Capitalism doesn't and IS NOT working, it's destructive and creatives poor social incentives

a reply to: NavyDoc


Trotsky was exiled by Stalin. That was not early in the revolution, and would not contradict my argument, essentially that Stalin purged the early revolutionary avant-garde who still inspire art movements today.

The US and Russia were not similar in technology. The US was an industrialized nation with a fair amount of electrification and had been such for at least half a century. Russia was not. Russia was an almost entirely agrarian society. 1917 saw the beginning of wide-spread tractor use in the US and Britain. Russia would have had difficulty building a single tractor in the same year.

The only thing that has been proven by the history of communism and socialism is that it cannot survive the massive military force brought down upon it. The Russian Revolution saw the invasion of Russia by 180,000 soldiers from the Allied powers. The electoral revolution in Guatemala saw a coup by the capitalists and ultimately a genocide to remove leftism from the country.

Ownership of the product of your labor is socialism. Capitalism is the opposite, it is private ownership of the means of production. If capitalism meant ownership of the product of your labor, then every business would be a co-op.

a reply to: freakwars

And you do realize that a single incident does not a pattern make. Interesting certainly but does not indicate the entirety of baboon-dom nor can it be extrapolated to humans and does not take in account the variables. OTOH, the baboon troop does show a consistent pattern--that when given the power, the former down group will take over and bully the rest of the group. The "alphas" were temporarily removed and the next group started being the "alpha." Different boss but same story.

"The troop did not tolerate alpha behavior?" By what? Beating them? Killing those who do not fit the new norm? This actually supports my opinion on communism--they are notorious for killing a lot people to make their "perfect society."

#ed up worlview? LOL. That people should be economically and individually free and that people have value as individuals and not the collective? OH THE HORROR!!!!

originally posted by: freakwars
a reply to: NavyDoc


Trotsky was exiled by Stalin. That was not early in the revolution, and would not contradict my argument, essentially that Stalin purged the early revolutionary avant-garde who still inspire art movements today.

The US and Russia were not similar in technology. The US was an industrialized nation with a fair amount of electrification and had been such for at least half a century. Russia was not. Russia was an almost entirely agrarian society. 1917 saw the beginning of wide-spread tractor use in the US and Britain. Russia would have had difficulty building a single tractor in the same year.

The only thing that has been proven by the history of communism and socialism is that it cannot survive the massive military force brought down upon it. The Russian Revolution saw the invasion of Russia by 180,000 soldiers from the Allied powers. The electoral revolution in Guatemala saw a coup by the capitalists and ultimately a genocide to remove leftism from the country.

Ownership of the product of your labor is socialism. Capitalism is the opposite, it is private ownership of the means of production. If capitalism meant ownership of the product of your labor, then every business would be a co-op.

You are incorrect, the Soviet Union had one of the largest militaries in the world. I see the same old song--when socialism and communism fails it is always because "it hasn't been done right" or "it failed because capitalists made it fail."

Capitalism does mean ownership of your labor. Some people own the results of it directly, others sell it as a commodity to other people. I own my labor and the fruits of it. The fruits of it could be the chair I build or the book I write ( of course under communism, according to Marx, I shouldn't own the book I write) or the money I earn by selling my labor to someone else. Labor is capital. Labor is a commodity that has value. Some labor is valued greatly due to skill and experience and some labor like a young Marxist on minimum wage, has not much value at all.

You are incorrect. Although the West was slightly more industrialized than Russia in 1917, the US still had great swaths of country without electricity. In fact, in 1917, it still was not common although due to free market capitalism, it was expanding exponentially. The western part of Russian empire was very close to their European counterparts in infrastructure and technology--Peter the Great did a great push to increase Russian technology and standard of living towards European standardization. He cut off the boyar's beards and made the nobles wear western clothes and become educated in the west.

After the revolution? After the genocide of "antirevolutionary" people? After the genocide against the Kulacks? After murder and persecution? We had stagnation and pain.

a reply to: NavyDoc

Communism does seem to be marked by purges and mass reformation of populations by extreme force. 20 million in Soviet Russia from good 'ol Uncle Joe. 40 mil. from The Good Chairman in China. A couple million to the Khmer Rouge to form their agrarian utopia....and we all know eggs must crack to make the Communist omelette.

How many died at the hands of their fellow Vietnamese AFTER 1975 and no U.S. troop was within hundreds of miles? Was it 2 mllion? 2.5 million?

We know North Korea's '3 Generation' laws and Cuba kinda made a regular business out of finding and adding to it's collection of political prisoners for a whole lot of years, before more recently moderating into something a little different.

Indeed... Communism seems to have an exceptionally bloody past for it's short life as an experiment. Just about everywhere it's ever been tried.

Fascism may be Capitalism having a real bad day.......but Communism is Socialism having a far worse one, and I can find ways to survive and endure while a fascist society is undermined and overturned. Millions now passed on (dead) would suggest...that's not so likely the case in a 'People's Republic'.

a reply to: NavyDoc

They excluded them from the group. That was it. They excluded and chased them away until they behaved themselves.
And it's not a "single incident" it's a society that has maintained itself in this manner for 20 years. Demonstrating that social relations are mutable. Taking that logic to it's ultimate conclusion, the whole history of capitalism is merely a single incident and proves nothing about anything.

Your other argument is an unsupported assertion as to the structure of baboon societies. Did you study baboons in Africa before you became a tool of the imperialists?

"experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other"
-Frederick Douglass

The only way that people can have value as individual people and not as an aggregated resource is socialism. The closest we can get to individual freedom is socialism. Capitalism prevents these things.

a reply to: NavyDoc

I don't see the relevance of the military strength of the Soviet Union. All that demonstrates is the efficacy of Soviet industrialization drives.

And it wasn't that it wasn't done right, it hasn't been done at all, with the possible exception of during the Spanish Civil War. Socialism and Communism have definitions, and none of the supposedly socialists states have met that definition.

Marx would of course argue that you should own the book that you write. It would also be owned by other people who had a hand in the creation of it, such as the person operating the printing/binding machinery. Under capitalism, it's the property of whoever is renting the creator. Under capitalism if you want the right to own the product of your labor you need to rent yourself out to people as much as possible and live like an ascetic until you have the capability to buy your own equipment, and then if you don't want to lose it all you need to start renting other people in order to make enough money to maintain the right to your own product.

In material reality, you don't have the right to your own product unless you are one of the slavers.

Yes, in 1917 large parts of the US didn't have electricity. However, Russia had almost none. In the US you could almost certainly get electric if you lived in a city. This was not so in Russia. The US had large manufacturing plants, and had had a well-developed industry since the Civil War. Russia's economy was almost entirely agriculture, and they were subject to frequent famines even so.

PETER THE GREAT DIED A CENTURY BEFORE THE PERIOD WE ARE DISCUSSING. ARE YOU EVEN TRYING

It's not Capitalism that is the problem. Globalism is the problem. A free market capitalist economy, while sometimes bumpy, will always work in a closed economy. The reason for this is that it allows for individual freedom - both for entrepreneurs to start new businesses, and for workers to advocate for better wages and treatment (unions).

Now insert Globalism into the mix. It's a double blow against the free market. First corporations are able to procure products and services at a cheaper price in other countries to sell them at a higher profit in their home country - putting entrepreneurs out of business as starting up a global business is something an entrepreneur cannot easily do. In the process these corporations also outsource jobs to workers in other countries who are willing to work for less, undermining the effectiveness of unions in their home country. This causes unemployment and poverty in the country that houses said corporations.

The workers employed by these corporations in these other countries most often haven't made the social progress that has occurred in the home countries of these corporations. They have a lower minimum wage, probably no mandated maximum on working hours, no unions to speak of, and would probably be terrified of speaking out against their employers for fear of losing their jobs. While it's possible they will eventually fight to get better wages and working conditions like our forefathers did, when that time comes the corporations will simply pick up shop and move to employing disadvantaged people in another unfortunate country, repeating the same process all over again.

This isn't a fault in capitalism - it's a fault in globalism. Globalist doctrine is evil, and those who propagate it are evil. There is simply no way to maintain a global economy without some country somewhere getting taken advantage of. Business should be kept at home, trade between countries should be limited and heavily taxed. Let each government mind the affairs of it's own country and citizenry.

originally posted by: freakwars
a reply to: NavyDoc

They excluded them from the group. That was it. They excluded and chased them away until they behaved themselves.
And it's not a "single incident" it's a society that has maintained itself in this manner for 20 years. Demonstrating that social relations are mutable. Taking that logic to it's ultimate conclusion, the whole history of capitalism is merely a single incident and proves nothing about anything.

Your other argument is an unsupported assertion as to the structure of baboon societies. Did you study baboons in Africa before you became a tool of the imperialists?

"experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other"
-Frederick Douglass

The only way that people can have value as individual people and not as an aggregated resource is socialism. The closest we can get to individual freedom is socialism. Capitalism prevents these things.

"Tool of the imperialists?" LOL. Gotta love the undergraduate Che-Tshirt wearing rhetoric. The 1960's called, they want their drivel back.

The baboon story actually proves my point--the society was changed by the systemic MURDER of an entire class of said society and to maintain said society, they had to persecute and drive out those who did not fit into the paradigm. Notice how we don't see further follow on writings. What about 30 years later? 40? 50? The genetics of the primate will eventually adjust that small isolated group back to where it was. The obvious point and one that communists love to do, is that they love to adjust their societal paradigm by killing whole classes of people. Mao did it, the Bolsheviks did it, Pol Pot did it. Communism, by it's very nature to create this "classless" society is a murderous one.

Negative. Socialism abrogates the individual to the collective. Under capitalism you can increase your individual worth to yourself and society and can make what you will of yourself. Socialism is a race to the lowest common denominator.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Capitalism does seem to be marked by purges and mass reformation of populations by extreme force. 10 million in the Congo from good 'ol Leopold. 100 mil. from The East India Company in India. Another hundred mil. to the American settlers to form their utopia....and we all know eggs must crack to make the Capitalist omelette.

How many died at the hands of their fellow South Koreans AFTER 1953 and no DPRK troop was south of the DMZ? Was it 2 million? 2.5 million?

We know about the Guatemalan genocide and Argentina kinda made a regular business out of finding and adding to it's collection of political prisoners for a whole lot of years, before more recently moderating into something a little different.

Indeed... Capitalism seems to have an exceptionally bloody past for it's short life as an experiment. Just about everywhere it's ever been tried.

State Capitalism may be Communism having a real bad day.......but Fascism is Capitalism having a far worse one, and I can find ways to survive and endure while a state capitalist society is undermined and overturned. Millions now passed on (dead) would suggest...that's not so likely the case in a 'Capitalist Democracy'.

a reply to: freakwars

You consider the British occupation and manipulation of India by force (The days of the East India Trading Company) to be an example of Capitalism?

That's colonialism.

I think we're also on very different pages here with even defining the terms we're using.

originally posted by: freakwars
a reply to: NavyDoc

I don't see the relevance of the military strength of the Soviet Union. All that demonstrates is the efficacy of Soviet industrialization drives.

And it wasn't that it wasn't done right, it hasn't been done at all, with the possible exception of during the Spanish Civil War. Socialism and Communism have definitions, and none of the supposedly socialists states have met that definition.

Marx would of course argue that you should own the book that you write. It would also be owned by other people who had a hand in the creation of it, such as the person operating the printing/binding machinery. Under capitalism, it's the property of whoever is renting the creator. Under capitalism if you want the right to own the product of your labor you need to rent yourself out to people as much as possible and live like an ascetic until you have the capability to buy your own equipment, and then if you don't want to lose it all you need to start renting other people in order to make enough money to maintain the right to your own product.

In material reality, you don't have the right to your own product unless you are one of the slavers.

Yes, in 1917 large parts of the US didn't have electricity. However, Russia had almost none. In the US you could almost certainly get electric if you lived in a city. This was not so in Russia. The US had large manufacturing plants, and had had a well-developed industry since the Civil War. Russia's economy was almost entirely agriculture, and they were subject to frequent famines even so.

PETER THE GREAT DIED A CENTURY BEFORE THE PERIOD WE ARE DISCUSSING. ARE YOU EVEN TRYING

Marx supported the elimination of intellectual property and inheritance. Under him, my book would not be mine, it would not belong to my family after I was gone. Thus the communist collective stifles individual achievement and intellect.

Yes, yes, I've heard this same old thing since before you were born--that communism hasn't worked because it has never been done right yet. The truth is it will never "be done right" because people are not insects and you will never have a large society where everyone is part of the collective mindset.

Under capitalism, my intellectual property, my book is protected. If I want to profit from it, I may have to have it printed for money in fee exchange of goods or services, not have the collective decide for me if it is worth it or not. Under capitalism I am definitely more free to enjoy the fruits of writing it.

In material reality, there is no slavery in paying people for service. Certainly the US was more developed--BECAUSE of free market capitalism.

LOL. Peter the Great. This shows that you don't understand Russian history. THE REASON WHY THE WESTERN PARTS OF RUSSIA WERE ALMOST AS DEVELOPED AS THEIR NEIGHBORS IN EUROPE WAS BECAUSE OF HIS POLICY OF SYSTEMINC WESTERNIZATION AND INDUSTRIALIZATION. It is a very important thing to understand and this demonstrates that you don't even try to comprehend beyond what your Marxist ideology tells you. You aren't even trying but are blind to anything else but mindless Communist indoctrination.

a reply to: NavyDoc

Hi Navy,

Let's ignore our Constitution. Like you pointed out, that treaty wasn't ratified. Even though the State Department claims that treaty is in force.

www.state.gov...

Let's ignore treaties. Lets go right to Lincoln. How about this:

Lieber code Art. 16.

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

avalon.law.yale.edu...

Does Gitmo Apply? I correctly view that place making a return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

The Lieber Code leads to death, and Militarism. Which we have had 150+ years of. It is still in effect.
The US Constitution, and subsequent Human Rights Treaties, lead to life.

Which do you prefer?

I've made my stand.

a reply to: NavyDoc

They weren't murdered they ate tainted meat. If that's murder capitalists kill 1000's of people every day.
We remove murderers from society. Why not remove oppressors and exploiters?
Have you considered that maybe it's not been 30 years yet?
If the behaviors are genetic, how were they overcome in the first place? Why can they not continue to be overcome?
If Pol Pot was a terrible murderous communist, why was it communists who overthrew his regime? Why was it capitalists who funded his attempts to get back in power?
Classes of people are not the people themselves. You can kill the class without killing the people.

monthlyreview.org...


All I can see when I try to read that last chunk is "I don't know the first thing about socialism. Here. let me tell you why it sucks"

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
a reply to: freakwars

You consider the British occupation and manipulation of India by force (The days of the East India Trading Company) to be an example of Capitalism?

That's colonialism.

I think we're also on very different pages here with even defining the terms we're using.

Truth. A king invading a country and taking it by force and killing and pillaging is not free market capitalism and has been going on for thousands of years.

Funny he hates royal mass murderers but creams over communist mass murderers. I guess a little genocide is just fine when it is supposed to change society to the collectivist ideal.

originally posted by: freakwars
a reply to: NavyDoc

They weren't murdered they ate tainted meat. If that's murder capitalists kill 1000's of people every day.
We remove murderers from society. Why not remove oppressors and exploiters?
Have you considered that maybe it's not been 30 years yet?
If the behaviors are genetic, how were they overcome in the first place? Why can they not continue to be overcome?
If Pol Pot was a terrible murderous communist, why was it communists who overthrew his regime? Why was it capitalists who funded his attempts to get back in power?
Classes of people are not the people themselves. You can kill the class without killing the people.

monthlyreview.org...


All I can see when I try to read that last chunk is "I don't know the first thing about socialism. Here. let me tell you why it sucks"

No, what you are reading is that I understand socialism and communism very well and their historical and ideological imperative and know very well why it sucks.

"Oppressor and exploiter." The trouble is, useful idiots call honest people who make a decent living and give other people decent living "exploiters and oppressors." Anyone who asks you to get off your butt and make your own living is an "exploiter" to a university Marxist.

Where are these thousands killed every day for capitalism? Why do you ignore the millions killed in the name of communism?

a reply to: NavyDoc

Oh I just realized I made an error. Peter the Great actually died in 1725, making the end of his reign almost TWO CENTURIES before the events we are discussing.

I said Russia was almost half a century behind in terms of modernization. You came back and essentially told me it was actually two centuries behind.

a reply to: NavyDoc

If murder is the result of people not getting proper food supply, then every death from hunger can be laid at the feet of capitalism. The UN estimates 21,000 people die every day from such causes.

a reply to: NavyDoc

Leopold didn't invade the Congo or rule over it as king. He purchased the country as a private citizen because the government wouldn't allow him to take over the Congo in his role as king of the country.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

The East India Company was a private company.

Imperialism is a form of capitalism. Imperialism the Highest Form of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

And even if you only count the period after independence, India still gets a hell of a lot of famine deaths.

I've been defining the words I'm using the whole time, you folks keep ignoring it.

a reply to: freakwars

So Capitalism as a specific economic system is, by your estimate, directly responsible for all hunger related deaths in the world today? I'm sure I read that twice to be certain of meaning?