Kane1389 said:
That doesnt mean it punishes aiding the poor |
It's apparently illegal to feed homeless people in many american states. Only tenuously related but still.
Smear-Gel said:
It's apparently illegal to feed homeless people in many american states. Only tenuously related but still. |
It is?
So many people seem to misunderstand what capitalism is. Capitalism refers to using capital as a means of increasing production.
Capitalism has nothing to do with charity, banning people from feeding the homeless, punishing people, or freedom.
The word "capitalism" cannot be used interchangeably with "free trade", and capitalism doesn't require free trade, it can exist in fascist societies too ("crony capitalism" - ie, the world that most of us live in today.)
The United States typically employs a capitalistic means of production, but its model is more facism than freedom, and this is true (to varying degrees) for Canada, Europe, Russia, China, Australia, etc.
----
My view on communism is fairly simple, I don't think the labour theory of value holds water. Value is determined by the potential consumer, not by the means of production. Second, central planning of any kind runs into the "knowledge problem" (do we build a factory in location X or Y? Does the factory produce widget A or B? To produce the widget, do we employ means of production R or G? - This is why "attempted communist" countries always run into shortages). Finally, the views on property rights do not correspond to typical human nature, you can't bend humanity to fit your theories, it must be the other way around *
* I always see/hear (including in this thread) people come out with the line "communism would be awesome if not for humans", this bothers me. It implies that the system requires a redesign of man. If we could redesign man, then /any/ system could be perfect, we just redesign man around him. If we make humans "less greedy", then surely the top complaints about what people call "capitalism" would also be eliminated?
Kane1389 said:
|
Specifically homeless out on the streets. The idea is to get them off the streets and into shelters, and discouraging people to feed them helps to do so.
The only trouble with that is that most long-term homeless are also mentally ill, so an incentive-based system like that isn't going to pan out properly.
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
| Kane1389 said:
|
Yeah, Bloomberg banned it in NYC a couple of years ago, citing public health concerns (the city can't verify that the food is safe for consumption), and other cities have followed suit.
The (probable) real reason has little to do with public health concerns, and everything to do with forcing homeless people out of the city.
Communism and its end aims are philosophically interesting. However, when put it to practice, communism is significantly less effective than other modes of economy -- ironically meaning any of it's philosophical, utopian ideals can be better achieved when communism as an economic practice is rejected entirely. Markets work better than the command-and-control schemes in Communism.
I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016
| Mr Khan said: Bolshevism and Maoism are the Communist programs that the western world knows. Both were founded on the idea that revolutionary tyranny was needed in order to smash the old order and grind it into the dust before building anew, the idea that an individual human life is, ultimately, worthless in the face of what is to be done: determined atheism and materialism converged on the idea that the ends did justify the means, and so many horrors were thus unleashed. This need to stamp out the old order also attracted and encouraged paranoia of the highest order, which led to folks like Stalin and Mao wiping out groups of people who probably never would have been a threat. Bolshevism and Maoism were prescribed for societies that other Socialists felt were not ready for Communism. The idea on order in the old school was that Capitalism would mature and progress to a certain point where society would become completely polarized between the owners and those who could sell only their labor, at which point it would collapse under its own revolutionary weight and be reorganized. It was not meant for peasant societies like Tsarist Russia or Nationalist China, where small ownership (at least once outright serfdom had been abolished) was still a huge factor, and society was still mostly agricultural and not industrial. In the view of many Communists, Lenin and later Mao, and many others like Castro, all jumped the gun in the big picture. Socialism, meanwhile, has been taking root in western society since the French first Republic and the Owenists of Britain (who, interestingly, had the support of the Tories, who at the time were backed by small holder petty-nobility, who distrusted the rising commoner merchant class which was supplanting them and which powered the Whig party), where the general idea has been to make society better for the working man by degrees rather than by Revolution. In the long run, i'd say Communism will come in some form that we cannot yet delineate, due to the fact that "labor" is going to become insanely cheap and abundant due to the proliferation of robots/machines, and this will essentially force society into making a choice between a utopia where the fruits of this abundant labor are freely shared, or a fierce dystopia where a handful of wealthy retreat into gated communities with their machine-provided bounties while the rest of us grapple in some Mad Max-esque wasteland, due to the fact that we have nothing to provide "the market". Not that i'm saying this change will come all at once, and if the slow progression of socialist programs is any indication, the "choice" i outlined will not be something society makes all at once: we will slowly proceed to that utopia of redistribution one step at a time, as marginal labor costs drop like a stone over the next century and so the number of needed workers will decrease. |
Star Trek predicted this and it seems to be a good template so far 
Communism, on paper, has never been successfully implemented. It was an ideal for equality, yet many countries who claimed to be Communist are indeed nothing close to its core ideals. Mainland China is one example. It claims to be Communist, yet what it turned out to be was a dictatorship in disguise. China today is far better than it was starting in 1945, but today it is still not Communist. I would say it is now a Capitalist dictatorship. They have this huge wealth gap between rich and poor, very similar to the United States. I would classify the United States as a semi Capitalist dictatorship. North Korea is another example; they claim to be communist, yet they are nothing but a pure dicatorship. They are far worse than China ever was; their leaders are modern dynastic rule. Same family rule for 3 generations now.
I would say the countries that most resemble Communism are actually Northern Europe (Norway, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden, etc). They are Democratic, but implement many socialist laws. They have the lowest wealth gap in the world, happiest people on Earth and everybody lives decent lives with all necessary things in life covered. They are all wealthy; their average income is 35K per person. Unlike the United States, their CEOs do not make 100 times more than their employees. They are millionaires, not billionaires. Balance is the key to happiness. Those who hate Communism don't know what they are talking about because the so called Communist nations are all giving it a bad name. They are dictators, not Communists.
I used to lived behind Iron Curtain. There can be left-wing politics and right-wing... but you never understad communism, that was not only politacal and economical system, that was state of mind. Go watch "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - this let you understand totalitary system (and when you watching, think not about hospital but abaut country with people that, are not free, they have to do orders and THINK thant someone what they should).
| SvennoJ said: The biggest problem with communism is that most people don't like to share, they want to own things for themselves. It can work on small scale with like minded people, worker cooperatives exist in the US as well. Yet corporatism has firmly taken hold of the large scale. As long as there is inequality worker cooperatives can't compete against mega corporations that thrive on cheap labor. |
And that is a problem. There is one society i know that is prepared to a comunism - Aboriginal Australians. From centuries they created society who do not know private ownership, they do not have nothig and they can share you everything thay have with no problem. You already see problem? If you can't have enything then... you don't have needs... if you do not have needs you do not have anything.
Even ants and bees aren't equal (there are workers, fighters etc. - people will also need scientists, and others). I think there are 2 working systems:
1 - equality in commont rights and capitalims (stupid consumerism)
2- caste system whith no pivate ownership (global slave system - yeah... I know that ants from our perspective look more romantic :) )
Ofcourse we can choose something different... like comusim and be happy thant we have less and less but everybody are equal and have equal numbers of goods... less and less... or mix comunism with my plan 2, like China - be ants with no rights, equal but not to a members of political party. But our ant colony will be so great!
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