[Stargazer_2098]

This thread is created for members to post their meanings about communism and capitalism, the idea to create this thread came from this discussion.

My own viewpoints in this matter: I don't like either of them.


Stargazer.

[Blue Lion]

I like money

[an0n]

................

*isn't impressed*
*straps explosives to thread supports*

[RandomTiger]

Capitalism seems to work better than communism.
But it’s obviously totally flawed.

There is only a limited amount of money in the world. If one person or company has a lot of money another person or company doesn’t. We are all in a constant state of trying to screw each other over and no one can ever win.

The best way for a company to do well is to sell a product that has a short lifetime so they can sell the same product to the same person again. Everything becomes disposable meanwhile we are using up the worlds resources at an insane rate.

Another way for a company to do well is to crush all opposition, even if its product is better, buy up the rights to that product or just make sure no-one has the rights to make it even though that product could solve all some of our biggest problems.

Another way for a company to do well is to exploit the workers of poor countries to make their product while using the profits of the product to block change that would allow the country to make that product themselves and sell it on a fair market.

I really could go on forever....

This is all good business sense but is morally bankrupt

[diamondgeezer]

I like money, but I have none. Grrr...

[Stryke 9]

Communism is a good idea, in fact even a workable one even in the Marxist version, it's just that few Communist states have been founded in good faith by the leaders, and any nation about to undergo revolution of any serious sort is by its nature incapable of supporting itself adequately in the first place. People have been quick to write it off in recent years, without really understanding WHY it didn't work. It's not the best system, and never was, but it ain't all that bad either.

And anyone who says that a Communist government CAN'T work, I give you Cuba, a tiny, third-world island with no real resources, now richer than ever and with a better medical system and comparable quality of life to the bastion of imperialistic capitalism next door.

Anyway. Yes, capitalism works. So do Microsoft, Nazism (in a technical sense), and the bubonic plague. It's worse than any of the above, and has killed even more than the second, by far crueller means. It's functional, but barely, makes next to everyone miserable except those who consider money an end in and of itself, and is based on a series of false premises and logic so skewed as to make Orwell seem unimaginative. Work hard in school so you can work hard in college so you can work hard at a job so you can get ditched after a few years of work for a company that doesn't give a **** about you and slowly rot. And, while you're not technically working hard while you're rotting, it ain't much fun, either. Occasionally, you screw around furtively, always peeping over your shoulder worried that you'll get in trouble, but only for a short time, then it's back to work for years. It's frankly repulsive- hollow, soulless, sterile. Death seems like a pleasant alternative to being absorbed in the capitalist machine- which is, in a sense, death drawn out and made much less pleasant. Not to mention all the people who don't even get the corporate drone option, and end up losing their arms in textile factories and starving to death while some third-level secretary in New York refuses to eat because she wants to look good for all the people who will never, ever notice her, and the drunken manager scarfs his heart attack in a pizza box. If the Antichrist came along and wanted to start up a reign of misery and terror for all humanity to top off the Apocalypse, he'd have to have a damn good imagination to beat the current reigning one.

[Blue Lion]

Wow, nice paragraph, cept that's not capitalism's fault, it's people's. Capitalism does not make men greedy, evil or lazy. They do that on their own.

Everything theoreticaly works, it all depends on the people.

[Stryke 9]

People aren't naturally vicious bastards. They have to be raised that way. People ARE naturally "lazy" and naturally involved in their own best interest. There's a difference.

[Blue Lion]

So....they're looking out for themselves, but are actually philanthropists and put mankinds well being over their own? That's bull, and the reason we have the systems we have. People will individually lean to a capalistic system on their own. My proof is the world, how many people are flocking to Cuba from the US? How many are ditching their lives in the evil capitalist world to live a better life in communism? Not many. People want money and power, it's as simple as that, you don't get that everywhere.

[Stryke 9]

Actually a fair number are.

No, I didn't say people were philantropists. I was just saying that people tend NOT to be gunning only for themselves. Altruism isn't the word, since people are still interested in themselves primarily, but with the exception of some Americans I've never met anyone so shallow as to have no interest in mind but their own- even if it merely extended to family or an abstract concept. It's a common mistake people who are absolutely selfish (as I once was) make to think that anyone who seems to be working for the benefit of something other at their own loss is necessarily hiding an ulterior motive.

If people had evolved simply to vaunt themselves at expense of all other, you'd better believe we'd have died out as chimps, with one male monkey killing all the other male monkeys to get all the food and women, and then the females woulda killed him to keep the food for themselves. Never mind the fact that society would never function nowadays if people were rapacious, killer misers, we'd never have even gotten nearly this far.

[wEvil]

because people are indoctrinated in your "schools" to not know anything better.

[Stryke 9]

...Who are you responding to?

[Blue Lion]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Actually a fair number are.

No, I didn't say people were philantropists. I was just saying that people tend NOT to be gunning only for themselves.

Self preservation is one of the highest thoughts a human has.

If people had evolved simply to vaunt themselves at expense of all other, you'd better believe we'd have died out as chimps, with one male monkey killing all the other male monkeys to get all the food and women, and then the females woulda killed him to keep the food for themselves. Never mind the fact that society would never function nowadays if people were rapacious, killer misers, we'd never have even gotten nearly this far.

Well that's where you ask yourself, am I here for myself, or for mankind?

[CP5670]

[edit]

[Blue Lion]

Originally posted by wEvil
because people are indoctrinated in your "schools" to not know anything better.

Oh yes, I've been brainwashed by the system Because I care for myself above everyone else. I hate to break this to you, but I wanna live, live well. If that means someone else has to live not so well, that's what we call.....life. You're missing out on a concept, sure it brings up all those people who are below poverty, but you're bringing down people who have worked, and want to work, for what they have. Who wants to strive in a society where everyone gets exactly the same? What's to drive people? Good will?

[Shrike]

You know what they say about equal distribution of misery and all that.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by Blue Lion

What's to drive people? Good will?

[size=24] YES!!! [/i][/size]

As i said in our last discussion, then only way we'll ever make any progress is if this becomes our primary motivation.

Otherwise we can continue to look forward to millennia of misery, suffering and pain.  To be honest death almost sounds preferable.

[vyper]

Originally posted by Blue Lion


Oh yes, I've been brainwashed by the system Because I care for myself above everyone else. I hate to break this to you, but I wanna live, live well. If that means someone else has to live not so well, that's what we call.....life. You're missing out on a concept, sure it brings up all those people who are below poverty, but you're bringing down people who have worked, and want to work, for what they have. Who wants to strive in a society where everyone gets exactly the same? What's to drive people? Good will?

Precisely. It is man's nature to compete, to strive to be better than his fellow man, to WIN. That is what drives society, and what causes evolution.

[Mr. Vega]

I find I agree with Stryke here. Ok, so we're not born to be lazy selfish bastards, but the U.S. society promotes it indirectly.

The reason it's portrayed so negatively because its most famous example was a country that was possibly the opposite economy communism works best for. Russia had a terrible economy: the ruble was worth what, one-hundredth of an American dollar at the time? Before the revolution there were mostly a lot of really poor people and few rich people. After the revolution there were instead a lot of mildly poor people and a few rich people who were government people. A dictatorship. Beginning to see a problem here?

If communism was used on a country with a strong economy, it would work work quite well. Lets use the [don't even guess which country it is to make me look stupid] for example. With its economy there be virtually no poverty, no evil corporate people, and no money-obsessed society. Problem we'd lose rights and emphasis on idividuality. So I'm asking you: which is the lesser of the two evils?

[Unknown Target]

Think about it this way: Not a SINGLE communist regime has brought anything but pain, while capitalism has managed to survive all these years, and still flourish. In fact, the only true communist state is China, and we can see the effects of THAT, can't we.

Communism needs walls to keep it's people in, while capitalism doesn't.