Why Capitalism Is Doomed: The Contradictions at Its Core

Originally posted by Evil_Santa
reply to post by allprowolfy

 

So you would like to return to the time of watered down milk, buying items that are not what they're labeled as, and you really think that corporations will maintain roads and interstates out of the goodness of their hearts?

I have a bridge to sell you then..

Lol, if your talking about the FDA-EPA, a pure and current "open market" infrastructure, does not need government approval, it has its buyers approval

IF you have a bridge to sell me, in a pure Capitalist society, I bet 20 others do as well, probably better and cheaper, next day

Such is a true Capitalistic state

Originally posted by Leftist

Hello comrades. Today we are going to look at the contradictions inherent in capitalism. We will see, using economic logic, why capitalism’s downfall is inevitable. I am performing this analysis from a Marxist perspective, but you don’t have to be a Marxist or even a leftist to appreciate what follows. Since this focuses on the problems with capitalism rather than the benefits of communism, I hope even those hostile to the Marxist project will at least get the message that capitalism is doomed.

Marx and Engels predicted how capitalism would destroy itself using iron logic. We can see that they were spot-on correct, as capitalism continues to destroy itself before our very eyes.

Capitalism doesn't destroy itself. This is complete nonsense.. Outside influences and regulations beyond a free market have.

But why? Why is capitalism failing now? What makes it a flawed system? To understand, we have to back up and look at a few basic concepts in a fresh new light.

Are you going to mention how we don't have a free market which capitalism requires to be prosperous? We had that once and we witnessed the greatest progress in human history. Then the outside influences and special interests prevailed by covering our eyes while they scared us into an oligarchy through fear and manipulations.

The capitalist has two choices for extracting this “something extra”: He can get it from the fixed capital, or he can get it from the variable capital. Actually, as it turns out, he can’t really get it from fixed capital. If a shoe-maker buys a new shoe-making machine, he can pass the price along in final price of his shoes, but he can’t really do too much else. If he wants to squeeze out profits, he’s going to have to look to the variable capital part of the equation: in other words, the labor.

There is nothing wrong with that as long as there are enough jobs. Are you going to get into the reaosn we don't have enough jobs? You might find in the first half of the century the government forced large TOO BIG corporations to break up. Companies like walmart should not be allowed to exist. These mega corporations swallow up competition, jobs, and progress. If walmart didn't exist there would most likely be 4 times more people employed than walmart has in it's workforce.

Originally posted by allprowolfy

Owe, and I almost forgot the most important topic, ONLY the government of the nation-state should hold and raise the currency of it's masses. when you observe any nation-state that forfeits its currency to another entity, you can observe what the U.S. is going through now

edit on 19-3-2012 by allprowolfy because: (no reason given)

This is one of the fundamental principles laid out in the Communist Manifesto. A Central bank is a concept developed by Marx and Engels. What we are dealing with today is private central banks. Socialist principles are being applied to corporate entities rather than to people, thus we see the bailing out of certain private institutions in time of crisis. To use Marxist terminology I believe what you are refering to is 'socialism for the bourgeoisie' or Socialism for the factory owners and capitalism for the workers.
of course, in the world we live in, it's infinitely more complicated than that....

Originally posted by theGreatunhosed

Originally posted by allprowolfy

Owe, and I almost forgot the most important topic, ONLY the government of the nation-state should hold and raise the currency of it's masses. when you observe any nation-state that forfeits its currency to another entity, you can observe what the U.S. is going through now

edit on 19-3-2012 by allprowolfy because: (no reason given)

This is one of the fundamental principles laid out in the Communist Manifesto. A Central bank is a concept developed by Marx and Engels. What we are dealing with today is private central banks. Socialist principles are being applied to corporate entities rather than to people, thus we see the bailing out of certain private institutions in time of crisis. To use Marxist terminology I believe what you are refering to is 'socialism for the bourgeoisie' or Socialism for the factory owners and capitalism for the workers.
of course, in the world we live in, it's infinitely more complicated than that....

edit on 19-3-2012 by theGreatunhosed because: (no reason given)

Very good catch, I too read the manifesto, and observed that Marx would have been wrong if and only if, true Capitalism insued. However, reality of current situations, has Marx in the lead with 100 and Crony-Capitalism negative something

Originally posted by Leftist
Now, one more fancy pair of terms, and you’ll be ready to discuss Marxist economics at your next cocktail party like a real cadre: absolute and relative surplus value. Remember, to recap briefly: surplus value is the “something extra” that capitalists tack on to the price to make a profit, and it comes from exploiting labor, or “variable capital.” The absolute surplus value is determined by a linear increase in the amount of work done: for example, by requiring workers to work longer hours for the same pay using unpaid overtime. By focusing on increasing absolute surplus value, a capitalist can increase profit, but only at a linear rate. The real profits come from increasing the rate itself at which profits are reaped. This happens when a capitalist focuses on relative surplus value. Examples include introducing new machinery or techniques that not only grows profit, but grows it faster. All capitalists need to do this, in order to stay competitive. This, ultimately, is what leads to more joblessness and to the ultimate contradiction at the heart of capitalism.

Wrong because those companies buy more things from company B, and those executives/owners spend more money on goods and services. Shareholders make money and spend more money on goods and services. The real problem is monopolies and the assault on small businesses.

In the early days of capitalism, almost all capital was variable capital; that is, workers. There was a lot less machinery involved. But as time went on, capitalists kept increasing relative surplus value to make profits and stay ahead of the competition. Through increasing automation, outsourcing, offshoring, and an obsession with productivity/efficiency, they introduced more and more new machinery and technology – more and more fixed capital. So we have more tech, more fancy machines, yet fewer workers. As we have seen, profits can only come through changes to variable capital, i.e., workers. But with fewer workers, eventually the pool of variable capital dries up, and with it the potential for future profit. And without profit, capitalism itself dies.

This is utter hogwash. Businesses that turn profits invest that money, expand and open new markets. This creates jobs so you may not work as an assembly line worker at GE anymore but there will be another job created someplace else. Not to mention a true capitalist free market has high demand for working people and we are not experiencing a true capitalist market right now.

Did you get that? If not, don’t worry; go back over it and let it sink in.

You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

But if you understand that, you will understand why capitalism cannot survive.

I do understand why capitalism is failing. It has neither to do with what you've mentioned nor does it have to do with capitalism itself. Capitalism itself is not the driving force of failure but the infiltration and corruption capitalism is experiencing is.

We are seeing the collapse of capitalism right now in our own time, for the very reason outlined above.

That's a total bunch of crap.. Ask the EPA why capitalism is failing.. Ask Walmart.. Look at our liberal progressive social policies that give a hundred billion dollars in social welfare to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS who put absolutely nothing back into the system in form of taxes. Look at the size of the federal government which regulates and taxes the free market into a non existence while giving special deals to mega corporations. CORRUPTION.

As companies face a falling rate of profit, this forces a concentration of capital. Companies get bigger and bigger, because size is the only way to grow when the absolute amount of profit available in the entire system starts to shrink.

What kind of a term is "absolute profit?" Explain.. What's the number you have for "absolute profit?" It's absolute right? So how much is "absolute profit?"

Eventually capitalism will squeeze out so much variable capital that there will be nobody left to buy their products, and no further room for growth, which will kill the ability of the mega-companies to make profit.

What did the scamming mortgage crisis have to do with variable profit? As far as I know the markets and spending were very high until the mortgage debacle. That had nothing to do with squeezing profits in a failing capitalist society..

And without profit, capitalism itself dies. This is what we are seeing now, with globalism - the final and most extravagant phase of capitalism.

More delusions!

Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself.

You are a scary and ignorant individual to believe you can slander capitalism with a bunch of smug bull crap. You are very intelligent and it's obviously so with your writing ability but seriously man capitalism is not what's failing and please stop leading other ignorant people to believe in falsities.

I call that the OP is a seminar caller or actually a seminar poster.

Well read, and obviously educated, but yet delusional in the fact that Communism has always failed and always will.

Why will Communism fail? As always…human nature.

Capitalists are always at the forefront of technological leaps. The communists are always playing catch up.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
I call that the OP is a seminar caller or actually a seminar poster.

Well read, and obviously educated....

I'll take that as a complement, thanks! I am indeed a professional revolutionary; that is, a communist cadre. However, I certainly don't work for money or for any organization other than the people. Power to the people! Everything I say, write, and do, here and everywhere else, I do purely in service to the people. I ask no payment, I take no payment, I represent no formal organization. I am a humble footsoldier in the greatest struggle of history - in a very real sense, the only struggle there is! Why not join us - the good guys? All you have to do is open your mind and think things through, you don't even have to join any organization or sign any dotted lines! Logic alone should lead you to the correct conclusions.

reply to post by Leftist


True. The capitalism defined by Marx is definitely doomed-- which is why it's spelled with a lower cased c, as opposed to Capitalism with an upper cased C.

Originally posted by Leftist
! Why not join us - the good guys?

How exactly are you the "good guys." We could more logically surmise rather you are merely another naive youth who had hopped onto a bandwagon like many of your fellow peers.While I'm sure you mean well your kinds solution to fixing the system is based entirely on wishful thinking and taking a huge gamble on the country and lives of millions of people something many are not keen on.

further the major flaw in the thinking of modern communist is they for the most part espouse a philosophy they have never had to live under. Of course its easy to say the grass is greener on the other side of the fence when you have never lived there. But ask yourself why was there such a mass exodus of people from communist countries? Why are some of the most vehement anti communists people who lived in that form of government?..


Proponents always fall back on "but it wasn't REAL communism" Well lets use that logic you talked about in this post of yours.If an experiment keeps failing particularly when each failure becomes to costly and yields little to no beneficial results then it is abandoned. This is how the process of creation is done. Man scraps sub par ideas in order to pour his time into ones that yield results

Now I'm perfectly open to to people coming up with new ideas in regards to the topic at hand but there has been nothing shown previously or in this thread that makes me believe communism shouldn't merely be tossed in the junk pile.

Interesting thread OP. Here is a good little video giving a Marxist analysis of the crisis of Capitalism. I'm not a marxist myself, but find marxism provides the best critical analysis of capitalism.

Technologically we are not there yet to implement communism. Once we will have an IT structure that gathers and analyzes information so advanced that it produces better pareto optima of resource allocation than individual decisions based on need and greed, we can switch to central planning.
Currenlty capitalism is still a favourable system, just that it requires regulations where free markets fail to produce competitive markets. Im not asking for more regulations, get rid of unnecessary regulation and implement some to stop destructive forces of capitalism - like implement a tiny transaction tax on any transaction to counter high frequency trading, which is highly destructive.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
I call that the OP is a seminar caller or actually a seminar poster.

Well read, and obviously educated, but yet delusional in the fact that Communism has always failed and always will.

Why will Communism fail? As always…human nature.

Capitalists are always at the forefront of technological leaps. The communists are always playing catch up.

I disagree.

Communism simply requires an administration without human nature - maybe through a system of check and balances. Moreover, capitalism is solely based on human nature.

You are wrong about technological leaps. Capitalism fails to produce R&D in sectors that are not profitable. Such as space exploration, fundamental science, experimental physics, archelogy, medicine that cures and so on and on. These branches of science are the most important in order to evolve human civilization, unfortunately they are not profitable.
Science always leaped forward in times where the state was strong and the free markets relatively controled. In times of war and totalitary systems.

Im not asking for totalitarian regime though, just more government expenditure in sciences.

This story is a great example of how simply errasing debt and the cost of the bond holders (typically pension funds) and not correcting a company's failed business structure will not fix the problem.

As a matter of background info... many and I do mean many, understand the GS sponsered bond purchase and subsequent tender in to the debt for equity swap was the result of a strong armed political move by the Obama Administration that threatened Goldman and several of the other large CDS marketmakers with the abolishment of the CDS industry (i.e. think about what was going on in 2009) if they didn't help facilitate the transaction... Note there is no half way reasonable or intelligent investor alive that would willingly jump into owning YRC debt... much less in to the teeth of a eq for debt swap... literally sheer crazy... they were simply forced to fall on their soward.

YRC Back at Brink 2 Years After Goldman Spat: Corporate Finance
By Lisa Abramowicz - Mar 19, 2012 11:28 AM ET LinkedIn Google +1 Print QUEUEQ
Two years after the Teamsters union faced off against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to keep YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW) out of bankruptcy, the second-biggest U.S. trucker is back on the brink.

Credit-default swaps tied to the company, whose units include New Penn, Holland and Reddaway, imply an 87 percent chance of default, according to data provider CMA. Bonds from Overland Park, Kansas-based YRC, which employed 32,000 on Dec. 31, have lost 50 percent of their value in six months.

Enlarge image
YRC Back at Brink 2 Years After Goldman Spat Jin Lee/Bloomberg
A tractor trailer rolls out of a parking lot at YRC Worldwide Inc. in Carlstadt, New Jersey.

A tractor trailer rolls out of a parking lot at YRC Worldwide Inc. in Carlstadt, New Jersey. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg
Even as a strengthening U.S. economy boosts profits at FedEx Corp. and Con-Way Inc., YRC is set to lose $68.6 million this quarter, according to the average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, which would be its eighth loss in nine periods. Its competitors grabbed market share by lowering prices and attracting customers after YRC averted bankruptcy in 2009 through a debt exchange with a face value of $470 million. YRC’s revenue fell to $4.9 billion last year from $9.9 in 2006 while long-term borrowings rose.

“We don’t have a whole lot of faith that this will work itself out over the near term,” said David Berge, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in New York. “There’s still a fairly high likelihood of them being in a default or distressed situation over the next year, year and a half. They’re still burning cash.”

YRC projects it won’t earn enough money to satisfy lender requirements starting in the second quarter, meaning it will have to either negotiate a new arrangement or accelerate debt payments, according to a Feb. 28 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

‘In Compliance’
If lenders demand repayment, YRC “will not have sufficient cash and cash flows from operations to repay such indebtedness,” it said in the filing.

“The current covenant package and corresponding forecast were set by the previous management team,” Jamie Pierson, YRC’s chief financial officer, wrote in an e-mailed statement. “We fully anticipate resetting the covenants so that we will be in compliance the second quarter and beyond.”

Credit-default swaps on YRC jumped to 44.5 percent upfront on March 7, the highest level since 2009, before falling to 43.3 percent on March 15, according to CMA, which is owned by CME Group Inc. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated market. That means the upfront cost to protect $10 million of YRC bonds from default for five years increased to $4.45 million in addition to $500,000 annually.

Bonds Drop
Derivatives traders were demanding 35.2 percent upfront at the end of last year. YRC’s swaps were the fourth-worst performers in the past three months compared with other companies worldwide, according to the data.

Its 10 percent bonds due in March 2015 dropped to 36 cents on the dollar as of March 14 from 72 cents in September, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Shares of the company have dropped 11 percent this year to $8.91 as of 11:19 a.m. today in New York.

In December 2009, YRC extended a tender-offer deadline six times before bondholders agreed to swap equity for debt, allowing the trucker to delay a $19 million interest payment that would have left it in an “unsustainable” position, according to a regulatory filing at the time.

The bondholder pushback prompted International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James Hoffa to ask federal and state authorities to review “questionable promotion” of credit- default swaps tied to YRC debt. He named Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank AG, Toronto Dominion Bank, Barclays Capital, and UBS AG as firms with a “history of making markets” in derivatives trades that would profit from YRC’s bankruptcy.

‘Goal Line’
Goldman Sachs said at the time that the New York-based bank “neither has a position in, nor makes markets in, YRC corporate bonds or credit-default swaps.”

After YRC received bondholder approval, Bill Zollars, its chief executive officer at the time, said Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Aristeia Capital LLC, Silverback Asset Management and a Smith Management LLC unit “got us over the goal line by going into the market, buying bonds and tendering them.”

Zollars previously said that “the most difficult bondholders to deal with were investors with credit-default swaps that paid off if the company went bankrupt.”

Two years later, YRC’s auditor, KPMG LLP, said the company’s financial condition raises “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue,” according to the Feb. 28 filing. The trucker has $175 million of pension payments and $48.3 million of lease obligations due this year, according to the filing.

Top Providers
“The company’s market share substantially declined over the past few years,” Standard & Poor’s analysts led by Anita Ogbara wrote in a Feb. 29 report. As a result of YRC’s “well- publicized financial distress, its competitors sought to gain market share by pricing aggressively.” they wrote.

A ratio of YRC’s costs compared with revenue increased in the past two quarters, while Con-Way’s decreased, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The less-than-truckload business, which relies on a healthy U.S. economy for its success, is concentrated among the top providers, with the 10 biggest carriers accounting for about 67 percent of the $33 billion U.S. and Canadian market, the data show.

YRC has about $1.3 billion of indebtedness, an amount that will increase because YRC is incurring new debt to pay some of its interest, the filing showed. Most of the company’s debt matures in 2014 and 2015. Its enterprise value, the sum of its stock-market capitalization and net debt was $1.22 billion on March 16, down from $4.09 billion at the end of 2005. Its aggregate equity price has declined to $65.7 million from $2.56 billion.

‘Operational Story’
“Since the company’s finalization of its last restructuring of July 2011, there’s been significant management changes to focus on the company’s operations,” Iain Gold, the Teamsters union’s director of strategic research and campaigns, said. “This is an operational story that, given time, markets will reflect more accurately the value of the company.”

The company is divesting assets and resources not related to its core less-than-truckload business -- in which it hauls goods for more than one customer in the same trailer -- in North America, according to Pierson’s statement. It sold some of the assets from its Glen Moore truckload operating subsidiary to Celadon Trucking Services Inc., in said on Dec. 15.

New Management
In July, James Welch took over as CEO and a new board of directors was installed, with James Hoffman, former president of Alliant Energy Resources, acting as chairman. Michelle Russell was appointed general counsel and secretary this year.

YRC said it appointed Pierson as CFO in November. He previously was a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal North America LLC, where he focused on out-of-court restructurings and senior management advisory.

“The restructuring gave them time, but they certainly weren’t out of the woods,” said Berge of Moody’s, which has assigned YRC a corporate family rating of Caa3, the lowest rung of a category considered to be of poor standing and high credit risk. “Last time around they were reliant on a couple of transactions being successfully completed. Now they’re reliant on the market cooperating with them.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Lisa Abramowicz in New York at [email protected]

reply to post by purplemer


Odd that I see many other socialists claim that to make it work, you have to eliminate the scarcity of essential resources so people do not associate value with them, thus begging a "post-wage" society.

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. I realize that that was not what your OP was about and that you may very well disagree with that statement, but it is an idea that gets brought up in a lot of threads similar to this by people who claim to want socialism. If you agree with those people than this statement seems to indicate that socialism and capitalism suffer from the same "problem" you've just dreamed up.

Originally posted by CriticalCK

Communism simply requires an administration without human nature - maybe through a system of check and balances. Moreover, capitalism is solely based on human nature.

And that is bad why? I thought human nature was important.

You are wrong about technological leaps. Capitalism fails to produce R&D in sectors that are not profitable. Such as space exploration, fundamental science, experimental physics, archelogy, medicine that cures and so on and on. These branches of science are the most important in order to evolve human civilization, unfortunately they are not profitable.

More delusional hogwash. What you really meant to say is capitalism has made the most technological leaps in human history but a few areas of importance are not profitable and therefore ignored. Until America and Capitalism the world had not progressed much. In the last 100 years capitalism has experienced more growth and more technological advancement than the previous 5000 years. When was the last time Russia came out with some HUGE medical breakthrough? When was the last time China offered some new technology in science, medicine, or space exploration? If communism breeds so much important technology then why has the USA and Israel pretty much been the only players on the street? Your entire premise is delusional JUST LIKE THE OP..

Science always leaped forward in times where the state was strong and the free markets relatively controled. In times of war and totalitary systems.

These societies exist and have existed for 500 years straight in other countries. I'm still waiting for their huge breakthroughs..

reply to post by Leftist


Little video on what amazon just bought to replace the people in its warehouses.

Amazon just bought Kiva Systems for $775 million. The company makes robots that automate warehouse fulfillment.

LINK

Who needs people when you can get these.so off to the jobcenter then little people there
are bounes for managment that need to be payed.

reply to post by Leftist

Since this focuses on the problems with capitalism rather than the benefits of communism, I hope even those hostile to the Marxist project will at least get the message that capitalism is doomed.

Ok, I'll bite. I qualify as one who is "hostile to the Marxist project," but I will try and keep that to a minimum, and focus on your "problems with capitalism" as opposed to any benefits or problems with communism.

For our analysis today, you will need:
1. One open mind
2. A little patience
3. That’s all!

I think I can handle that. Please reciprocate, especially on the patience, as I will be able to respond only briefly at this time as I should have been in bed hours ago.

To begin, let’s look at an idea called the labor theory of value. This was posed first by the economist David Ricardo, who influenced both Marx and capitalist theorists. The idea is that the price of any good depends on the time needed to make it. A motorbike costs more than a bicycle because more time and human effort goes into making it.

This is a form of Intrinsic or Objective value theory, in that it argues that value is inherent to a good or service in some way, or is related to the costs of production(in this case, labor). There are a few problems I have with this specific idea. The first one that comes to mind is--to continue with your motorbike/bicycle example--it implies that everyone should make motorcycles, and no one should make bicycles...since anyone making low value bicycles is a bit stupid, when they could be generating high-value motorcycles. Since the value here is calculated as intrinsic to the product, as opposed to subjective to the consumer, whether you can actually realize this value or not(i.e., sell the motorcycles) isn't included in the argument.
If I sell my stupid bicycle that I made for 30 bucks, but you can't sell your awesome motorcycle at all, then which one is, in reality, more "valuable?"
The Labor Theory of Value also kind of ignores the law of diminishing marginal utility, which is a slightly large flaw, in my opinion.
In addition, your example kind of ignores the huge differences in the amount of materials needed for a bicycle as opposed to a motorcycle....and the level of complexity of facilities required for construction of those two things. Both of those things are very important, even from an "Intrinsic" value theory point of view.

This idea is important for the way we understand commodities and their value. We can exchange any two commodities for each other: for example, a pile of paperclips can be traded for a new Mercedes-Benz…but it would have to be a big pile indeed. What determines the size of this pile? Marx wrote: ”The value of one commodity is to the value of another, as the labor time necessary for the production of one is to the other.”

Again, this is ignoring marginal utility--this time in the form of ignoring the fact that, while one paperclip is good(but not great cuz you've almost run out), and a box of paperclips is great(your ability to group hardcopy docs is secure for the foreseeable future), and several drawers full of paperclips is sort of ridiculous(wasting storage space in your office if nothing else), a huge massive pile of paperclips is terrible(you can't even get into your office because the paperclips avalanche out the door every time you open it). Paperclips have value, to a point. Then their value begins to diminish, until they actually become negatively valued. No one, in their right mind, would exchange a Mercedes for a giant pile of paperclips, because the marginal utility of paperclips is pretty steep after a certain point....as is almost everything.
It's a neat thought experiment, but it seems like you didn't think about it enough?

Human labor – the time and effort needed to bring a good to market – is the “secret sauce” that determines the value of things. This is what modern capitalists want you to forget, with all their hearts.

Hmm. I disagree that it is the "secret sauce," as I have shown. I tend to think the real secret sauce, if there is one, is the value placed on a good or service by the consumer....because in the end, that is the value the seller will get in exchange for his good or service, no matter what he or she might think the value is.
And in any case, labor is a consideration in a value trade, in that it has a price which is figured into the costs of making a good or providing a service, and therefore will be reflected in the price a seller will attempt to get in return. However...the consumer may not agree with that pre-calculated price, and thus may refuse to purchase....forcing the seller to either lower the price, or not sell at all.

I'm out of characters, and out of time. Until later then!

It doesn't matter what you call it, any process which is constantly funneling wealth from one segment to another (whether via governmental infection of capitalism, or governmental infection of communism) is always doomed to destroy what it relies on most, the people.

Any process where the community is genuinely working for the betterment of the community, will thrive. This means allowing mutual exchange of goods and services for whatever "price" two people freely wish to choose. That is capitalism... nothing more. This also means voluntarily and willingly offering excess to those in need (not just want, need) in order to ensure the integrity of the community. That is communism, nothing more.

Shocker: These aren't mutually exclusive ways of operating!

Everything else is a dogmatization of these two fundamental mindsets, and thus the beginning of its own destruction, even if it'll take a couple of centuries to be fully realized. Both "systems" die if a portion is allowed to feed forever (whether from the bottom or the top).

Stop trying to pitch one name of dogma for another and recognize it's the mindset we have about how we are going to interact with others in our community... not the system itself. Any system which isn't flexible will destroy itself when conditions change.

Capitalism doesn't require seeing the competition as an "enemy to be defeated", and communism doesn't require everyone working menial jobs at a factory and living in bland hovels. Both are images used to pitch one group of people against the other, because getting "Capitalists" and "Communists" to fight each other is a sure way to guarantee massive wins for the people who are smart enough to operate above both systems.

No system is the answer. Mutual respect, honest dealings, and genuine desire to see your family and community thrive is all we need. No single system... no model that every community (aka economic group) must follow, etc. There will be times where free exchange is the most harmonious way to operate. There are times where more intentional "communal sharing" is the most harmonious. Neither is right or wrong, just more or less effective given the environment and the culture it is a part of.

left vs right
red vs blue
up vs down
me vs you
us vs them

When are we going to get sick of being manipulated so trivially and easily like this? When will we stop letting some voice from the outside tell us who is the problem that needs to be killed or die?

reply to post by Leftist


I thank you for your honesty, and yes, it was meant to be a compliment. But I believe that the theory of communism will be doomed to failure for the one reason I stated earlier.

When people think of communism nowadays they think of people such as Stalin, Mao, Che Guevara, etc, etc, ad nausem, who have stained the concept through murder, labor camps, forced immigration (or the lack of it), once again…etc, etc.

You can also say the same about capitalism with entities such as Halliburton, BP, Monsanto, etc and people such as G. Immelt, Obama, both Bushes, etc. Though without the murder, labor camps, forced immigration. But I’m sure that there will be those that disagree in that regard.

Until everybody has the same concept of a World-wide government, it has no chance of fruition. That is why I also do not believe in the NWO theory as there are entirely too many players out there with their own agenda. And they all think that they have the answers.

reply to post by CriticalCK


You are correct that science should once again be at the forefront, but it should not be funded by the Government.

However it should be rewarded through contracts.

Look at the current Space programs around the world. It is largely privatized. Without profits, it would be hard to fund a well organized R&D department.

I think that humans are just going through a small pause before we start seeing a surge in space exploration.

Led by private companies looking to make a profit.