist under capitialism there is nothing forbidden for them not to exist. It is capitialism that gives you individual liberty. Something not allowed in either socialism or communism

It isn't the capitialists destroying the world. The rich do more for society than anything. The rich donate more to charity, support and create social programs, fund research for science and technology, supply aid to starving nations, create new medicines., provide scholarships to the underpriveledged. It isn't capitialism that is destroying the world.

A Russian couple was walking down the street in Moscow when the man, Boris, was hit in the head by a drop of water.

Boris turns to his wife, Natasha, and says "I think it is raining." Natasha replies that it was just snow. "No" Boris yells, "It was rain." And so it continues.

Boris and Natasha see a comrade named Rudolf coming their way. "Let's ask Rudolf what he thinks." So Boris and Natasha explain their situation to Rudolf asking whether he thought it was rain or snow.

Rudolf exclaims, in certainty, that it was rain, not snow. "It's rain not snow," he said, and walked away.

But Natasha is stubborn! She turns to Boris and says that she is still positive it was snow. And then Boris says to Natasha..

Excuse me but.. Rudolf the Red knows rain, dear!

Anarchism doesn't give you individual liberty because there is no protection from those who would take it from you. Laissez faire capitialism the government only right is to protect you from those who deny you individual liberty.

I don't understand why people assume capitialism equates to no social programs, or that capitialism is all about exploiting others for a profit. This is not the case what so ever. You can have social programs, you can help others if you wish, it is not about exploitation, or turning a profit.

I don't think I could give any definition that you haven't already defined for yourself.

Again this is NOT the fault of capitalism.

[Edited on Nov 26, 2003 by peart]

Capitalism is a system based on individual rights including property rights, the only function of the government of this system is to protect these rights.

but capitalism is a governmental system, and you have protection of your rights because being oppressed violates individual rights, the government does protect you from this.

"It is now often said that democracy will not tolerate 'capitalism.' IF 'capitalism' means here a competive system based on free disposal over private property, it is far more important to realize that only within this system is democracy possible. When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitable destroy itself." -- F. A. Hayek The Road to Serfdom

[Edited on Nov 26, 2003 by peart]

Since Flux and s5 have already said everything I was thinking when I came into this thread, I'll just add that having both of them tell me I was wrong would give me serious incentive to stop and re-evaluate my position.

This isn't a technical definition, peart, but capitalism is a system whereby the free market (supply and demand and all that) is the main determining factor in all economic circumstances. Note the complete lack of anything relating to government in that statement. Governments are only defined by capitalism to the degree to which they choose to regulate it. It is not a system of government.

[Edited on Nov 26, 2003 by ticktockticktock]

Again, capitalism != government. It may enable democracy, but that doesn't mean they're the same sort of system.

As far as I'm concerned, both Capitalism and Communism are theoritical models. For starters, the most prevelant example of communism, that the U.S.S.R. proclaimed was the way of the future, was in fact not communism at all. The "Communism" that they followed was a police state based ever so loosely on the ideals of Karl Marx. A to why it was not, a basic example would be that for Marx's pure communist state to be attained, one must first go through a capitalist one.

Karl Marx also talked a great deal about the strengths and weaknesses of the Capitalist system in "Das Capital"

For Marx, economy was the driving force of history. It is by economy and the division of labour that comes with the surplus of goods that politics and social relations for any given era are conceived. Marx held the Hegelian view of the dialectic, and that Capitalism was a synthesis of this dialectic. He believed that in Capitalism, man was better off than he had been previously, yet for Marx, it also held inherent flaws; flaws which ultimately lead to the final revolution of history, Marxist-communism. Marx thought capitalism worked in series of booms and busts, or a business cycle. Various factors contributed to his theory that these economic downturns would only get worse, least of which being the means of production. How could any society, according to Marx, run efficiently when a minority of people owns the means of production that is produced by the majority?

More importantly however, surplus value and mechanization created an insurmountable obstacle in the success of a capitalist economy (or so Marx thought). Surplus value, or the difference between a workers wages and his value, is the major source of profit for the capitalist. Unfortunately it also leads to economic collapse. As an economy is on an upswing, workers will produce more profit for the capitalist. As a down-turn occurs, the capitalist will attempt to reduce loss of profit by replacing three workers with a single machine, thereby reducing the cost of three wages. But a machine has no surplus value; it can only produce what you’ve paid for it. And the three people you’ve replaced no longer have jobs or ways to contribute to the economy, and as such, cannot buy the products your machines are producing. It is this process that will lead to greater downturns as more and more people get poorer and poorer, while a select few remain wealthy by replacing even more workers with machine labour, thereby reducing the last vestiges of surplus value that the capitalist may have. Eventually, this would lead to an economic breakdown and the collapse of capitalism that Marx predicted.

While things never quite happened this way, Marx does adequatly point many of the inherent flaws of Capitalist system. And while it has never collapsed as Marx predicted, it make interesting points about how the practical Capitalist economy functions. And yes, there is a distinct difference between practial Captilism and the kind as adovacted by someone like Adam Smith. The governmental interference of taxes and social programs prevents such a Laissez-Faire (Let it be) economic state from every existing.

Neither theoritical communism nor capitalism take in account human emotions. Greed, lust, hate; all of these emotions have adverse impacts on the functioning the theoritical state.

To answer Nemphyl_newPics original question, Yes I like theoritical communism. But unfortunatly, it's not a livable economic ideal, firstly because the economic collapse of Captialism that Marx predicted will never occur, at least not for the reasons that he predicted. Secondly, false class conciousness create a sort of non reality for the middle class worker; with MTV and the shopping channel, who needs revolution?

Communism is a great story, just not a very believable one.

Ahriman


P.S. Seeing as how we both live in Canada, let's just say that the socialist state that we live in here in Canada(and a few other locations such as Sweden) is about as close to a working communsit model as is going to happen. The influence of our Big Brother to the south(not nessicarily a bad thing mind you)would prevent us from ever becoming "communist" per se.






[Edited on Nov 26, 2003 by Ahriman]

Nicely put, Ahriman. Thanks for clearing up the confusion. Would you consider the economic collapse of the 30's to be an example of the kind of breakdown that Marx warned of. Or, what about the 80's ? And that leads me to a side point, why did both of the two biggest collapses (within modern economic times) happen right at the close of a decade?
Now, that makes me think of another thing. Both collapses followed a huge boom where stock prices were inflated way beyond thier proper market value; so, then, why was there no collapse following the '99 boom? Was it just that the boom was more limited to certain segments of the economy, so, the readjusting didn't cause a down turn across the board?
Curious to hear what you might have to say, as this is by no means my area of expertise.

Ignore this extra post.

[Edited on Nov 26, 2003 by TalonKarrde_x]