Velvo said:
WrongSprite said:
Theory wise, communism, realistically, capitalism. That is LITERALLY all it comes down do. In anything bigger than a very small place, communism will not work.
China is a pretty big place man. They're doing pretty well. So long as you have effective checks and balances, Communism CAN work. There just aren't very many good examples because corruption sucks all over the place. Capitalism was pretty terrible with corruption before people figured "hey, lets make government regulations for these corporations!" Unions helped, and so did "The Jungle."
I predict that unless it all goes to shit before they get their act together, the Chinese will have their own age of enlightenment and will grow up out of the repression and terrible environmental policy that has plagued their people. Or at least I hope they do, for their own sake.
Actually, China's recent growth can be directly attributed to capitalist endeavors made possible in their Special Economic Zones and economic reforms started by Deng Xiaoping. To quote Deng himself:
We mustn't fear to adopt the advanced management methods applied in capitalist countries...Socialism and market economies are not incompatible.
I agree completely with this. There's room for both in a government and strictly dealing in one or the other is doomed to ultimately fail. However, in China's case, the problem with the SEZs is that, while some members of China's business community are getting extremely wealthy, the population as a whole remains very poor, as the people in rural China don't have complete access to these economic policy zones or the growth they produce. Thus the gap between rich and poor in China is reaching uncomfortably high levels.
OT: Although the key to any system sustaining itself is balance, if you want a black and white answer about which is better, the answer is capitalism. This is because of basic human psychology. There's been several studies of behavioral research that indicate that a reward that's given randomly or simply based on time will not encourage desired behavior.
In other words, in a truly Communistic society, the doctor and street sweeper are paid equivalent. Since doctors require intensive training, education, and the stress levels of their job (you try telling someone that they're dying of cancer and not be stressed) are higher than the street sweeper, the only incentive lies internally, which is one of the worst forms of motivation, as it is more prone to being overridden by extenuating factors (such as trying to avoid extremely stressful situations).
So, if everyone had their freedom to choose which job they want, the streets will be really clean, but there will be little treatment for people's ills or medical advancements from people striving to gain fame and fortune by coming up with a medical breakthrough that could save lives. Any incentive for working harder than everyone else to achieve a goal is rendered mute.
Alternatively, if not given freedom to choose their job, you'd have a bunch of unhappy people who probably aren't operating at 100% efficiency because they have no motivation to do so. Relying on internal motivation or (historically, in communistic countries) patriotism/nationalism to drive the work force is ineffective and unreliable.
Capitalism advances society by working in direct correlation with our in-grown biological and psychological needs to achieve more (see Maslow's hierarchy for more on that). It also affords mobility within the class structure so that the lowly dirt farmer is a self-invented business and/or product away from being a potential millionaire. On these principles alone, capitalism will always be better if one must rely solely on one form or the other.
