Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

[☭proletarian☭]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxYyXGMfZM[/ame]

 

[uscitizen]

Smart Man.

Noam Chomsky for president!

 

[elvis]

How much money has Chomsky made under capitalism?

 

[uscitizen]

How much money has Chomsky made under capitalism?

And what has that got to do with anything?
A person living in a capatilistic system has to eat same as anybody else.

 

[elvis]

How much money has Chomsky made under capitalism?

And what has that got to do with anything?
A person living in a capatilistic system has to eat same as anybody else.

his family could eat for the next 25 fucking generations on the money he's made. made possible by...............capitalism.

 

[uscitizen]

I do not care if he made 1 trillion dollars.
That does not prevent him from understanding capitalism or diminish the truths he says.

Actually the more money he made would indicate a better understandiing of the system I would think.

 

[PeterS]

How much money has Chomsky made under capitalism?

And why does it matter? The question isn't how the few benefit but the population as a whole.

 

[elvis]

How much money has Chomsky made under capitalism?

And why does it matter? The question isn't how the few benefit but the population as a whole.

as long as you realize he's a hypocrite.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I realize it's an ad hom...

 

[elvis]

I realize it's an ad hom...

Point out where I said he was incorrect. I said he is a hypocrite.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

You attacked his character as a means of discrediting or invalidating what he said. That is an ad hominum attack. Had you not had such an intention, there would have been no reason for your comments.

 

[elvis]

You attacked his character as a means of discrediting or invalidating what he said. That is an ad hominum attack. Had you not had such an intention, there would have been no reason for your comments.

Nope. I attacked his character because he's a hypocrite. Got it, comrade?

 

[Saladin]

I hope we don't dismiss the Libertarian perspective because of their usage of public roads, in that case.

 

[Xenophon]

What economic system is better?

The answer is 'none' and in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I love people who denounce capitalism after it made them rich.

Shit if I was that rich I wouldn't want anyone else to get rich either. It would solidify my influence.

 

[Xenophon]

Listening to a few minutes of it, i had to laugh at how delussional he remains.

The part about the west being 'jealous' and the soviets doing so much better was halrious.

His selective memory doesn't allow him to recall that the Soviets couldn't even feed their own people (we had to save them a few times) and that consumer goods were virtually unheard of.

His claim that '10 years of capitalist reform' put the russians into the third world is so stupid you have to laugh, massive corruption due to the collapse of Russian state security police is what caused that, not 'capitalist reforms.'

In short, the man is and always was an idiot.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

Tell that to India, Viet Nam, the child labourers in China, the child labourers in America before the labour movement gained power, or a mother whose child is now dead from cadmium poisoning because some capitalist wanted a bigger profit margin.

 

[uscitizen]

in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

Tell that to India, Viet Nam, the child labourers in China, the child labourers in America before the labour movement gained power, or a mother whose child is now dead from cadmium poisoning because some capitalist wanted a bigger profit margin.

Tell that to the lower income classes in the USA as well. The rich have been getting richer at a far greater pace than the lower classes have.

 

[PoliticalChic]

in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

Tell that to India, Viet Nam, the child labourers in China, the child labourers in America before the labour movement gained power, or a mother whose child is now dead from cadmium poisoning because some capitalist wanted a bigger profit margin.

What an ignorance you evince.

Which of the nations would do better under communism than capitalism?

When Haitian refugees flee their island, do they aim for Cuba (53 miles), Turks and Caicos (110 miles), Jamaica (124 miles), the Cayman Islands ( 440 miles), or Florida (523 miles ) ? Why is that?

Are you living in the United States, which has only a modified form of free market capitalism? If so, why are you living here?

Educate yourself about one of the greatest economists, Kondratiev, who compared capitalism and communism:

"Nikolai D Kondratiev (1892-1938) was an eminent Russian economist. He was one of the architects of the first Five Year Plan, an economic program put into place in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution. During the 1920s, Kondratiev studied the history of the capitalist system. In 1926, he published his conclusions in “Long Waves in Economic Life.” He found that the capitalist system has cycles which are very similar to the seasons of the year. When he began his work, Kondratiev was in favor with Lenin and Stalin. However, after he published, he fell out of favor. In fact, Kondratiev lost his position as the director of an economic institute, and he was later sentenced to the Soviet Gulag. He died in the Gulag.

Why in the world would an economist, a practitioner of such a “dreary” profession, be given such harsh treatment? Simple. The Soviet leaders believed that capitalism was doomed to collapse, but Kondratiev’s research showed that capitalism is actually a SELF-RENEWING system. Therefore, while capitalism is cyclical, and while it has significant “ups and downs,” it always renews itself and, as such, it offers mankind the best hope for economic betterment."
The Richter Report - The Kondratiev Cycle


Basically, he told Stalin that Capitalism was better because it allowed ‘created destruction’ of parts that no longer work,(don’t make a profit) ie bankruptcy, etc. and communism maintains systems that don’t work.

"His immediate offence was being too closely associated with the "New Economic Policy" (NEP) – an essentially social-democratic response to the abject failure of Lenin’s "war communism", which had brought the Soviet economy to its knees. Kondratiev believed that the development of heavy industry in the Soviet Union should only be attempted after the successful modernisation of its agriculture. Only when all Russians had enough to eat, and only upon the base of a thriving light industrial sector, producing agricultural equipment and consumer goods, should the growth of heavy industries be encouraged. Such thinking was anathema to Stalin and his henchmen, and Kondratiev was driven from his post as head of the Institute of Conjuncture and hauled off to the gulag.

His real crime, however, was to call into question the whole notion that economies could be made to perform according to the conscious interventions of human planners.

In his studies of capitalism he had discerned patterns of development that contradicted the linear notions of economic growth then favoured by his Soviet colleagues. Rather than progressing in a straight line, the evolution of the global capitalist economy appeared to describe a regular wave pattern, with a cycle of approximately fifty years.

Kondratiev’s seminal work, The Major Economic Cycles, was published in 1925 – at the height of the Roaring Twenties – but working from his basic premises he was able to predict the Great Depression a full five years before it happened."
Bowalley Road: Kondratiev Comes Full-Cycle

 

[PoliticalChic]

in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

Tell that to India, Viet Nam, the child labourers in China, the child labourers in America before the labour movement gained power, or a mother whose child is now dead from cadmium poisoning because some capitalist wanted a bigger profit margin.

Tell that to the lower income classes in the USA as well. The rich have been getting richer at a far greater pace than the lower classes have.

How Poor are the poor in this capitalist nation?

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

• Forty-three percent of all poor households actu¬ally own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

• Only 6 percent of poor households are over¬crowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

• Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America

And every single American starts with the ability to become a millionaire. Over 90% of millionaires earned thieir money, they didn't inherit it.

Truly, you are of the school of "Often in error, never in doubt."