Dante's views and/on Anti-capitalism

[Nadval]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I don't directly support either. I've commented on what I think of "wealth" in other threads, but it doesn't strike me as a particularly meaningful term. Land (and therefore resources) is of key importance, and this might be commonly managed depending on the circumstances. I'm not concerned with redistribution as such (because I don't really see what would need to be "redistributed" as such. It's not like there's a billionaire sitting on all the worlds bread or something). Equality I think is a generally misunderstood term, but in the sense I mean it'd be a desirable end for any social arrangement. But it's not something you do, more an attitude you have (kind of like liberty or fraternity).

As for "control of industry", I personally don't really wish to control anything. I don't think the state (if it exists) should control industry, if that's what you mean. I think individual groups (e.g. workers co-operatives) could control individual enterprises - but that's for them to decide.. How individuals manage their own affairs is none of my business really.

started it in a new thread as it was slightly off topic.

So you oppose capitalism then? I was just curious as to whether you held communist views or if that was just something labelled on you for disliking the corruption and exploitation in a capitalist society. I for one oppose capitlist structures and get tired of being labelled a communist because of this. Not to mention the fact many people seem to instantly assume I support the system in Soviet Russia, despite them being incredibly fascist. Often people use the disintegration of Soviet Russia as an example of how capitalism beat socialism - why not say capitalism beat democracy? Those states claimed to be 'people's democracies'. The answer is "just because they claimed to be democracies doesn't make them democracies, which also applies to socialism.

[Nodrog]

If soviet russia wasnt 'communist', then no Western country is currently 'capitalist'.

Let's not be hypocrites here.

[Phang]

it's incorrect to imply that Soviet Russia was socialist in name only because it operated largely among socialist principles. The only problem was that civil liberties were abused, the higher levels of government were massively corrupt and despotic, and generally it was the ideals rather than the mechanisms of socialism that weren't being adhered to.

And Dante is a communist.

[Dante Hicks]

I'm a Communist, but I'm going to bed now. I might post tomorrow morning before I go to work.

Just for reference, I'd prefer it if people kept "US vs USSR" type discussions out of it, unless they're directly meaningful.

[Knight Theamion]

i will tell mccarthy that.

anyway communism requires such a swing in culture you'll probably need a media genius to make it work

and no media genius ever becomes powerful enough while being a commie.

[Nadval]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Just for reference, I'd prefer it if people kept "US vs USSR" type discussions out of it, unless they're directly meaningful.

Indeed. Many use USA vs USSR as an example of why communism is harmful towards the economy. "If communism is such an effective model for economic how come the USA were far richer than the USSR". Well for starters, Russia was always considerably poorer than the US before the 1917 revolution and was infact a completely underdeveloped country, so the two are incomparable. A fairer comparison would be USSR vs Brazil, although that gets the wrong results from a capitalists perspective.

Originally Posted by Nodrog

If soviet russia wasnt 'communist', then no Western country is currently 'capitalist'.

Let's not be hypocrites here.

I didn't claim soviet russia wasn't communist. I just believe there's such a thing as 'far left' communism and 'far right' communism. Soviet Russa certainly wasn't socialist, is the point I was making.

[Nadval]

Originally Posted by Knight Theamion

i will tell mccarthy that.

anyway communism requires such a swing in culture you'll probably need a media genius to make it work

and no media genius ever becomes powerful enough while being a commie.

To make the Soviet form of communism work you'd need to change human nature. This, as far as we know, is impossible.


I'm off to bed too - 12:40am here and I gotta get up at 7am, oh the joy

[Snurx]

Capitalist eat babies, communists eats anarchists

ps they killed us in '36, we will never forget!

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Nadval

A fairer comparison would be USSR vs Brazil, although that gets the wrong results from a capitalists perspective.

This would indeed be a fairer comparison. However it should be noted it would remain an atrociously poor one.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nadval

So you oppose capitalism then? I was just curious as to whether you held communist views or if that was just something labelled on you for disliking the corruption and exploitation in a capitalist society.

Originally I think I became a Communist because I was a very strong atheist (this is was when I was a child). Then as I learnt more I didn't like the inequalities/injustice found within capitalist societies. More recently it's based on more philosophical grounds.

Most of my views would probably be described anarchist by a neutral observer, but I still refer to myself as a Marxist/Communist as that was the original approach. Many anarchists come from a romantic or religous tradition and so I feel it's an important distinction to make.

I used to get really impassioned about the Soviet Union (i.e condeming it so I wouldn't be tarred with the same brush) but I don't bother anymore. I don't think many people could identify strains within my politics that are even vaguely similar to Stalinist Russia. Besides, condemning the USSR seems a slightly redundant task in the West in 2004. (The same goes for George W Bush actually - I very rarely bother attacking the man as I almost never encounter people who defend him).

I'm not really sure I understand what it means to have a system that "works". It seems a slightly empty concept. Does the modern global economic system "work"? I mean, it probably isn't sustainable in it's current form (overdependence on oil for instance) and it fails to deliver the essentials for literally hundreds of millions of people. Is that the sign of a working system?

Likewise, people say XYZ system does or doesn't work (or would/wouldn't). Unless we can clarify this further I don't see it as a particularly meaningful statement to make.

[Smudge]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Likewise, people say XYZ system does or doesn't work (or would/wouldn't). Unless we can clarify this further I don't see it as a particularly meaningful statement to make.

I was going to rant on a bit, but decided not to after reading that statement

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Nadval

Indeed. Many use USA vs USSR as an example of why communism is harmful towards the economy. "If communism is such an effective model for economic how come the USA were far richer than the USSR". Well for starters, Russia was always considerably poorer than the US before the 1917 revolution and was infact a completely underdeveloped country, so the two are incomparable. A fairer comparison would be USSR vs Brazil, although that gets the wrong results from a capitalists perspective.

you can hardly use the situation 70-80 years ago to excuse a system failure today. i even think the economy of the SU was supirior to that of the us during ww2. i doubt the us could have handled the same situation russia was in that well. but after the war it constantly fall back, not because the country was run by evil, corrupt, power-hungry dictators, but because it just doesnt work.

the whole economical idea behind communism doesnt work. no market = bad, because that tends torwards a static system. a state can hardly handle itself, how could it possibly run the entire economy aswell?

ok, you could let the workers run their companies in a free market enviroment, but how could that work? would they be willing to fire some of their co-workers if thats necessary or give away a part of their power and hire more people if that is necessary?
and if there is no profit, whats the point in changing anything anyway? sooner or later such a system would become just a static as a system that involves lots of burocrats and 5-year-plans. if there are profits it would sooner or later 'exploid' the workers just like a capitalist system does.

im not all for completly free-market either, because that would sooner or later also ruin the economy. take that whole globalization-crap for example. those 'evil' capitalists think of themselfs and their profit-margin first, thats the whole point of leting them run the economy.

now they are in a situation where they can produce the same products for a fraction of the costs in some underdeveloped country, but they sell their products for almost the same price in the developed countries. the difference is used to increase their profit-margin. so we have low paid workers in some developing country (meaning they cant effort the products they build) and workers with no income in the developed countries. sooner or later the demand will collapse and everyone will be worse off, including the capitalists.


i probably slightly off-topic, but i felt like writing something...

[Blastoderm]

Paragraphs wu_trax, paragraphs.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Blastoderm

Paragraphs wu_trax, paragraphs.

better? i guess my sentences are too long and i dont care enough about grammar.

[Blastoderm]

They look better. Much better for the eyes to read.

[Summanus]

CUBA WORKS DAMMIT


Or at least it would if the US lifted its illegal economic embargo.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Summanus

CUBA WORKS DAMMIT


Or at least it would if the US lifted its illegal economic embargo.

to some extend it does indeed, compared to other countries in central america its propbably paradise, but as soon as some certain level of development is reached it doesnt any more. i guess it would never be possible for a socialist country to take of world leadership in new technology, there simply is no real need for innovation and efficency.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Blastoderm

They look better. Much better for the eyes to read.

i still didnt get a reply though

[Radical Edward]

Lamarckism. lol.

[Vermillion]

On the contrary, Soviet Russia was a socialist system: they just had to find a way to deal with the endemic problem of Socialism, the lack of motivation to excel.

Lenin came up with the best solution with his NEP, intoduce some elements of Capitalism, allowing farm,ers and workers who produce over their state quotas to sell the excess for personal profit. This simply institutionalised what was happening anyways in an underground economy.

Stalin disapproved of the trappings of capitalism, eliminated the NEP, but was then faced with the same problem: how to motivate workers, farmers and scientists when there is no direct reward for excellence?

Simple, institute a policy of Nationalism, indoctrination and terror, the big three tools most used to motivate workers to greater heights when financial motivation is inpossible.


Oh, and by the way, having visited Cuba many times, (and really liking the country) I must point out that Cuba does NOT work, nor does its NOT working have anything to do with the Embargo. It has to do with an economic system that pays Doctors only marginally better then farm labourers. It has to do with an economic system where they sacrificed productivity at the expense of unemployment. With no incentive to excell, and no real incentive to use the nations quite excellent school systems, people go into the tourist industry and the black market in order to get their money. Their education and medical systems, the envy of the third world, are diminishing because of the lack of motivation for students to go through another 4-8 years of school so they can come out and make no more money.

Ask Cubans (and I have) what they want, and every one of them will say they have NO desire to see the embargo go down, that would just put a McDonalds on every corner, and besides they are doing quite well with trade and tourism from Europe. They want economic reforms which allow the people to see the fruits of their labours, a system which actually generates money and goods, rather then wasting them.

I consider myelf (in canadian terms) a liberal with socialist leanings, but I am also a Historian, so for me to be a socialist, somebody is going to have to show me a model, real or theoretical, that actually works. So far the closest thing I have seen in lenin's short lived NEP. Soviet style Communism is simply a logical outgrowth of a nation trying to find a solution to the one universal problem of socialism, and hitting on a solution that works, though with less than savoury side effects...

[LHC]

Microsoft is the best around in many areas despite attempts by the EU etc to weaken it and empower the shitty competetion like Real. They weren't blocking the market by disallowing ability, they were simply better than the competition. How is this an example of capitalism not working?

'You won't find a model that works in history' is a pretty terrible idea, if you are using it to back up a political/economic system, given that all of those systems has been removed by force, and replaced with one that is even shitter. You can't just think 'they are all bad', and choose the worst one on grounds of alleged compassion; you should choose the one which is the best.

[JonnyBGood]

Entropy dictates that on a long enough time scale no economic system will actually "work". Therefore, inevitably, it all boils down to morality. What is important to you, and how important is it in comparison to related concepts?

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

The problem with that dissing Cuba thing is that if you compare it to many of the other countires in the region it at least seems to be doing some of things it is supposed to be doing and it hasn't end up being a miserable hole like Haiti or the Dominicon Republic.

Yes, as a third world country it is certainly top of the heap, which is in fact why it is not a third world ****ry, but one of only three second world countries left on the planet. Compared to some of the impverished nations around it it certainly is doing well, but it is also doing far less well then other nations around it which have established key industries and promoted tourism in a cpitalistic manner in order to actually generate income for the nation from individual action.

Let me be clear, not only does the socialist model not work in history, it always fails to work for the same reason, the same reason why it fails in theory: no motivation to excel. Until somebody can come up with a solution for that, or at least a better solution then the USSR came up with, then the system is rapidly and fatally flawed as an economic model.

I imagine that a lot of Indians try to be "the best that they can be" but there is still wide scale starvation.

That has less to do with the fact that they are capitalist as opposed to socialist, and more to do with the slightly over 1 billion people, a nation new to the trappings of modernity, stuck with anachronisms like the caste system, and struggling with internescine strife and a hostile nuclear neighbour.

I think that it is stupid to look to history for a model that works. Clearly that doesn't exist anywhere. Furthermore how could progress ever be made if the condition for making that progress were it's pre-existence.

Firstly, thats just silly. Secondly, it is even more stupid, bafflingly so, to ignore the lessons of history. "System X has been tried before, and always suffers from the same fatal flaw. Say, lets not look to History, lets just try again blindly!"

Systems are seperate from the people that use them, any system on the planet can be corrupted, and needs to be hedged against those who would abuse it. capitalism is a functional system which is WIDFE OPEN to abuse, and nobody has quite figured out how to check that abuse yet. Socialism does not work. Thats not a problem of interpretation or of management, it is a systemic problem.

Of course, in reality any functional state will incorporate capitalist mores and socialist morals, the exact ideal divide of the two systems is up for interpretation...

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Actually Marxism is an immanent critique. Marx criticised capital on its own terms, demonstrating that its logic is internally flawed. It is neither here nor there whether capitalism is moral or immoral.

Yes but I just proved that all economic systems, qua economic systems, are logically flawed. So it goes back to morality.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Entropy dictates that on a long enough time scale no economic system will actually "work". Therefore, inevitably, it all boils down to morality. What is important to you, and how important is it in comparison to related concepts?

I have a personal pet peeve when people try and apply the theory of entropy (a law of physics, not of economics) to everything as some sort of universal inevitability. Entropy dictates that complex systems when left on their own will produce increasing chaos, but an economic system is by definition not left on its own, it has living bodies of law, administration, policy and practice.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

I have a personal pet peeve when people try and apply the theory of entropy (a law of physics, not of economics) to everything as some sort of universal inevitability. Entropy dictates that complex systems when left on their own will produce increasing chaos, but an economic system is by definition not left on its own, it has living bodies of law, administration, policy and practice.

I see you didn't grasp the essential point of marxist theory, namely that everything arises from economics. Ergo it's fairly self-evident that economics is the only system, and that the subsidiary systems you mention are in fact dependent on the original complexity of the overall theory ensuring that, in fact, entropy does apply to economics.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

I think if you are referring to a Leninist model of socialism it is fair to say that it doesn't work. I can't think of many modenr socialist theorists who advocate such a system.

No, not standard Leninist models, because even he abandoned them when he introduced the NEP, the only functioning socialist system the world has ever seen.

One could make endless apologetics for all the other casuses whcih mean that capitalism doesn't work in this country or that country. It seems to me though that if capitalism require perfect conditions within which to work, then it isn't up to much.

I disagree completely. Off the top of my head I cannot think of a single ****ry in modern history where capitalism failed to work on principle. I can think of many where the system was abused the the unscrupulous, but that is a problem of application, not a systemic one. Socialism has never worked, and it has never worked because of one fatal flaw in the system, a fatal flaw I should mention that was first identified by the very fathers of modern socialist thought as a potentially fatal enigma: How to function in a society with no incentive to excel and improve? If there is no association of product with reward, why work hard? If there is no profit motive, why spend time and effort to increase efficiency, research new methods of development, or streamline a workforce? Without the incentive to profit, the entire forward movement of the system is hamstrung.

Naturally i wasn't saying you should ignore the lessons of history, quite the opposite, one should recognise that many people have taken similar positions to you over universal franchise, women's rights and freedom of speech.

Sorry, you lost me here, I have no idea what you are saying.

Who decided to have capitalism in the first place? No I ever heard of. Who decided to have the agricultural revolution or the renaissance?

Excellent question, and another problem with socialism. capitalism is a natural form, you work for yourself and trade your surplus, early capitalism is the barter system, which is universal, having been adopted in tribes, cultures and nations around the planet individual of each other or western thought as the basic means of economics. Something is worth what people are willing to pay for it. A cow has a certain value to be bartered for axeheads, but in a year of famine, the cow's value goes up, and more axeheads are needed. It is a universal.

Socialism on the other hand needs to be enforced and controlled by a central authority. It needed to be 'invented'. Capitalism did not, it simply evolved.

The agricultural revolution came from people always striving to gain the edge in competition, produce more for cheaper and less effort, entirely because of the incentives offered by the system for those that progress or excel.

To employ an anti-modernist critique briefly, perhaps one of the main mistakes we have been making is to try and impose a system in the firs place.

I quite agree. Left to their own devices, as history as shown us, people universally go capitalistic, usually including some general communitarian or socialist principles as general morality.


Hey, my father is a rabid socialist academic, and I tend to vote for the NDP. But thats because I approve of much of the morality os the socialist concept. Socialism as an economic system simply does not work, for very simple reasons.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I see you didn't grasp the essential point of marxist theory, namely that everything arises from economics. Ergo it's fairly self-evident that economics is the only system, and that the subsidiary systems you mention are in fact dependent on the original complexity of the overall theory ensuring that, in fact, entropy does apply to economics.

I mean this with the greatest respect, but that post doesn't mean anything.

The second Law of thermodynamics, carnot's principle, applies to natural systems in a natural state. Left on their own, natural systems will eventually produce increasing chaos.

Economics is not a natural system, nor is is a system left on its own. The second law of thermodynamics applies to thermodynamics; movement of heat systems, and has found application elsewhere in the natural world. It is not a universal, nor does it apply to self-regulating and self-modifying adaptive systems, such as economics: a structure that, since its development, has grown increasingly complex and ordered, rather than the reverse.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

This is always the problem wioth the Communist debate, is that people make assumptions about what it means to be a communist or a Marxist, and thus can go on to refute it.

I may have ranted against the market before and persoanlly I think it can be demonstrated fairly easily that "the market" is a vast excersize in reification. However it is idiocy to simplify communism down to "no market". Clearly banning the market would be an absurd thing to do.

The most basic simplification would be the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and start from there. To be fair you have sort of dealt with this but you have asked questions, and then sort of thrown your hands up as if "that's all to complicated to think about".

if you have no private ownership, there is no market. where should the competition come from? from other state companies? if noone is responsible, noone cares if a company doesnt make money any more.

A large part of communism is simply a radical critique of capitalism, simply pointing out that it is full of internal inconsistencies which mean that it won't do what it is supposed to and will eventually fail. Anyone examining the world can see that capitalism isn't doing what it is supposed to do and in may countries simply can't take place without massive state involvement.

it just takes some time, besides calling the current state of the world 'capitalist' is about as true as calling china a communist country.

Ultimately trying to design an economy is a doomed exersize

true, thats why noone tries it in a capitalist system

and although interesting from a academic point of view, misses the point about liberty and equality which is that we should all be participating in decisions that effect our everyday lives in particular the methods of economic planning and development.

there is no need to plan anything, the individuals plan on their own. its far easier to adjust a free-market system and eliminate its flaws than to do so with a communist system. you can easily add a social security system and prograssive taxation (and some more things a free market wouldnt care about) without changeing the way the system works

[Dante Hicks]

Vermillion, what do you mean by a system "working"?

Besides, I have no real idea what you're talking about when you say "socialist economic systems". If you mean actually existing socialism then I've never defended that (or at least, only in relation to other actually existing capitalist countries).

[queball]

The fundamental question then is: what economic system can escape the heat death of the universe?

[Boogster]

Socialism sounds nice, but tastes rotten.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by LHC

Microsoft is the best around in many areas despite attempts by the EU etc to weaken it and empower the shitty competetion like Real. They weren't blocking the market by disallowing ability, they were simply better than the competition. How is this an example of capitalism not working?

actually micorsoft is a pretty good example for what could go wrong. about the mediaplayers you are probably right, that real-player just sucks, but what about for example browsers? microsoft has the unique possibility to add features to one of their products and gain marketshare in a completly different sector, nor by making a decent product, but simply because of its big marketshare in the desktop-sector.

[queball]

SP2 has popup blocking. \o/

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

The most basic simplification would be the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and start from there.

The first problem you'd run into is that 'means of production' is a borderline meaningless floating abstraction, irrevocably tied to the social enviorment of the 19th century, when the world was nicely divided into 'factory owners' and 'factory workers'. What on earth does it even mean to 'ban ownership of the means of production' these days? Can people still own computers? What about mixing studios? Or slaughterhouses? Broadcasting studios and 'the airwaves'? Printing presses? Or is there just some undefined magical quality about buildings operating as factories which means noone aside from the government can be trusted to own them?

In any case, I'm sure McDonalds would continue to make untold billions if they bought their paper cups and plastic forks from state owned factories. Theres no real need for them to actually own factories themselves - production could certainly be outsourced to 'family factories' or whatever with no real loss, save the increased expenditure you'd incur by having your production organised by morons without the slightest idea how to run a business. Would this be acceptable? Along the same lines, what other multinationals would suffer _that_ heavily by outsouring their production? Would paying increased wages to staff really hurt Wal-Mart and Nike as much as you think it would? Would Clearchannel somehow be unable to function within a communist society simply as a result of banning non-government ownership of the 'means of production', or would you have to introduce a lot of ad hoc laws tailored towards decreasing people's freedom of association even further?

Ultimately trying to design an economy is a doomed exersize and although interesting from a academic point of view, misses the point about liberty and equality which is that we should all be participating in decisions that effect our everyday lives in particular the methods of economic planning and development.

This seems more like an excuse for you to advocate economic systems without having to spend any time learning the basics of economics.

[Boogster]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

This seems more like an excuse for you to advocate economic systems without having to spend any time learning the basics of economics.

Well, let's be honest. Most of us can't be arced.

[Nodrog]

Well yeah, but most of us don't try to justify our ignorance by saying that ecomomics is a flawed construction of the bourgeois with no relevance to the Being of the working man.

[Boogster]

Okay. That's true.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

actually micorsoft is a pretty good example for what could go wrong. about the mediaplayers you are probably right, that real-player just sucks, but what about for example browsers?

What about them? Are you claiming that Microsoft's dominance has killed off innovation in the browser industry? Or that Microsoft somehow has a 'monopoly' on web-browsers despite numerous companies giving away superior products for free? Or are you just complaning that Opera Softare doesnt make as money as you feel it should (firefox couldnt make money anyway due to the business model)?

[Boogster]

Didn't Microsoft just make the best product?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

This seems more like an excuse for you to advocate economic systems without having to spend any time learning the basics of economics.

Not that it matters but T&F did an economics based degree of sorts.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by queball

The fundamental question then is: what economic system can escape the heat death of the universe?

Did you know when I was trolling I meant to say heat death but said entropy cos I was reading about it at the same time and then didn't bother changing it because I thought I'd try arguing along a line that I didn't even mean to create just for the laugh? True story



PS Doing an economics degree really doesn't imply you end up with a greater understanding of economics at the end heh.

[Nadval]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

On the contrary, Soviet Russia was a socialist system: they just had to find a way to deal with the endemic problem of Socialism, the lack of motivation to excel.

In what sense were they socialist? The first thing that Lenin and Trotsky did when they took power in October 1917, remember, was to destroy all of the forms of socialist initative that had developed in Russia since the start of the Russian Revolution earlier that year. They destroyed the factory councils, they undermined the soviet elected local governing bodies, they eliminated the Constituent Assembly (democratically elected parliament). In fact they dismantled every form of popular organisation in Russia and set up a command economy with wages and profits, on sort of a centralized state-capitalist model.

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Simple, institute a policy of Nationalism, indoctrination and terror, the big three tools most used to motivate workers to greater heights when financial motivation is inpossible.

Funny, for a moment there I thought you were talking about USA.

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Socialism on the other hand needs to be enforced and controlled by a central authority. It needed to be 'invented'. Capitalism did not, it simply evolved.

Well, that's because capitalism relies on the greed of humans. Humans naturally want to excel and become suprior whether it's at the expense of others or not, thus capitalism 'evolved' (although I wouldn't quite use that term). Socialism was an attempt to offer an alternative to the inevitable corruption within capitalism, exploitation of the masses in favour of the elite class (or bourgoise, capitalists, whatever).

In the end, capitalism creates too much injustice, inequality and exploitation. Yes capitalism has done a lot for economies and also provided us with a constant technological revolution (as Marx predicted it would), but when it comes down to it, capitalism is simply immoral. To use an example of Marx:

"A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we take a closer look at the connection between the latter branch of productions and society as a whole, we shall rid ourselves of many prejudices. The criminal produces not only crime but also criminal law, and with this also the professor who gives lectures on criminal law and in addition to this inevitable compendium in which this same professor throws his lectures on the general market as 'commodities'... The criminal moreover produces the whole of the police and criminal justice, constables, judges, hangmen, juries etc; and all these different lines of business, which form just as many categories of the social division of labour, develop different capacities of the human mind, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them. Torture alone has given rise to the most ingenious mechanical inventions, and employed many honourable craftsmen in the production of it's instruments. The criminal produces an impression, partly moral and partly tragic, as the case may be, and in this way renders a 'service' by arousing the moral and aesthetic feelings of the public. He produces not only compendia on Criminal Law, not only penal codes and along with them legislators in this field, but also art, belles-lettres, novels, and even tragedies, as not only Müllner's Schuld and Schiller's Räuber show, but Oedipus and Richard the Third... The effects of the criminal on the development of productive power can be shown in detail. Would locks ever have reached their present degree of excellence had there been no thieves? Would the making of banknotes have reached it's present perfection had there been no forgers?... And if one leaves the sphere of private crime, would the world market ever have come into being but for national crime? Indeed would even the nations have arison? And has not the Tree of Sin been the same time the Tree of Knowledge ever since the time of Adam?"

To sum up - similarly to criminals, despite the good things that have come of capitalism, it's the immoral nature which makes it undesirable in our society.

[Nadval]

Oh and let's not forget it was Adam Smith who set out the principles of capitalist economics, humans didn't just naturally fall into it.

[Vaio]

Originally Posted by Boogster

Didn't Microsoft just make the best product?

Freecell ?

~Vaio~

[Boogster]

Originally Posted by Nadval

Oh and let's not forget it was Adam Smith who set out the principles of capitalist economics, humans didn't just naturally fall into it.

Are you saying there was no competitive marketplace before Adam Smith?

[Phang]

Originally Posted by Boogster

Are you saying there was no competitive marketplace before Adam Smith?

how precisely did you make the link between that and what he said?

[Boogster]

Originally Posted by Phang

how precisely did you make the link between that and what he said?

Just because Adam Smith hadn't written down the principles, doesn't mean that the inherent systems of capitalism weren't already around.

I take it you failed to read Vermillion, who summarized it well:

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Capitalism is a natural form, you work for yourself and trade your surplus, early capitalism is the barter system, which is universal, having been adopted in tribes, cultures and nations around the planet individual of each other or western thought as the basic means of economics. Something is worth what people are willing to pay for it. A cow has a certain value to be bartered for axeheads, but in a year of famine, the cow's value goes up, and more axeheads are needed. It is a universal.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by Nadval

In what sense were they socialist? The first thing that Lenin and Trotsky did when they took power in October 1917, remember, was to destroy all of the forms of socialist initative that had developed in Russia since the start of the Russian Revolution earlier that year. They destroyed the factory councils, they undermined the soviet elected local governing bodies, they eliminated the Constituent Assembly (democratically elected parliament). In fact they dismantled every form of popular organisation in Russia and set up a command economy with wages and profits, on sort of a centralized state-capitalist model.

Firstly, what they destroyed had little to do with Socialism, and had everything to do with democracy. They restroyed the fledgling democratic state which the first revolution was struggling to establish. Their elimination of the regional and industry councils was about power, not forms of government. Folloing these purges, they sen set up the exact same councils and Soviets again, just this time making sure they were ieologically sound, and willing to work with the central authority.

Well, that's because capitalism relies on the greed of humans.

While socialism denys it, again coming back full circle to my original point, socialism does not work based on that one fatal flaw.

Humans naturally want to excel and become suprior whether it's at the expense of others or not, thus capitalism 'evolved'

You give humanity too much credit. People want to better themselves and their situation. If they can do so through development and ingenuity, then they will. If development and ingenuity do not offer any way for personal enrichment, then the vast majority of humanity will not bother.

In the end, capitalism creates too much injustice, inequality and exploitation. Yes capitalism has done a lot for economies and also provided us with a constant technological revolution (as Marx predicted it would), but when it comes down to it, capitalism is simply immoral.

Capitalism is not immoral, it is just a system. In the same way Gravity is not 'immoral' no matter how immoral it may appear when you arre in the process of falling.

Capitalism is subject to abuse and corruption of course, any system is. As such it needs to be legeslated and controlled. It is also ONLY an economic system, nothing else: that is CRITICAL to remember. Socialism on the other hand is an economic model AND a moral model. Its morals are to be commended, I agre with them, and consider myself quite leftist in that regard. However as an economic system, is just plain sucks.

[Boogster]

What he said.