Communism v Socialism

[antagon]

Please cite the post where anyone has suggested Lassaiez Faire capitalism.

Redacto in Absurdum fail

fitz: if you apply reductio ad absurdum to your liberalism=fascism bullshit, it will fail too. ideologues tend to cast ad absurdum depictions of opposing views as part of their generally extreme ideologies, and your shit stinks of the same, buddy.

for the most part, if you are looking at the policy of a developed nation, there's no value in bullshitting about socialism v capitalism, instead infrastructure and business - two independent concerns which can favor components of many ideologies - are catered to directly.

 

[georgephillip]

There have been recent polls showing among younger Americans Socialism is preferred to capitalism.

And that was before BP.

i dont believe most of us of any age are aware of what socialism is, really.

can you provide one of your links to this 'recent poll'?

This Pew poll was carried out last spring and published on May 4, 2010.

Big Surprises in Recent Polls

 

[antagon]

There have been recent polls showing among younger Americans Socialism is preferred to capitalism.

And that was before BP.

i dont believe most of us of any age are aware of what socialism is, really.

can you provide one of your links to this 'recent poll'?

This Pew poll was carried out last spring and published on May 4, 2010.

Big Surprises in Recent Polls

thanks for that. the poll did leave a lot of ambiguity as to the definitions of the terms. i think the effect of the cold war era on the catch phrases of socialism have worn off, though. i would warn, however, that once people start making good money and paying taxes, the abrasiveness of the word socialism increases. that is probably reflected in the youth feeling on the fence as to socialism.

 

[Richard-H]

The facts are the facts:

In almost every measure of standard of living the United States is rated below number 10. It is the bottom of the barrel of almost all industrialized nations.

Every nation, except for Switzerland, that ranks above the U.S. is what conservatives would call a European-style socialist nation.

Switzerland, which produces just about nothing, controls the worlds banking system - that explains that.

Yet the American people produce 24% of the worlds wealth. We should be the number one nation in standard of living by far. One article even mentions that 25% of MAericans live below the standard of Greece. (Another economic powerhouse).

The whole notion that American capitalism works is a complete and total fraud!

Massive thievery and nothing else!

 

[antagon]

The facts are the facts:

In almost every measure of standard of living the United States is rated below number 10. It is the bottom of the barrel of almost all industrialized nations.

Every nation, except for Switzerland, that ranks above the U.S. is what conservatives would call a European-style socialist nation.

Switzerland, which produces just about nothing, controls the worlds banking system - that explains that.

Yet the American people produce 24% of the worlds wealth. We should be the number one nation in standard of living by far. One article even mentions that 25% of MAericans live below the standard of Greece. (Another economic powerhouse).

The whole notion that American capitalism works is a complete and total fraud!

Massive thievery and nothing else!

this comes entirely down to the subjective definition of 'works' when you assess whether the american economy is functional. i make a point to refer to the economy as a whole because 'american capitalism' is a bit of a figment which cant be separated from the socialist, even communist institutions at play within it.

i argue that the US economy works fantastically, even if one looks to characterize the function of an economy as a fairy which sprinkles prosperity on everybody.

can you draw a comparison between any single nation of 300 million or so constituents which has maintained a standard of living close to that of the US? perhaps another country which can boast having sprinkled prosperity over a land-mass similar to our own? if this was our barrel, where would that put us?

i say some of the characteristics of the US and the demographics respective to the varied levels of quality of life better account for the nature of our economy than does your idea of endemic thievery or fraud.

 

[Richard-H]

The facts are the facts:

In almost every measure of standard of living the United States is rated below number 10. It is the bottom of the barrel of almost all industrialized nations.

Every nation, except for Switzerland, that ranks above the U.S. is what conservatives would call a European-style socialist nation.

Switzerland, which produces just about nothing, controls the worlds banking system - that explains that.

Yet the American people produce 24% of the worlds wealth. We should be the number one nation in standard of living by far. One article even mentions that 25% of MAericans live below the standard of Greece. (Another economic powerhouse).

The whole notion that American capitalism works is a complete and total fraud!

Massive thievery and nothing else!

this comes entirely down to the subjective definition of 'works' when you assess whether the american economy is functional. i make a point to refer to the economy as a whole because 'american capitalism' is a bit of a figment which cant be separated from the socialist, even communist institutions at play within it.

i argue that the US economy works fantastically, even if one looks to characterize the function of an economy as a fairy which sprinkles prosperity on everybody.

can you draw a comparison between any single nation of 300 million or so constituents which has maintained a standard of living close to that of the US? perhaps another country which can boast having sprinkled prosperity over a land-mass similar to our own? if this was our barrel, where would that put us?

i say some of the characteristics of the US and the demographics respective to the varied levels of quality of life better account for the nature of our economy than does your idea of endemic thievery or fraud.

You can't read very well can you?

READ THIS:

AMERICA HAS ONE OF THE LOWEST AVERAGE STANDARD'S OF LIVING OF ANY INDUSTRIALIZED NATION.

If having a nation of skilled and educated slaves is your idea of 'working', then yes the American system works.

And NO. The American system has not 'Sprinkled Prosperity' on it's people. It's run a credit scam that has suckered the American people into massive debt so that they could appear to be prosperous, when in fact they have been worse than flat broke.

And YES. Underpaying people is a form of thievery.

 

[logical4u]

The facts are the facts:

In almost every measure of standard of living the United States is rated below number 10. It is the bottom of the barrel of almost all industrialized nations.

Every nation, except for Switzerland, that ranks above the U.S. is what conservatives would call a European-style socialist nation.

Switzerland, which produces just about nothing, controls the worlds banking system - that explains that.

Yet the American people produce 24% of the worlds wealth. We should be the number one nation in standard of living by far. One article even mentions that 25% of MAericans live below the standard of Greece. (Another economic powerhouse).

The whole notion that American capitalism works is a complete and total fraud!

Massive thievery and nothing else!

Europe does not spend much on security; they take that from the American taxpayer.
By some estimates, 10% of our population is illegal; that would mean they are paid less than the going rate and their living conditions will be worse. They are counted, and drag our numbers down.
Why do most peoples want to come to this nation? Could it be the opportunity to work and gain as much as you want? Could it be that people are not held back because of their color, class or religion? Could it be because our laws that used to be equally applied, leveled the playing field?
Are you on the government dole? Or do you work because the government does not offer all that you want for yourself or your family? If you work to earn income, you are a capitalist.

 

[antagon]

The facts are the facts:

In almost every measure of standard of living the United States is rated below number 10. It is the bottom of the barrel of almost all industrialized nations.

Every nation, except for Switzerland, that ranks above the U.S. is what conservatives would call a European-style socialist nation.

Switzerland, which produces just about nothing, controls the worlds banking system - that explains that.

Yet the American people produce 24% of the worlds wealth. We should be the number one nation in standard of living by far. One article even mentions that 25% of MAericans live below the standard of Greece. (Another economic powerhouse).

The whole notion that American capitalism works is a complete and total fraud!

Massive thievery and nothing else!

this comes entirely down to the subjective definition of 'works' when you assess whether the american economy is functional. i make a point to refer to the economy as a whole because 'american capitalism' is a bit of a figment which cant be separated from the socialist, even communist institutions at play within it.

i argue that the US economy works fantastically, even if one looks to characterize the function of an economy as a fairy which sprinkles prosperity on everybody.

can you draw a comparison between any single nation of 300 million or so constituents which has maintained a standard of living close to that of the US? perhaps another country which can boast having sprinkled prosperity over a land-mass similar to our own? if this was our barrel, where would that put us?

i say some of the characteristics of the US and the demographics respective to the varied levels of quality of life better account for the nature of our economy than does your idea of endemic thievery or fraud.

You can't read very well can you?

READ THIS:

AMERICA HAS ONE OF THE LOWEST AVERAGE STANDARD'S OF LIVING OF ANY INDUSTRIALIZED NATION.

If having a nation of skilled and educated slaves is your idea of 'working', then yes the American system works.

And NO. The American system has not 'Sprinkled Prosperity' on it's people. It's run a credit scam that has suckered the American people into massive debt so that they could appear to be prosperous, when in fact they have been worse than flat broke.

And YES. Underpaying people is a form of thievery.

perhaps i do have some trouble reading.

i cant read any indication that your assessment of the US is related to fact or tempered by any consideration of our population or land mass for starters.

 

[code1211]

How do current pollution levels in the lake the government couldn't drain compare to levels in 1607? Any evidence Reserve Mining may have contributed to any increase in toxins?

I suppose it would be really stupid to ask who pays most of the cost for cleaning up Reserve's toxic residue.

You make the claim that "(t)he role of government in the USA is to 'clear the deck' and then get the hell out of the way so wealth creators can create wealth."

How did "clearing the deck" impact Native Americans in Minnesota? Were the Lakota drawn along on the "wake of the leaders?"

Or were they drowned by it?

Was there ever any cotton shipped across that lake than came from the hands of chattel slaves?

I would say stupid takes a back seat the your conception of government's role in the USA.

For thousands of years all governments primary role has been to socialize the cost and privatize the profit for the benefit of a very select few.

No government has ever done it better than this one.

Wow! It's hard to know where to start with this.

What Reserve was doing was crushing rock, rinsing it with lake water and washing the rock away into the lake and keeping the iron from that rock. If you've never been to that part of minnesota, you may not be away that there is so much iron in the ground that it turns your shoes red on a rainy day.

The unrefined iron is then pressed into pellets of a substance called taconite. This taconite was shipped away to be processed into steel.

The taconite tailings is what was washed into a basin in the lake. The basin was large enough that it could not be filled if all of the rock with iron in was crushed and washed into it.

The suit brought by the state alleged that crushing the rock that the shore and the bottom of the lake are made of and washing the crushed rock into the lake would pollute the lake. Reserve was, in effect, crushing rock and removing the iron from and washing the iron free rock into the lake.

The judge in this case, Mile Lord, was the desendant of one of the 7 Iron Men who discovered the rich potential of the Iron Range of Minnesota and was very probably swindeled out of it by either Carnegie or Morgan. He said at one point in one of the days of the trial to a representative of Reserve, "I'm going to get you guys."

That is just background to the trial and the subsequent packing up of Reserve.

No toxins. Water and rock.

You're wondering if a stone age culture can flouish in a capitalist society. RUKidding?

Shipping cotton through Minnesota? How far north can cotton grow? Are you proposing shipping it north across the Ohio River or fighting the Current on the Mississippi going north then loading it on pack mules for the last 200 miles then shipping it down the St. Lawrence seaway to Georgia for processing?

This kind of thinking may be what disqualifies you from understanding Capitalism in the first place. However, this kind of thinking is perfect for government work or for the good old central planning used in fascism.

 

[Richard-H]

this comes entirely down to the subjective definition of 'works' when you assess whether the american economy is functional. i make a point to refer to the economy as a whole because 'american capitalism' is a bit of a figment which cant be separated from the socialist, even communist institutions at play within it.

i argue that the US economy works fantastically, even if one looks to characterize the function of an economy as a fairy which sprinkles prosperity on everybody.

can you draw a comparison between any single nation of 300 million or so constituents which has maintained a standard of living close to that of the US? perhaps another country which can boast having sprinkled prosperity over a land-mass similar to our own? if this was our barrel, where would that put us?

i say some of the characteristics of the US and the demographics respective to the varied levels of quality of life better account for the nature of our economy than does your idea of endemic thievery or fraud.

You can't read very well can you?

READ THIS:

AMERICA HAS ONE OF THE LOWEST AVERAGE STANDARD'S OF LIVING OF ANY INDUSTRIALIZED NATION.

If having a nation of skilled and educated slaves is your idea of 'working', then yes the American system works.

And NO. The American system has not 'Sprinkled Prosperity' on it's people. It's run a credit scam that has suckered the American people into massive debt so that they could appear to be prosperous, when in fact they have been worse than flat broke.

And YES. Underpaying people is a form of thievery.

perhaps i do have some trouble reading.

i cant read any indication that your assessment of the US is related to fact or tempered by any consideration of our population or land mass for starters.

wiggle...wiggle ...wiggle....

You just can't face the facts.

Americans are losing their homes and their life savings by the MILLIONS.

This isn't just a few people who took out mortgages that they couldn't afford. These are people that have worked their whole lives. They allowed themselves to get caught up in the BIG LIE.

Millions of Americans have maintained a superficial standard of living for the past 40 years that they could not afford. They have been suckered into the great credit trap. They have been screwed.

If they had been paid proportionally to their productive value, they never would have gotten into the amount of debt they have. Unfortunately, most Americans are 'Lemmings'.

Americans were stupid enough to stop demanding higher wages and accept debt instead. They were stupid enough not to distinguish between buying a SUV on credit vs. buying it with cash.

They were stupid enough to believe the whole supply-side/ trickle down lie.

BTW - I wasn't stupid enough to believe any of it, nor was I stupid enough to get myself in debt. Despite your previous assumptions, I personally am doing very well financially and am working for a private global corporation making a much higher than average income. So get off the accusations that I'm some sort of social parasite.

What's more is: I wasn't stupid enough to go into debt for college and was smart enough to realize that the uber-wealthy will always NEED genuinely smart productive people. That's how I survive.

 

[antagon]

wiggle...wiggle ...wiggle....

You just can't face the facts.

Americans are losing their homes and their life savings by the MILLIONS.

This isn't just a few people who took out mortgages that they couldn't afford. These are people that have worked their whole lives. They allowed themselves to get caught up in the BIG LIE.

Millions of Americans have maintained a superficial standard of living for the past 40 years that they could not afford. They have been suckered into the great credit trap. They have been screwed.

If they had been paid proportionally to their productive value, they never would have gotten into the amount of debt they have. Unfortunately, most Americans are 'Lemmings'.

Americans were stupid enough to stop demanding higher wages and accept debt instead. They were stupid enough not to distinguish between buying a SUV on credit vs. buying it with cash.

They were stupid enough to believe the whole supply-side/ trickle down lie.

BTW - I wasn't stupid enough to believe any of it, nor was I stupid enough to get myself in debt. Despite your previous assumptions, I personally am doing very well financially and am working for a private global corporation making a much higher than average income. So get off the accusations that I'm some sort of social parasite.

What's more is: I wasn't stupid enough to go into debt for college and was smart enough to realize that the uber-wealthy will always NEED genuinely smart productive people. That's how I survive.

i've not accused you of fitting any profile. perhaps someone else has.

i have not fallen victim to the traps that many others have either, but this has made me less rather than more sympathetic to those who have. although i was 'stupid' to get in debt for my education, me and my businesses are based on cash. while other contractors pretty trucks were reposessed, my 86 F600 and 91 F350 are still putting my guys to work. my business has invaded my life and my house, but we dont have an eviction notice on a shiny office like some of my competitors.

sympathies aside, i think that making a judgment as to the performance of our economy at the trough of a recovery, and adapting a perspective from those who you feel acted foolishly in the peak preceding, amounts to biased assessment which isn't representative of my experience in the US economy, and evidently your own.

cursory comparisons of quality of life among states with miniature populations and infrastructure does the same. anyone can make the US out to be a shithole by touring camden NJ or detroit, but they wont be accounting for america despite that.

 

[georgephillip]

Wow! It's hard to know where to start with this.

What Reserve was doing was crushing rock, rinsing it with lake water and washing the rock away into the lake and keeping the iron from that rock. If you've never been to that part of minnesota, you may not be away that there is so much iron in the ground that it turns your shoes red on a rainy day.

The unrefined iron is then pressed into pellets of a substance called taconite. This taconite was shipped away to be processed into steel.

The taconite tailings is what was washed into a basin in the lake. The basin was large enough that it could not be filled if all of the rock with iron in was crushed and washed into it.

The suit brought by the state alleged that crushing the rock that the shore and the bottom of the lake are made of and washing the crushed rock into the lake would pollute the lake. Reserve was, in effect, crushing rock and removing the iron from and washing the iron free rock into the lake.

The judge in this case, Mile Lord, was the desendant of one of the 7 Iron Men who discovered the rich potential of the Iron Range of Minnesota and was very probably swindeled out of it by either Carnegie or Morgan. He said at one point in one of the days of the trial to a representative of Reserve, "I'm going to get you guys."

That is just background to the trial and the subsequent packing up of Reserve.

No toxins. Water and rock.

You're wondering if a stone age culture can flouish in a capitalist society. RUKidding?

Shipping cotton through Minnesota? How far north can cotton grow? Are you proposing shipping it north across the Ohio River or fighting the Current on the Mississippi going north then loading it on pack mules for the last 200 miles then shipping it down the St. Lawrence seaway to Georgia for processing?

This kind of thinking may be what disqualifies you from understanding Capitalism in the first place. However, this kind of thinking is perfect for government work or for the good old central planning used in fascism.

Sorry about the confusion.

I never meant to imply cotton was grown in Minnesota.

If cotton products that originally came from chattel slavery were shipped across that lake, Minnesota capitalists were just as complicit in subsidizing southern plantation owners as were New York merchants.

It was only after southern ports slashed their tariffs to half what New York charged that Yankee businessmen turned on their "southern slave holding brethren."

If by stone age culture you mean the Lakota, there would seem to be many degrees of moral choice between "flourish" and "genocide." Why do genocide and slavery often become the capitalist's first response to land and labor issues?

Finally, capitalists seem blind to the existential conflict between "the ground zero of human species economics, where the only currency is the calorie..." and "...the triumph of today's money economy."

"This is due in part to the international finance jerk-off, in which the world's governments print truckloads of worthless money, so they can loan it out. The idea here is that incoming repayment in some other, more valuable currency will cover their own bad paper.

"In turn, the debtor nations print their own bogus money to repay the loans. So you have institutions loaning money they do not have to institutions unable to repay the loans.

"All this is based on the bullshit theory that tangible wealth is being created by the world's financial institutions, through interest on debt. Money making money."

That's where my understanding of mature capitalism begins.

Our Plunder of Nature...

 

[antagon]

Finally, capitalists seem blind to the existential conflict between "the ground zero of human species economics, where the only currency is the calorie..." and "...the triumph of today's money economy."

"This is due in part to the international finance jerk-off, in which the world's governments print truckloads of worthless money, so they can loan it out. The idea here is that incoming repayment in some other, more valuable currency will cover their own bad paper.

"In turn, the debtor nations print their own bogus money to repay the loans. So you have institutions loaning money they do not have to institutions unable to repay the loans.

"All this is based on the bullshit theory that tangible wealth is being created by the world's financial institutions, through interest on debt. Money making money."

That's where my understanding of mature capitalism begins.

Our Plunder of Nature...

philosophically, the presumptions quoted from this link on capitalism are flawed.

starting with the concept of currency in and of itself, by no means is the calorie the base unit of human economics. to the contrary, i argue that trust is.

on that basis alone, all of the author's bullshit about printing meaningless money and his inept appraisal of the value of interest are drawn from a flawed observation.

these are just barters of trust made tangible in transferable paper agreements. society struggles with the valuation, the worthiness, of trust in our interpersonal interactions. we offer trust in good faith, and systematically abuse it in waves which constitute our business cycles, if you ask me.

while this economic and philosophical incompetent publishes his commie propaganda under the auspices that such a system valuing food as our foremost underlying concern, he betrays the underlying misconception in all anti-capitalist criticisms: that capitalism is unnatural, rather than the natural and reflexive character of human economies. fundamentally, capitalism, the barter of trust, must be nurtured and facilitated for us to feel natural. concepts like socialism and communism are only valuable to the extent that they affect this facilitation, explaining their failure when struck out independent of this aim.

gp - i think i've said it before, but as a grown man, if that's the case, you are better off thinking about the nature of things on your own rather than abiding with half-eloquent crackpots like myself or homie you quoted... although i assert my pot as being less deeply cracked as calorie guy.

 

[georgephillip]

i dont believe most of us of any age are aware of what socialism is, really.

can you provide one of your links to this 'recent poll'?

This Pew poll was carried out last spring and published on May 4, 2010.

Big Surprises in Recent Polls

thanks for that. the poll did leave a lot of ambiguity as to the definitions of the terms. i think the effect of the cold war era on the catch phrases of socialism have worn off, though. i would warn, however, that once people start making good money and paying taxes, the abrasiveness of the word socialism increases. that is probably reflected in the youth feeling on the fence as to socialism.

My own less-than-educated opinion on the definitions of capitalism and socialism tells me neither by itself will serve to create a more just and sustainable society.

Today it seems the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) pits itself against labor, industry, and small business capitalists in the same way robber barons once crushed socialists.

Joseph Stiglitz in Taming Finance in an Age of Austerity:

"The 'innovations' unleashed by modern finance did not lead to higher long-term efficiency, faster growth, or more prosperity for all. Instead, they were designed to circumvent accounting standards and to evade and avoid taxes that are required to finance public investments in infrastructure and technology - like the internet - that underlie real growth, not the phantom growth promoted by the financial sector."

For Stig, Finance confuses the ends and the means.

"It is suppose to serve the interests of the rest of society, not the other way around. Taming financial markets will not be easy, but it can and must be done, through a combination of taxation and regulation - and, if necessary, government stepping in to fill some of the breaches (as it already does in the case of lending to small- and medium size- enterprises."

If two years from now Republicans and Democrats are telling us 9%-10% (or higher) rates of unemployment are now "structural", I believe many Americans will be ready to "...shift spending from unproductive uses - such as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or unconditional bank bailouts that do not revive lending - toward high-return investments."

America 2.0?

 

[antagon]

If two years from now Republicans and Democrats are telling us 9%-10% (or higher) rates of unemployment are now "structural", I believe many Americans will be ready to "...shift spending from unproductive uses - such as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or unconditional bank bailouts that do not revive lending - toward high-return investments."

America 2.0?

this is what the OP is getting at.

there wont be unemployment for that long. it is about how the system accounts for people. the structural adjustment will take place off of the unemployment rolls. see the swelling of welfare and prison rolls following the recessions in the eighties.

 

[georgephillip]

If two years from now Republicans and Democrats are telling us 9%-10% (or higher) rates of unemployment are now "structural", I believe many Americans will be ready to "...shift spending from unproductive uses - such as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or unconditional bank bailouts that do not revive lending - toward high-return investments."

America 2.0?

this is what the OP is getting at.

there wont be unemployment for that long. it is about how the system accounts for people. the structural adjustment will take place off of the unemployment rolls. see the swelling of welfare and prison rolls following the recessions in the eighties.

What if our Great Recession is not caused by a temporary imbalance between supply and demand? What if Reagan insiders and lifelong conservatives like Paul Craig Roberts and David Stockman are correct about an onrushing American Economic Apocalypse?

As your earlier post pointed out, I do have a tendency to rely on the opinions of others for my economic insights. Thinking effectively about the nature of complex things, I believe, begins with amassing evidence. When I see "experts" with establishment credentials on the left and right agreeing on the source of our current downturn, I have to take that with a few more grains of salt than the opinions of those currently working for Wall Street or the Federal Government much less my own ability to think efficiently about the nature of things.

Stockman's most recent warning came in a NYT Op-Ed where he offered four major mistakes made since Nixon took the US off the gold standard in 1971, starting our great spending boom.

"(T)he second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40% of gross domestic product or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater that in 1970."

Stockman's Third Major Mistake involves "the vast unproductive expansion of our financial sector."

This leads him to Mistake Four which is hurtling toward us from a near horizon: New American Revolution class-warfare.

Finally, I don't see welfare rolls swelling anytime soon and we already have a greater percentage of our population behind bars than any other country on the planet, so where will our surplus workers and superfluous people go this time?

Reagan Insider...

 

[JBeukema]

Wait... did the OP just call leninism and the new deal communism?

 

[JBeukema]

Socialism sucks every time and everywhere it's been tired.

What is so hard to understand about that?

Um.. I like public libraries, public roads, a common fire department, common law enforcement, having parks for the children...

 

[JBeukema]

They're the same thing. Communists around the world also call themselves Socialists. So it's easy to understand why so many get confused about the two terms. Socialism is Communism and Communism is Socialism. Some just like to shy away from the term Communism and instead use the term Socialism. They are the same thing in the end though.

In other words, you kniow nothing of communism (Marxist or otherwise) or socialism (social democracy, democratic socialism, et al) except what right-wing radio tells you

 

[JBeukema]

3. Ration gasoline, charge .25 cents per gallon for those using more then a life-line amount TBD

6. Make the advertising of any drug illegal on TV, radio or in print.

Really? They can't tell me that tylanol PM is now available in a gel tab? Why? That's just retarded

8. Require each non-emergency agency at each level of government to purchase electric or hybrid vehicles or forfeit all transportation dollars.

right.... you're not all that familiar with the subjects of energy production and finance, are you?