In Reply to: communism does not work posted by deranged on October 09, 1996 at 01:30:16:
> > Don't you idiots realize there is no better alternative to capitalism?
> > No other system has worked so well to enrich so many-including your
> > pitiful lives. How else could you hypocrites get your stupid message
> > out-In a capitalist system with a computer that costs enough to
> > feed hundereds in the Philippines etc. If your so against "capitalism
> > stop using it's most prominent tools to spread your message.> > Hypocrites all
> I agree completely with Todd's statement. While we can all try to do our
> part by "treading lightly" (recycyling, reusing, reducing), trying to over-
> throw our capitalist society is not the answer. The experience of the USSR
> shows us that communism does not work, we need to find another way. I think
> that multinationals should strive to become more and more green. While the jobs
> that McDonald's provides might be low-paying, they can serve as an incentive to
> young people to go out and do better.If anything, the USSR taught us how hideous an economic system Capitalism is.
The great majority of people are actually worse off now than they
were pre-1991. However, I am by no means attempting to defend
what was happening in Russia since the rise of Stalin to power.
After the failure of the German Revolution in 1918, and
subsequently the failure of the Russian Revolution, Stalin rose
to power and created what socialists call 'state capitalism',
not communism. What socialists mean by state capitalism, is that
rather than the workers, entrepreneurs or bosses owning and
controlling the means of production, it was the bureaucracy ie.
the state. In effect, as in private ownership capitalist
societies, workers were exploited in order to generate profits.
Moreover, the empirical data suggests that they were exploited
to an even greater degree than in say Britain, the U.S.A. or even
my own country, Australia. Therefore it is my belief, and many
others, that since shortly after the Russian Revolution where
the workers gained ownership and control of the factories, the
working class established state power, the land turned over to
the peasants and the homeless moved into the palaces and mansions
vacated by the wealthy, Russia was not socialist or communist but
actually State capitalist. So in essence, the collapse of the
U.S.S.R. in 1991 was not due to the failure of 'communism' but
rather the inability of one country to compete against the
pressures of a now capitalist world and the failure to win the
arms race brought on by the Cold War.One final note: by stating that the corporations who largely
run society should become greener and more environmentally
friendly you are contradicting yourself and being
anti-capitalistic. For corporations will only become more
environmentally friendly if it adds to profits. The whole
eco-problem stems from the pursuit of profits at any cost,
not simply technology or industrialisation. The only way the
environmental problems of the world will ever receive the
attention they deserve, is when the pursuit of profits rather
than meeting the needs of society, is ended. Also, by using
the technology developed by a capitalist world I am not being
hypocritical, because I for one do not criticise technology,
but rather the reason for which it is produced and used.
This being to lay off workers and increase profits rather than
make society a better place in which to live for all, and not a
priveleged few.