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 Grey Templar wrote:

Well French + Revolution didn't work out so well in the previous century so one could argue that it was for the best.

They are still less belligerent then Russia. Or at least, more inwardly belligerent. It's hard to play alternate history with big things like this, but I would think that there wouldn't have been a Cold War.

On the other hand, the Germans would have been (even ) less amiable during the Occupation.

I accidentally 30 million people once...
One of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

I accidently 'James Deened' 30 million people once...

I'm ready for moar!

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
I realize that Communism itself isn't anything bad, but considering that it's consistently failed and resulted in brutal dictatorships, is it really worth continuing?

The short answer is 'no'.

The long answer is that communism contains a really powerful set of ideas with, in many places, some incredible insights into human political and economic structures, and from them it seems like people could start to create one or more sophisticated, viable economic systems. Unfortunately, for reasons that communist academics have never even tried to answer, most of the people drawn to the ideas of communist tend to be disaffected, power hungry lunatics. Think of Lenin, Castro or Mao, but then go to your local university and meant the self-professed communists - they're complete bonkers. I don't know if its the language of revolution coupled with the emotional power of casting off the oppressor and replacing him the oppressed, but it seems to attract people who have seem really, really nasty baggage from highschool.

The answer that's just a little bit longer still is that ultimately, for all its flaws capitalism is a system in which the incentives of private investment led to the development of computing technology, machinery and robotics and all kinds of other stuff that have made people here productive and materially wealthy. At the same time communism, where investment was directed by the state, focussed surplus capital on high profile national projects and landmark buildings (Stalinist Wedding Cake anyone?). Profitable investments that changed everyday processes, better tractors, mechanisation, cars that didn't suck, flourished in the West and produced profits that in turn were used to make further advancements simply didn't happen in Soviet Russia. By the mid-60s it was clear the US was moving forward every year, while the Soviet Union remained stagnant. In 1987 the Soviet Union fell because their leaders looked at their system, realised it sucked and gave up on it.


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 whembly wrote:
A pure capitalist system or pure communisit system would never work in the real world.

In the real world, what works best is a balance between capitalism and socialism.

The balance is what we're constantly tweaking/changing.

Communist systems can be impure. The USSR allowed farmers private sectors of ownership on collective farms, for instance. Now, they did this because the greater collective farms were so woefully unproductive that they had to compromise, but the fact remains that communist systems are just as impure as any other.

That said, I agree that what works best right now, given the nature of the modern world, is something between capitalism and socialism, and the debate is about tweaking that as best we can.


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 JEB_Stuart wrote:
Marx endorsed that idea to start that process. He then planned on using the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to facilitate future Communist generations. I wasn't talking about his ideas on how to get the ball rolling, merely how to implement a wider societal change.

Yeah, Marx did, but I just thought I'd interject to point out his view on the issue was a little more complicated. Marx wasn't just a revolutionary writing pamphlets, he was the first economic historian, and his one truly ground-breaking idea is that systems destroy themselves. The pressures in slave society lead to its demise and the rise of feudalism, the pressures in that system lead to mercantilism, in turn to capitalism and finally into communism. Not because people make that happen, but because the systems themselves leave no choice but to happen.

Now, what Marx didn't see, and couldn't have seen is that capitalism, particularly within democratic countries, has so far proven rather effective at providing a release valve for class tension. Workers have had their paying and working conditions improved without needing to overthrow the ruling class.

That's really the issue with his conclusion. I mean, had the hardships of late 19th century capitalism remained a constant, the communism would have been a great idea.

 sebster wrote:
Unfortunately, for reasons that communist academics have never even tried to answer, most of the people drawn to the ideas of communist tend to be disaffected, power hungry lunatics. Think of Lenin, Castro or Mao, but then go to your local university and meant the self-professed communists - they're complete bonkers.

Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, the crew of Les Temps Modernes and the entirety of the School of Francfort would like a word with you. A few peeps from the Vienna Circle are also looking at you while sharpening their knives.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Romans did not have a Democracy. They had a Republic.

First up, Democracy and Republic aren't exclusive concepts. Republic just means you don't have a monarch. You can have a Democratic Republic, in fact you live in one.

The term I think you're looking for is Oligarchy - where power is held by a fluid group, but they're so few in number that it can't be called democracy.

Lastly, be very, very wary in describing Rome as anything. The place lasted for a really long time, and formed many different government types throughout. It was a kingdom at some stages, a military dictatorship at other, and at times the senate had some fairly primitive and narrow democracy (though oligarchy is probably the better term in general for it).

 sebster wrote:
capitalism is a system in which the incentives of private investment led to the development of computing technology, machinery and robotics

That would be Frege's acheivement... (and the whole renewal of logics brought on by the formalisation mouvement)

 Captain Fantastic wrote:
Clean up your post, OP. I have no idea what you're asking, or what the point of this thread is.

Communism, just like socialism, sounds great, but only in theory. It's assumed that leaders won't be corrupt and fall into capitalism, but that's far from the reality. On the flip-side, communism might have actually become something if Stalin had been killed early on, and the work force had remained intact. Socialism might have stayed true to its ideas if Hitler had never risen to power or made deals with capitalists, like Krupp Steel (which would have been impossible).

Nah. Lenin was utterly ruthless, as was Trotsky. And Kruschev and Brezhnev weren't exactly pleasant fellows either. That's just the culture of the organisation, and what was needed to reach absolute power in that system.

Nor can any of the atrocities of Soviet Russia be laid at Hitler's feet. Most of the killing was done by then. Really, after the war and the death of Stalin, the state just settled down into being your average, run of the mill totalitarian hell hole, with nowhere near the level of murder that went on in the pre-war period.


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 Huffy wrote:
And the USA is a Federal Republic not a democracy

Republic just means you don't have a monarch. The USA is a democratic republic.

So what about Cuba and Venezuela?

They're both communist countries, and work very well. Venezuela works so well that the US has tried to kill the leader there.... 2 times...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Out of curiosity, how would people rate the Monarchy as a means of government? By Monarchy I mean an Absolute Monarchy.

Honestly, I think it's a bad question because it assumes that people have some kind of a choice in the matter. If you have the economic and social systems that necessitate a king then that's the system you have.

You couldn't, for instance, drop a modern representative democracy into medieval Europe. The idea of the king and nobility as having a divine right to rule is too strong, and the system of feudal lords and largely communal villages kind of makes a nonsense of the idea of voting for local leadership.


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 Ratbarf wrote:
I do believe you mean the British.Who had the Americans beat by about fifty years.

I love the idea that people could hear the term 'no taxation without representation' and not realise that probably means the folk back home were getting some kind of representation


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 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed, which means you must read the Manifesto as the ramblings of an ideological bitter old man.

Have you read it, or any of other Marx' works? Because while the guy sure is wordy, his writings there formed the foundation for a whole new area of academic study. Seriously, it was breakthrough stuff, on a level with Adam Smith or Keynes.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
The issue with that(bolded) is that given the free choice, people will generally pick an easy or enjoyable profession. Which, after everyone has picked their chosen profession, is likely to result in a society that cannot function.

I doubt many people would choose farming, mining, or other more necessary jobs when they could be an entertainer, painter, or a sports commentator.

We would have an overabundance of some professions and a shortage of others, with the shortchanged ones likely being vital industries.

You're working under the mistaken belief that in communism you can't have differing levels of pay. You can even have such pay scales set by market mechanisms. Even Soviet Russia paid doctors and scientists more than it paid farm labourers.

The point is that there would be no class or economic restrictions on people pursuing the job of their choice. So if you were smart enough you'd get into medical school, even if your parents couldn't afford the tuition.


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Gitzbitah wrote:
The US is not a democracy- our President is not selected by the unwashed masses, but by the electoral college. Our founding fathers did not trust the people to correctly choose their leaders.

The electoral college, both before and after the 17th amendment, was still on basic democratic processes. You're a representative democracy.


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 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, the crew of Les Temps Modernes and the entirety of the School of Francfort would like a word with you. A few peeps from the Vienna Circle are also looking at you while sharpening their knives.

I'm sure they would. But note Sartre's difficult relationship with other communists within France, and his own sort of, but then not and then kind of again relationship with defending Stalin.

And then ask why there's never been any kind of effort by any academic within communism to reconcile their beliefs with the death tolls in Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. None. They just write it off as 'not really communism' and ignore the issue. It's fething shameful, to be perfectly honest, and the product of a movement and culture that despite all the rhetoric simply does not have the interests of working people first and foremost. If it did, there would have been a hell of a lot of soul searching about how previous movement killed so many working people.


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 ENOZONE wrote:
So what about Cuba and Venezuela?

They're both communist countries, and work very well. Venezuela works so well that the US has tried to kill the leader there.... 2 times...

Umm, calling Cuba or Venezuela systems that work really well is kind of a bit screwy. Go ask Reporters without Borders how well Cuba is working.


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 Kovnik Obama wrote:
That would be Frege's acheivement... (and the whole renewal of logics brought on by the formalisation mouvement)

Yeah. Totally. Which is why assembly line manufacturing sprung up out of nowhere all over the Earth once Frege released his theorem. It was just because until that point we didn't have the right maths theorems in place.

I mean, think about this. Soviet Russia had access to the same writings and academic theories, and yet if you look at economic growth figures there and in the West the numbers tell a very clear story. Productivity and technological advancement becomes a constant in the West, while Soviet Russia remains stagnant. Theories need to be put into practice, and that happens best when you have venture capitalism.

 sebster wrote:
I'm sure they would. But note Sartre's difficult relationship with other communists within France, and his own sort of, but then not and then kind of again relationship with defending Stalin.

And then ask why there's never been any kind of effort by any academic within communism to reconcile their beliefs with the death tolls in Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. None.

Sartre did. It's the reason why Merleau-Ponty stopped talking to him until 2 months before he died.

They just write it off as 'not really communism' and ignore the issue. It's fething shameful, to be perfectly honest, and the product of a movement and culture that despite all the rhetoric simply does not have the interests of working people first and foremost. If it did, there would have been a hell of a lot of soul searching about how previous movement killed so many working people.

I would again point out M-P's Adventures of the Dialectic. He very well denounce his own previous stance.

Yeah. Totally. Which is why assembly line manufacturing sprung up out of nowhere all over the Earth once Frege released his theorem. It was just because until that point we didn't have the right maths theorems in place.

Building copies en masse isn't exactly the same as inventing the machine, tho. You attributed the developpment of technologies to capitalism, which is incorrect. The developpment is attributed to the developpers. Widespread use, you can give to chain factories (and distribution channels, and marketing, and etc etc...)

 sebster wrote:

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 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed, which means you must read the Manifesto as the ramblings of an ideological bitter old man.

Have you read it, or any of other Marx' works? Because while the guy sure is wordy, his writings there formed the foundation for a whole new area of academic study. Seriously, it was breakthrough stuff, on a level with Adam Smith or Keynes.

Yeah, I've read it.

I agree that it was definitly ground breaking and its definitly worth a read. I still call it the product of a man that had become throughly disillusioned with society to the point of being downright bonkers, especially later in life.

He had good ideas, just not a good way of putting them into practice, and he never assumed that his system could be so easily abused. If he could have forseen the future that was Soviet Russia he might have burned his book and started over.

I wonder how well an island country can work when the US puts a trade embargo on it for half a century... not saying, but I'm just saying.

Venezuela is fine. I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but the "Dictator" after surviving a coup de da by the US government, was actually liberated by his own people, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan's stormed the capital to reinstate him in power.

A good example of the reverse is Taiwan - a capitalist country getting the shaft by China, and it's doing "fine".

Has anyone talked about the inherent pitfalls of a pyramid system that capitalism is? Communism may have failed spectacularly in Russia and can be used fairly as a model of what not to do when first trying to be a socialist state, but it's nothing compared to the destruction capitalism has had on the earth since its inception way before Karl Marx was even around. No one speaks of slavery as an inherent part of true capitalism? The economic ruin of countries who dip into their slice of the pie? The corporations that literally starve people in third world countries to marginalize losses they'd receive on another shore?

You want to talk about fething shameful. Look to the ignorance of the world as they bounce between ideals - for that's all they are - religions of the state. They are simply beliefs people have surrounded themselves with, and center to that ideal is not a God, but in its place a more real and believable thing: Money and how to use it.

 ENOZONE wrote:
I wonder how well an island country can work when the US puts a trade embargo on it for half a century... not saying, but I'm just saying.

Venezuela is fine. I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but the "Dictator" after surviving a coup de da by the US government, was actually liberated by his own people, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan's stormed the capital to reinstate him in power.

A good example of the reverse is Taiwan - a capitalist country getting the shaft by China, and it's doing "fine".

Has anyone talked about the inherent pitfalls of a pyramid system that capitalism is? Communism may have failed spectacularly in Russia and can be used fairly as a model of what not to do when first trying to be a socialist state, but it's nothing compared to the destruction capitalism has had on the earth since its inception way before Karl Marx was even around. No one speaks of slavery as an inherent part of true capitalism? The economic ruin of countries who dip into their slice of the pie? The corporations that literally starve people in third world countries to marginalize losses they'd receive on another shore?

You want to talk about fething shameful. Look to the ignorance of the world as they bounce between ideals - for that's all they are - religions of the state. They are simply beliefs people have surrounded themselves with, and center to that ideal is not a God, but in its place a more real and believable thing: Money and how to use it.

I think a slight difference is Capitalisim doesn't make any grand promises it can't keep.

It does have that goal you have stated, make money and damn the other guy. Its a system that harnesses man's competitive nature.

Equality and happyness are never promised or garunteed. You are instead given a chance to obtain those things on your own merit.

As a system, you have to appreciate the rugged practicality of it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Equality and happyness are never promised or garunteed. You are instead given a chance to obtain those things on your own merit.

And there's the myth of capitalism. The truth is that you don't start on a level playing field, and you don't have the chance to obtain those things on your own merit. For every lucky success story there are countless others who were born into poverty and couldn't get the resources to start a business or the education to get a good job, or who were unable to overcome the barriers to entry and break into their chosen industry, or who were crushed by competition that already had a head start and the dice loaded in their favor, or were simply worked to death until they had nothing left to give, with no opportunity to rise above their position. And while all these failures-by-circumstances fail despite their own merit, parasites on society turn wealth and power into even more wealth and power through no effort of their own. The fact that success is possible at all is only because we limit capitalism and attempt to make merit count for something.

Where was a level playing field promised?

You were promised a chance, not an equal chance.


There are plenty of Rags to Riches stories out there, so you can't say "I never had a chance"

 Grey Templar wrote:

Equality and happyness are never promised or garunteed. You are instead given a chance to obtain those things on your own merit.

Not necessarily. Capitalism, at its core, is about the private ownership of the means of production under a system of laws which encourage the exchange of goods for profit. Success might happen as a result of this, and most certainly will for some, but how many people are able to succeed (or given a realistic opportunity for success) is not something that is addressed. That said, there are certain assumptions which underpin capitalism that could be argued to imply a sort of equality (Basically, anything related to the insurance of a competitive market.), if not in the absolute sense discussed with respect to Communism.

Of course success is an abstract concept that will not have the same meaning for every person, which means its generally a better idea to discuss the relative distribution of wealth and overall economic viability in a capitalist system; which has universally proven to be superior with respect to a communist one.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Where was a level playing field promised?

That's the supposed premise of capitalism, that you succeed or fall based on merit, not based on whether you were born into a poor family or a wealthy family. You know, the whole "equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes" thing, except that you don't actually have either.

You were promised a chance, not an equal chance.

Sorry, but it doesn't count as a chance if the odds of success are absurdly tiny because of where you happened to be born, while someone who was born into better circumstances is pretty much guaranteed to succeed way beyond anything you can realistically hope for.

There are plenty of Rags to Riches stories out there, so you can't say "I never had a chance"

And that's the myth of capitalism: you see the occasional lucky person who was able to overcome a system that was biased in every way against them, and you're supposed to assume that anyone can be that lucky. In reality it's pure wishful thinking, and being born into a privileged position is far more important than any personal merit.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Where was a level playing field promised?

You were promised a chance, not an equal chance.

From a moral perspective that would render all economic systems equivalent. After all, you may not have much of a chance of becoming Premier of the Soviet Union, but the chance still exists regardless of your initial station.

In other words, when we discuss whether or not a person has a chance to do a thing, we aren't speaking in an absolute sense. The statement "He didn't have a chance." does not imply the absence of any chance, but merely that the chance which existed was very small.

And there's the myth of capitalism. The truth is that you don't start on a level playing field, and you don't have the chance to obtain those things on your own merit. For every lucky success story there are countless others who were born into poverty and couldn't get the resources to start a business or the education to get a good job, or who were unable to overcome the barriers to entry and break into their chosen industry, or who were crushed by competition that already had a head start and the dice loaded in their favor, or were simply worked to death until they had nothing left to give, with no opportunity to rise above their position. And while all these failures-by-circumstances fail despite their own merit, parasites on society turn wealth and power into even more wealth and power through no effort of their own. The fact that success is possible at all is only because we limit capitalism and attempt to make merit count for something.

I would say that that is only partially true, by and large the reason that the dice are loaded in the favour of the guy with the headstart is in large part due to government intervention in the first place. Having been bought and paid for by those with the money and sense to do so. I mean recently (about four or five years ago now) in Ontario, where all alcohol is controlled and purchased by the provincial government, you had small breweries managing to cut away some of the market share of the big three by selling very cheap beer of a somewhat crappy quality. But people didn't care, they were just going to get drunk on it anyways, so the taste wasn't enough of an incentive for them to buy the big threes 24s for 40 dollars, when they could get the cheap bear for 24 dollars. Well the big breweries lobbied the government and they in turn raised the minimum price on all 24s to about the level of the big breweries discount brands. Now meaning that for the same price you could get slightly better taste. So some smaller breweries could no longer compete and had to shut down. That's dice loading, but it's unfair because it's the government interfering in markets where really it shouldn't be.

 Ratbarf wrote:
I would say that that is only partially true, by and large the reason that the dice are loaded in the favour of the guy with the headstart is in large part due to government intervention in the first place. Having been bought and paid for by those with the money and sense to do so. I mean recently (about four or five years ago now) in Ontario, where all alcohol is controlled and purchased by the provincial government, you had small breweries managing to cut away some of the market share of the big three by selling very cheap beer of a somewhat crappy quality. But people didn't care, they were just going to get drunk on it anyways, so the taste wasn't enough of an incentive for them to buy the big threes 24s for 40 dollars, when they could get the cheap bear for 24 dollars. Well the big breweries lobbied the government and they in turn raised the minimum price on all 24s to about the level of the big breweries discount brands. Now meaning that for the same price you could get slightly better taste. So some smaller breweries could no longer compete and had to shut down. That's dice loading, but it's unfair because it's the government interfering in markets where really it shouldn't be.

That's kind of missing the point:

1) In a pure capitalist world this never would have happened, because the big breweries would have used their size advantage to force their smaller competition out of business by using price fixing/exclusive contracts/etc. We see over and over again that, if given the opportunity, large corporations want to cooperate to screw over everyone else, not compete with each other. And without government regulation to stop that from happening the barriers to entry in a market become effectively infinite.

2) You're ignoring more relevant kinds of advantages. For example, it doesn't matter how much raw talent you might have as an engineer, if you can't afford to go to college you aren't ever going to make the next big invention in computer chip design. On the other hand, if you're born wealth you're pretty much guaranteed to stay wealthy simply from investments, without ever making any effort of your own. The capitalist system rewards the people who already have advantages, not the people who have the most talent/determination/etc.

The usual endpoint for pure socialist systems ala Russia: the people in charge become corrupt and consolidate power, becoming a ruling party of one.

The usual endpoint for pure capitalist systems without laws to reign in capitalism: the successful people become corrupt and consolidate power, becoming a monopoly.

I 30 million people, on purpose.

For example, it doesn't matter how much raw talent you might have as an engineer, if you can't afford to go to college you aren't ever going to make the next big invention in computer chip design

That would be ignoring quite a few engineering inventions that were created by people who never went to school for engineering. Especially with the internet nowadays you can learn pretty much anything to a decent degree if you pursue it enough on your own time. Heck when it comes to computers that's what a lot of people do. My sister's ex boyfriend and a bunch of his friends put themselves through college by teaching themselves to program and then making browser based games for Crazy Monkey Games and Armor Games.

On the other hand, if you're born wealth you're pretty much guaranteed to stay wealthy simply from investments, without ever making any effort of your own

Partially true, but what you don't mention is that those investments get invested. They create more wealth, even if they are just sitting on their butts sipping champagne and beating the servants all day, their investments go towards ventures with (hopefully) good business plans and execution.

Secondly, would you be implying that the succeeding generations not be allowed to benefit from the fruits of one or more successful ancestors? I mean, half of the reason that people strive in life is to try and give their offspring a better chance at life than they did, and if you were to take that reward away, which you seem to be implying because such a reward is "unfair" would really disincentivise people.

Thirdly, you should also take a look at social mobility indexes, they're a much better representation of how a society is doing on the class thing than average annual income. I mean heck, my great grandfather was a multi millionaire, but my generation will be the last to see any money from that, and if I do poorly my kids could very well end up living in a lower class household. I think you'll find that that's how the vast majority of rich families end up. They have it pretty good for a few generations but eventually that edge runs out, and they're back on an even playing field.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I would again point out M-P's Adventures of the Dialectic. He very well denounce his own previous stance.

And doesn't that tell you something?

Building copies en masse isn't exactly the same as inventing the machine, tho. You attributed the developpment of technologies to capitalism, which is incorrect. The developpment is attributed to the developpers. Widespread use, you can give to chain factories (and distribution channels, and marketing, and etc etc...)

And while exactly who developed an idea might be very important to academic study, a clever idea doesn't matter one bit in terms of changing the world if there isn't a political and economic system in place to take advantage of it.

This reminds me a bit of that eternal debate about who got to the Americas first (other than the North Americans, obviously). Whether it was the Vikings or the Chinese or the Europeans or whatever. Truth is it doesn't matter one bit who got their first, because it only changed the world when the journey was backed by political and economic systems that sent large number of ships, and extracted profits into order the expand that shipping - that was what changed the world. It's the same thing with capitalism - the idea is great, but you need a political and economic system that can put that idea into practice.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
[Yeah, I've read it.

I agree that it was definitly ground breaking and its definitly worth a read. I still call it the product of a man that had become throughly disillusioned with society to the point of being downright bonkers, especially later in life.

Man, I just don't get that at all. Have you read much about his personal life?

He had good ideas, just not a good way of putting them into practice, and he never assumed that his system could be so easily abused. If he could have forseen the future that was Soviet Russia he might have burned his book and started over.

That's the thing, though. There's nothing in his writing about how that stuff is to get put into practice. He wasn't describing what the revolution should be and what should replace it, he was arguing from a position of historical inevitability - the owner must treat the worker in a certain way to maintain profit, therefore the worker will reject his exploitation, therefore revolution will happen and capitalism will fall.

Now, the guy is wrong because it turns out capitalism coupled with democracy leads to an improvement in working conditions and the development of a middle class, but to be fair to Marx no-one really saw that one coming.

But the argument that 'Marx didn't have a good way of putting his ideas into practice' just doesn't describe Marx' writing at all.


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 ENOZONE wrote:
I wonder how well an island country can work when the US puts a trade embargo on it for half a century... not saying, but I'm just saying.

I'm not saying the embargo on Cuba was justifiable, but it has stuff all to do with political repression within the country.

Venezuela is fine. I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but the "Dictator" after surviving a coup de da by the US government, was actually liberated by his own people, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan's stormed the capital to reinstate him in power.

Again, the various dodginess by the CIA is terrible, but to just pretend Chavez isn't dismantling the democracy in his own country is just ignoring reality.

Has anyone talked about the inherent pitfalls of a pyramid system that capitalism is? Communism may have failed spectacularly in Russia and can be used fairly as a model of what not to do when first trying to be a socialist state, but it's nothing compared to the destruction capitalism has had on the earth since its inception way before Karl Marx was even around. No one speaks of slavery as an inherent part of true capitalism? The economic ruin of countries who dip into their slice of the pie? The corporations that literally starve people in third world countries to marginalize losses they'd receive on another shore?

One can recognise the problems with capitalism, and the difficulties in addressing those, without pretending communism is a practical alternative.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
Where was a level playing field promised?

You were promised a chance, not an equal chance.


There are plenty of Rags to Riches stories out there, so you can't say "I never had a chance"

No, but you can say that we as a society can do a lot of things to give people more & better chances to succeed in life, and that means modifying the system.


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 Ratbarf wrote:
That would be ignoring quite a few engineering inventions that were created by people who never went to school for engineering. Especially with the internet nowadays you can learn pretty much anything to a decent degree if you pursue it enough on your own time. Heck when it comes to computers that's what a lot of people do. My sister's ex boyfriend and a bunch of his friends put themselves through college by teaching themselves to program and then making browser based games for Crazy Monkey Games and Armor Games.

They still went to college, which shows it still has a lot of value compared to just looking stuff up on the internet.

And while working a job like that might work pretty well for some people, it certainly isn't a practical option for everyone. You can't, for instance, teach yourself to program if the only computer you have access to is in the public library.


But to bring some coherence to what everyone is saying - is anyone here honest to God arguing that providing greater opportunities to every kid isn't a desired thing? So free public education, loans and scholarships for college, all that stuff is just a basically good idea, yeah?

Thirdly, you should also take a look at social mobility indexes, they're a much better representation of how a society is doing on the class thing than average annual income. I mean heck, my great grandfather was a multi millionaire, but my generation will be the last to see any money from that, and if I do poorly my kids could very well end up living in a lower class household. I think you'll find that that's how the vast majority of rich families end up. They have it pretty good for a few generations but eventually that edge runs out, and they're back on an even playing field.

And looking at those indices, you'd see that the countries with more moderated capitalist economies, like the Scandanavian countries, show far greater social mobility than the countries with more pure capitalism, like the USA.

A true communist utopia is brilliant in Theory, shame it hasn't happened yet. .

 Ratbarf wrote:
That would be ignoring quite a few engineering inventions that were created by people who never went to school for engineering. Especially with the internet nowadays you can learn pretty much anything to a decent degree if you pursue it enough on your own time. Heck when it comes to computers that's what a lot of people do. My sister's ex boyfriend and a bunch of his friends put themselves through college by teaching themselves to program and then making browser based games for Crazy Monkey Games and Armor Games.

There's a few problems with that:

1) By teaching yourself you've restricted yourself to inventing something as your only viable career path, and it's a very risky one. No employer is going to hire you without a degree (and, in some cases, a license), which means you're forever excluded from getting that nice stable job where you take home solid middle-class salary, live a comfortable life, and increase efficiency by 5% for the company you work for. Your only choice is an all-or-nothing gamble that most people fail.

2) You're still assuming a degree of resources that not everyone has. Good luck teaching yourself programming when you're working long hours just to feed your family and can't afford a computer/internet/textbooks/etc.

3) I deliberately picked a field with huge barriers to entry. Getting into computer engineering isn't something you can do on your own, in addition to the education required you need thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in specialized software to design chips, and millions of dollars in hardware to build them. It's effectively an infinite barrier to entry, so the field is off-limits to anyone who can't afford the prerequisites to get into it, no matter how much merit they have.

Partially true, but what you don't mention is that those investments get invested. They create more wealth, even if they are just sitting on their butts sipping champagne and beating the servants all day, their investments go towards ventures with (hopefully) good business plans and execution.

The point is that "capitalism is about merit" is laughably false. That wealthy "investor" (who just hires someone to manage their money and make it into more money) isn't succeeding on their own merits, they're succeeding because they had wealthy parents.

Secondly, would you be implying that the succeeding generations not be allowed to benefit from the fruits of one or more successful ancestors? I mean, half of the reason that people strive in life is to try and give their offspring a better chance at life than they did, and if you were to take that reward away, which you seem to be implying because such a reward is "unfair" would really disincentivise people.

Where do you get this ridiculous strawman from? I'm not at all arguing against allowing any kind of inherited wealth, I'm just pointing out that inherited wealth is one of the ways in which pure capitalism denies equality of opportunity and ignores merit in favor of giving more wealth and power to those who already have it. It's because of these things that capitalism needs limits.


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 sebster wrote:
But to bring some coherence to what everyone is saying - is anyone here honest to God arguing that providing greater opportunities to every kid isn't a desired thing? So free public education, loans and scholarships for college, all that stuff is just a basically good idea, yeah?

The point is that pure capitalism is a broken system, since its whole premise of "equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes" is broken. Equality of opportunity doesn't exist, and you need to put limits on capitalism to restore some degree of equality of opportunity to the system.

 Peregrine wrote:
The point is that pure capitalism is a broken system, since its whole premise of "equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes" is broken. Equality of opportunity doesn't exist, and you need to put limits on capitalism to restore some degree of equality of opportunity to the system.

But no-one here that I've seen is arguing for pure capitalism, so what's the point of this little aside?

 sebster wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The point is that pure capitalism is a broken system, since its whole premise of "equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes" is broken. Equality of opportunity doesn't exist, and you need to put limits on capitalism to restore some degree of equality of opportunity to the system.

But no-one here that I've seen is arguing for pure capitalism, so what's the point of this little aside?

There's this nice bit of Ayn-Rand-style social darwinism:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Where was a level playing field promised?

You were promised a chance, not an equal chance.

There are plenty of Rags to Riches stories out there, so you can't say "I never had a chance"

 sebster wrote:

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 ENOZONE wrote:
I wonder how well an island country can work when the US puts a trade embargo on it for half a century... not saying, but I'm just saying.

I'm not saying the embargo on Cuba was justifiable, but it has stuff all to do with political repression within the country.

Venezuela is fine. I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but the "Dictator" after surviving a coup de da by the US government, was actually liberated by his own people, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan's stormed the capital to reinstate him in power.

Again, the various dodginess by the CIA is terrible, but to just pretend Chavez isn't dismantling the democracy in his own country is just ignoring reality.

Has anyone talked about the inherent pitfalls of a pyramid system that capitalism is? Communism may have failed spectacularly in Russia and can be used fairly as a model of what not to do when first trying to be a socialist state, but it's nothing compared to the destruction capitalism has had on the earth since its inception way before Karl Marx was even around. No one speaks of slavery as an inherent part of true capitalism? The economic ruin of countries who dip into their slice of the pie? The corporations that literally starve people in third world countries to marginalize losses they'd receive on another shore?

One can recognize the problems with capitalism, and the difficulties in addressing those, without pretending communism is a practical alternative.

Two things. First: Freedom does not equal Democracy - the Soviet Union, and all of the Soviet Revolutions that occured in Central and South America were revolutions to liberate those who were oppressed. Though many simply traded one dictator for another, for a time people lived a fragile, but nonetheless very real freedom communism promised. Chavez is loved in his country because he is a benevolent dictator that gives the people a working socialist state without curbing their freedoms - he actively tries to give the people what they want: education, healthcare, lower taxes, ect.

Second: Like I said, communism and capitalism are belief's to be as feared as Christianity and Islam. They have much in common should both sides put aside their differences and could do well if they learned and worked from each other. Until then, like Christianity, most of us will only know of one view of the world, and demonize the other ideal by focusing on those that have made it evil.