: > OK- I agree with you - the class that makes the money aught to keep it - but
: > all weatlhth is produced by the workers, and appropriated by the owners - no
: > one can earn several million dollars of their own work - it always has to be
: > at the espense of others - capitalism is organised theft....: Really? Organized theft? Let me ask u which scenario is theft. A man willingly walks into a store and uses his own money to buy WINDOWS95, therefore adding to Bill Gates' millions (Im sure you wretch at the thought of his capital posessing name), or the government taking money from someone who has earned it so that it can then be distributed to someone who has not earned it? Notice the difference in terms: one has someone GIVING the other has someone TAKING. Noe tell me, which word is more synonomous with theft?
I'd rather have a man walk into the store and take the copy of windows 95 that he feels he needs, and then usiing to enrich his life. Socialism is not about redistributing money under capitalism, or state interference in the market (The state must interfere because the ideological view of capitalism, like that espoused by the neo-liberals just doesn't work properly-0 teh state is needed to maaneg the economy...)
: Fine, but its still another excuse. Aply this argument to my pilgrim example and see that it still fails. Even when the working class implements and administers the economic policy it still fails!
I'm not totally au fait with the pilgrims- so I shan't comment- I'll go look it up and come back with an answer some time...
: > I think that its a symptom of Leninism, and proof that communism cannot work
: > in isolated countries, but only in a world wide revolution...
: You completelt miss the point! Why would worldwide implementation change human instinct from achieving self goals to achieving community goals? It wouldn't, and the very idea is ludicrous.
Because its not the human instinct- humans are Zoon Politikos- a social animal, and the need for society is their basic need. Communism would satisfy their material needs, by establishing a plentiful supply of goods (To stae their self preservation urge) by freeing up the artifical resrictions on supply that capitalism necessarilly imposes...
: I don't undertand (simpleton me). Give me a scenario of what you want in a government and tell me how it's different than Plymouth Rock.
Again- I shan't answer with regards to plymouth- because I don't know much about it. What I would want to see in ACTIon is the self government of the people- planning and regulating prouction on the basis of human needs and not the market- and doing so democratically, and in the spirit of social consciousness.
: > The Soviet Union was not a socialist country - It was capitalist. Yawn.
: Oh come on! Do I have to get out a dictionary? A capitalist country
The definition of Capitalism I use is the one applied by Marxian economists- wherein the exchange of commodities for an abstracted token is the basis of production- and wherein a minority ruling class owns and controls the means of production. 10 to one your dictionary would have an inaccurate definition of communism as well.
is not one where the government owns property and gives out the paychecks. Nor is it one where the government runs industries, and
Agree- the capitalist in RUssia was different (To an extent- state management of the economy is a feature of all capitalists states). Russia was what is called a state capitalist or command economy...
names everything "THE PEOPLE'S" this and "THE PEOPLE'S" that. A capitalist state is one in which the government is only in existence to preserve economic and social freedoms, AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THE ECONOMY'S WAY! USSR did not do that! Maybe the money did end up in
That is the funsction of a state in a bourgeois liberal capitalist state...
the upper classes, but it doesn't change the fact that there wer food shortages and other major problems because the people did not feel the need to work as they could not see the direct benefits of their labor. The government always gave them that check, even if it wasn't for very much, so what was the need to continue working?
Like Brazil- capitalist country, people on the brink of starvation...hmmmm. I think you ascribe the wrong reason to the problem in Russia economy- the command economy didn't work- the workjers did get Bolshie, because of the dictatorial management of teh system, and did work slow- but this was not because of the lack of incentive- people were paid (Accorsding to Stalin's constitution "From each according to their ability, to each according to their work..."- is that so very different from capitlaism. If peopel didn't work they starved- just teh same as it is here...)
: > Thats ture - so lets all own the world - instead of a group of people whose
: > only real goal is to attain capital growth...
: in the United States land does not belong to a special class. my mom makes $25,000 a year, my Dad doesn't have a job (I am but a young child, only 15) and we own 64 acres of land (a lot by any any residential standards). We are far from being part of the upper class. Capitalism allows people of all classes to own land, all they have to do is work! That way they feel the responsobility and maintain that property.
Yes, perhaps (I can't dig the exchange rates) but economic circumstances are slightly differnt in the US to here- but you're familly could not live off its capital investments- there are few peopel who can- they are the capitalists. I agree about responisibility and ownership- I just think that everyone aught to own it....
: > Yes, humans have instincts - to be co-operative, and to be adaptable...
: But not to look out for themselves? Tell me, when was the last time you took your neigbors car to be washed because it neede it more than yours? Wouldn't any unselfish, enlightened person like you have to do that? Or when was the last time you went and bought groceries for your neighbor because he/she neede them more than you? More than likely it wasn't just yesterday. That is because you feel the instinctive needs to satisfy yourself before satisfying others. Sometimes satisfying yourself involves satisfying others, but not always. Follow your instinct, it has worked for humanity this far.
1:I live in a society that makes such actions dificult (The fact that I don't even know my nieghbour adds to that).
2:I do put myself out for others- in small ways, but we do it all the time. yes I want material satisfaction of my needs- thats the whole point of socialism, but I don't want it of the forced work and poverty aand misery of someone else. Next time you pick up a piece of Disney merchandise, just think of the Haitian worker who earned a pittance to make it, and who is virtually a slave to the comapny (and how the american military was used to establish this enclave of misery...)
: Michael
: scared I'll be president? Why, because you are afraid I may be proven wrong? Or maybe you are more afraid that I'll be proven right!
More afraid for the peopel you would murder and torment with you policies....
None.
