Communism vs. Capitalism

i cede my point on employment. curretnly i am a sophomore in college, and if you have any specific books you recommend i do have a 3 week break coming up and am in the market for reading material. thanks.

however, prove a positive. dont prove a negative. prove that the computer was built under communism. prove the computer was made under socialism. prove a dictator decreed my computer be made by people all over the world acting collaboratively voluntarily. no coercion needed. i walked into bestbuy and traded my money for the wonderful machine i am now typing this on.

i say god exists, you say he doesnt. i say you cannot prove he doesnt exist. therefore he must exist?


back up the idea that the computer could have been conceived, come to fruition, and be setting on my desk under communism.


well finals tomorrow. go go gadget self restraint, ill be back on NS on monday. have an enjoyable weekend skiing!

I'm curious then who is holding them back if not themselves?  I'd think it more accurate to say a percentage can not escape being poor.

HAH when i first looked at this i thought it said communism vs cannibalism
yay canibalism

It's simple, the Fed has less and less control with monetary policy. I mean we can debate it or we could just watch interviews with Greenspan. The guy is no saint, but he's right. Am I saying the Fed is a great institution? Of course not. All I am saying is it is losing power with monetary policy, if you don't get that I'm sorry but it's a fact.

Super low taxes? What the hell are you talking about?

Hell yeah man, read that one Sraffa book I said. It's really complex but worth it. Eye opening indeed.

What the hell am I talking about? I'm talking about the marginal tax rate.

It's simple, the Fed has less and less control with monetary policy. I mean we can debate it or we could just watch interviews with Greenspan.

So the fact that there still printing massive amounts of money and setting interest rates still supports that they have no control anymore?

Printing money was the problem, the gold standard kept the usd worth something. Whether your a fan or not, having kept the gold standard would have have left our economy in a much better place today, without the insane inflation. If your denying that than I really don't know what your talking about. That logic makes no sense.

"Inflation is workable," Workable? Ha, we haven't even seen the inflation coming from the last few years of printing money. Not to mention those same policies are going to continue. The inflation right now is already ridiculous.


I'm not talking about a government number, I'm talking about real inflation that were seeing in the market. The value of the dollar is a small percentage of what it used to be. Again, I'm not talking about the news comparing to other fiat based currencies and saying the dollar is strong.


Monopoly money is better for the economy because it's not worth anything so there is no reason to horde it right? Actually blaming the problems on the gold standard and talking about the fed as if it is a decent institution is ridiculous. What kind of bs are they teaching people these days. Ditch the book, look at the whole thing with an open mind. Your right, it really isn't that hard.

The best thing for our country would have been JFK staying alive long enough to see his bill actually go into effect. And the the US gov. to take back control of the money supply. Even Wilson, the first one to give into the bankers and sign the federal reserve bill, greatly lamented it later in life.

The good thing about your backwards logic, is that everyone thinks like that, inflation will keep going up, and people like me will continue to watch our precious metal investments rise in value.

i don't know where you came from, but i like it.

Didn't say no control. You are not interpreting correctly.

Too bad the income tax law doesn't even apply to the average american citizen.

The income tax is voluntary compliance. Labor is an exchange, you do the job you get your money.


go ahead and try to find the law or prove that the average american is liable to pay a tax on his labor.

dammit. im back into this. haha

ok ill make a positive statement. The laptop i am currently typing this on could not have been conceived, produced, and would not have ended up in my greedy little hands under communism. The micro processor that is humming away would not have been invented, even if it had, it would not have been small enough to fit inside a slim laptop. the internet that we are communicating would not exist. Finally, there would not be a private enterprise such as bestbuy that sells computers to consumers. all that i laid out would not happen under communism. the laptop i type this on is a quintessential product of capitalism. everyone in the process of creating this laptop benefited. (unless china built it;) otherwise the computer would not exist. there is no person or entity that says i must trade with you, or the bestbuy that sold me the computer. it was all voluntary.

whewww. there is my take on my computer being produced under a capitalistic model. paint me a picture of a computer made in communism. last i checked Cuba doesnt make computers. if they did, i bet they would be shit ;) you may be right, i cannot prove the computer would not exist in communism. but now ide like to see you prove it could have even had a slight chance existing. haha

skiminnesota's positive statement ===================*== ball now in mitchpee's court. haha 

my bad, i think we may have been operating on two different wave lengths. when i asked you to prove a positive. what i meant was you have already stated that "you dont know" if the computer would have been produced under communism. you may be right, i dont know. but in order for the discussion to move forward, i need to know why you think the computer could have been produced under communism.. do you? or was it for the sake of conversation? (devils advocate, etc)

otherwise going back to god. i tell you, god exists. (computers made under communism) you then say, no he does not. (i say computers would not be made to the extent they are today under communism) then i say, well you cannot prove god dosent exist. therefore god does exist.  my inability to prove computers would not be made under communism does not mean they will be made / would have been made.. the one making the claim. (computers made under communism) must support the claim being made.

we might be going in circles and actually be advocating the same thing. its getting a bit confusing. haha

This may be more complex than I want it to be but here it goes...

there is no government system that is 100 percent unflawed.

Mitch seems to be holding it down in here pretty well.

He knows a lot about the topic. Seems like he studied economics a little bit. Only problem is some of his ideas just don't make sense.

Like his view of the gold standard. And reasons for our economy being in rough shape. Also his views on inflation.

Are you seriously patronizing me? A "little bit"?

Sorry, I read that wrong. You weren't patronizing me :(

Yeah, i wasn't. I just don't understand your view on the gold standard. I mean where staying a float right now, but prices are climbing from inflation, and we can only prop up our economy for so long. At some point the printing has to stop and then what?

weak argument because these charities have a negligible impact in local society and definately on the global scale.   and look at the larger scale:   is there a charity that can help say,  all of China?    China is being exploited by America and theyre stuck in the situation theyre in.  its just large scale class struggle

The thing is we aren't propping up. Debt can be easily wiped.

But where do we go in the end though. Since we've bailed the gold standard inflation has risen a lot, and plenty even before that after the fed was introduced.

Do we just keep printing more money out to deal with the problems and by doing so create more inflation, and keep repeating? What is the goal and execution for dealing with the problem?

CLICK IT

First of all, I clearly mentioned that it included state income taxes. Read more closely next time.

Yes we should increase taxes to cover for what Reagan and Bush helped mess up along with Democrats. Spending and preaching the dead neoclassical S=I argument which does not work.

quite the opposite my friend...

same here.

Since you like quotes so much:

this is true, just look at whats going on now. no one can deny that in the past couple of years we are moving in a socialist direction. i blame the fact that the essence of the US as a republic has almost disappeared. imo the whole notion of "doing for the common good" is such bullshit and just a way for the government to convince people to give more money in taxes so that they can then waste this money. what government programs really work? us postal service, amtrak, social security (in the future), medicare, public education, fema, etc certainly don't. how they can effectively run socialized medicine is beyond me.

There is no way for either extreme to work... there has to be a common medium...

that said... communism/socialism is most likely the next phase of economic basis... seeing as it's likely the preferred system of the working class.

After monarchical feudalism, the favored economical system of kings and monarchical/fascist rulers came capitalism.. the preferred economic system of the merchant class... which has grown a strong industrial base around the world, and thus every nation has some sort of industrial workforce... which is the driving force for communism to erupt from.

Russia tried to skip a step... same with China... go from agrarian culture... then use workers to build an industrial base... and then let the leaders give powers to these workers... That will never work... and thus, the soviet union, and china and Cuba and any other communist nation has never successfully been able to try it. there has never been a true revolution of the proletariat...

Now that the world is becoming far more industrialized, the possibilities for socialism to come into play are growing. Not to mention, the world is becoming less and less religious as well... something that many who believe in socialism needs to happen for people to come to a common consensus with each other...

It wont be any time soon... most likely not in any of our lifetimes... but communism will one day come back and be given a full, fair chance...

what the economic system is that will replace communism is a question that is a bit mindboggling though... because the working class isnt even the lowest class on the bill.. could be interesting to find out...

This is a very interesting question.

stop.

In my Economics Class, we separated into groups and played the X,Y game. Those who haven't played the game it goes like this

4 groups each with 2 signs, one X one Y. Based upon how many people put up each sign is the determined the point value you get

3 X's 1 Y - 2points for Y -1 point for X's
4 y's- Everyone gets one point
etc.

In the whole time that we played the game Not one time did everyone put up all Y's. Reasoning: from Adam Smith people don't want to sell products to help people. They are in it for the money SELF Interest everyone has it. Everyone wants to make more than the next guy because if you are you have a better stand of living. In a Command economy (yes communism is a command economy) people don't get to make skis, because its not what people need it's what people want. In a command economy you are only allowed to make/sell/buy what you need. not what you want.

im glad that someone made this a thread

you are a fucking winner, my friend. this should be published.

woozy hates poor black people

I agree with you on many things, especially the innovations and such, but here's the problem... with both Capitalism, AND Communism...

they are both run by people who gain more power than those below them..

Eventually, Capitalism becomes greedy corporatism, and Socialism becomes greedy totalitarianism (or at least something in that direction) if left unchecked anywhere...

Also... during our industrial revolution during those years you mentioned... it's not like the differences between the rich and the poor were that awesome... look at the folks working in the factories in the cities... they had to walk through cholera infested shit, and mud and disgusting stuff just to work 12.. 13 hours in a dirty, super nasty sweatshop with dangerous machines that could chop their hands of, all without a break and basically be a total bitch  to whoever was paying them in bacon scraps at the end of the day...

Shit sucked. They were basically slaves, and there was little compensation for their deaths that would happen from time to time. at the end of the day, It's not that awesome for 99% of everyone.

And farmers? if their farm failed because of harsh conditions... or a bad winter, they didnt have anyone to help them out or back them up... they just failed, and had to either sell the farm, go to the city and become one of said 'slaves' (if they could even do such a thing...) or die completely in a last ditch effort to keep the farm from the banks.

So... that's just some of the reasons why, in my mind, all capitalism all the time, is a pretty wack situation... just like 100% communism all the time is a pretty wack situation


And to answer your question - "can anyone name one thing that they use on a daily basis that either started or was advanced significantly and became affordable to most in a centrally planned government? Just one!"

I'm pretty sure the autobahn system in Germany was centrally planned for the most part if not all of it and gave rise to the many highway systems around the world... and those are used every minute of every day, 24/7... but somebody correct me if I'm wrong... but I'm pretty sure that's the case here (and by correct me if I'm wrong, I don't just mean give me your opinion, or tell me what you've heard or some ignant shit, give me a link to some concrete proof from a legit source )

(also, I'm pretty sure the romans, built roads that, were surely planned by the government, or someone appointed by the government, and many of them still exist around southern Europe, especially in Italy. They have stones that are thousands of years old that still hold up - I know I dont use them personally, but If I lived over there I might)


(and as for amtrak... A: some people dont have balls and are scared of flying, or just want to see the country without driving, and B: It's fuckin way cheaper than flying, anyway - least out here.

the cool thing about being capitalist is you can shoot a communist and not get in trouble for it just like when you kill someone who is trying to rob your house it isnt murder its self defense. The same goes on in nature...lions will make a kill and hyenas will try to steal it, but the lions have the right to kill the hyenas for doing this, and they often do. smart people deserve to keep their money. Nature is fair. In nature the world is up for grabs and the only fair way to allocate resource is to let animals fight over them. If they let humans fight the smartest ones would kill everyone else. There is MORE opportunity to get rich here than anywhere else. Anyone who complains about inequality is too stupid to make it and its time we let them starve to death the way it happens in every other species in the animal kingdom. communists are fucking gullutonous pigs who want to scavenge the kills of others. communists are botflies...they are parasites

and gnartron and the rest of you communist losers here.. dont fucking pretend youre innocent.. you are not... if i am part of a majority that votes to execute an innocent person, im evil... If you vote to steal the wealth of innocent people,, you are evil, no matter how rich they are and how poor you are... dont you penis suckers dare think that you are fucking innocent

cool alias bro

not an alias i got bitchs like you who cry to the mods

Don't you have a big black communist dick to suck tonight?

Lol. I'm not saying you're completely wrong or anything here dude... I agree with you for the most part like I said... All I'm saying is that you're trying to make it seem like America's growth back then was the greatest thing to ever happen to the face of the universe, when at the time, it wasn't all the tits that you're making it out to be.

No no, I was not comparing living conditions back then to now so much, I was saying that, for the poor, its not like they were making such a fucking awesome living as you seemed to make it out to be. Yeah, capitalism lowered prices, and made it so they could afford more things they wanted, they had more purchasing power, bladdy blah.. but It's not like they were living a whole holy shitload better... The poor and working were still living 14 to a  10x10' shitty slummy building that was falling apart and not built to any safety code, and sometimes seemed like it was going to fall out of its foundation when the wind picked up at times.. The biggest difference is they were just living in America... which was far better than the persecution and bullshit they were dealing with in Europe or wherever else they were coming from at the time... Remember... there was a crapload of people coming over here for other reasons than hearing that it was just some giant goldmine (although... I guess in the case of the millions of people who went out to California for gold, it at least sorta was).

Children were actually put to work a lot of the time in factories because they had small hands, and could un-jam machines, and stick their tiny hands and appendages in places that adults frankly, just couldn't reach into.

Carnegie and Rockefeller and Vanderbilt... Glad you brought them up, because I was going to. They didnt lower prices because they were on some mission to help people. They lowered their prices to fuck their competition in the asshole, and rightfully so. Rockefeller did it so well in fact, that he eventually killed off ALL Standard Oil's fuckin competition, and had a monopoly on the market.. Then Standard started charging a fuckload on it. (if you think gas going to 4.50$ a gallon 2 summers ago was a lot.. shit... it would have been like it went to 17$ a gallon back then when the prices were raised from where they were) While, this is way less than what it was when the industry started growing, it was still obvious what the intentions were in charging exorbitant prices...

It got so bad, that there was downright public outcry from everyone to the extent that the government HAD to get involved and lay down the law. If the government is so fucking evil, and shit as you seem to be making them out to be, and Capitalism as it is, is so fucking awesome as you say, then who in capitalism was there who could have stopped Standard oil from just raising the prices on oil right back to where they were? that whole 90% drop in keresene, as well as anything else could have gone right fuckin back up if there was no significant competitor - which there was not.

As for Amtrak.. I only compared it to flying because YOU did. Duh. lol.

I dont know... All I can say is, yeah... capitalism has it's place, obviously it's done great and made most of our innovation possible, but are you saying that we should unregulate shit, abolish the government, and just let all this shit run lassaiz-faire all the way through? I dont know dude... I see how that worked when America was 30-40 years ahead of every other country in the goddamn world, who were being run by greedy kings and just wanted to test their soldiers on the battlefield against their rival or something... but today? fuck that shit. The world's caught up, and they caught up in countries that tax the richest 1-2% way more than we do...


as for the road... how about comparing it to space? Before the soviets sent a man into space (uh.. centrally planned haha) before anyone else... people had been looking up since they had fucking eyeballs, thinking they wanted to go up there... There are stories of chinese guys during the Ming Dynasty, strapping a shitload of fireworks to a chair, aiming it straight up, lighting them all up and exploding into a raging fireball of LOL... The french tried to do it with balloons during the 1800's and realized that space was a lot fucking farther than they had previously thought... then they realized air just gets way fuckin thinner the higher you go up and its kinda impossible. Astronomers for years looked through telescopes that had homemade, hand carved lenses, just to see what the fuck was up there... Hell.. Leo Da Vinci even came up with a goddamn rocket ship idea he was working on for taking off and going on a vacation on the moon... but unfortunately, humans die, and he couldnt live long enough to complete it, along with his bagillion other inventions... So... going to space wasn't exactly a NEW concept when Yuri Gagarin was kickin it in outer space for the first time...

With that said, by your logic, going to space is 60000 years un-innovative... 200,000 years un-innovative if you want to get real primitive with me... That puts a giant damper on "one giant leap for mankind" now doesn't it...

The point I'm making here is that, just because people had thought about it doesn't mean they had the means of  actually doing it...

It took some people in Rome to say, "you guys, in the sweet helmets and skirts over there, get 20000 italians to stop playing soccer and go gather up a fuckton of cobblestones, and lay them flat in a road, 20 armlengths wide, between Rome and Milan so we can roll our bling'd out chariots from here to there a lot faster in case some asshat germanic tribe flips out and attacks, because WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSEEEEE''

communism is gay. if you had a hard math exam, and you got 90. but the noob who never does anything only got 20. capitalist=you win, he fails

                                                          communism=you get your mark raped but you both win.  Work to your abilities, recieve for your needs. (bad)

SNAP

child labor was ended as a result of our collective higher standard of living. also dont anyone pretend child labor doesnt happen today, in this country. when your choices are starve, or have little johnny work. it will be work. sure the labor unions had a hand in it, but it was the forces of the free market that made child labor obsolete. it was not the altruist complainers.