Poll: Capitalism or Communism?

[Gloomsta]

I like how everyone believes they have valid opinions in this thread.

Face it guys, it would take an expert to truly understand what works better, reading about communism on wikipedia and having a few history lessons in school about this isnt enough.

It would take years of study to evaluate everything historically,socially,economically, psychologically, etc etc. It would take intelligent people without bias too.

Face it guys.

Probably none of you know enough on this subject matter to truly understand and evaluate it, and neither do i.

 

[oktalist]

Actually the numbers are more than double what I said; 9 million per year, or 25,000 per day, according to UNICEF 2010. I can't break it down to a per-country basis, but I'd imagine it's mainly the ones with low per capita GDP. Or to put it another way, the ones getting the most butt-rape from the rich.

I see. So countries where free markets and individual rights are allowed to thrive inhabit wealth and prosperity, and countries with bullshit governments who do as much of the opposite as they can inhabit poverty and starvation. And your conclusion from this is that capitalism causes poverty and death?

Free markets and individual rights are directly opposed to each other. Most of the countries where people have a rough time are exactly the places where the free market has a greater hold. Whereas developed nations can use their power to weight the scales in their favour.

If all those developing countries where the most poor people live all got fully-functioning Western-style democratic institutions and individual rights, all of us in the West would be screwed. We'd have nobody left to exploit, so we wouldn't be able to afford the comfy lifestyles we currently enjoy. Our leaders can't afford to let that happen.

The world is connected, so you can't argue a case by comparing single countries in isolation.

Ohhhhhhh. Now I see what you're thinking. Now I know the root of the problem. Here, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5uJgG05xUY

Yep, the root of the problem is that I've been indoctrinated by a bullshit video that I've never seen before, which was uploaded in 2007, almost a decade after I started having political opinions.

I could tell the video was bullshit within one minute (the original video I mean, not the critique). And I can't say I'm surprised that bullshit videos get used in American classrooms.

"I know, let's get the stupidest, most retarded example of a left-wing opinion we can find, and criticise it in order to discredit all left-wing opinions." Nice.

Your argument appears to be "America is capitalist, and America is successful, therefore capitalism works." Well the whole world is capitalist, and has been for centuries, and all things considered I could not entertain the view that the world is a success.

No it's not. :| This is really hard... the whole world isn't capitalist. I mean every country has some sort of trade and currency, but most don't have a government designed to protect individual rights. So what makes a country capitalist to you?

To me, trade and currency make a place capitalist. Actually just trade is enough. Currency is just the natural evolution of trade.

Individual rights has nothing to do with capitalism. That would have to do with democracy, which is diametrically opposed to capitalism.

Also, wait, now you're saying that the world's history is that of capitalism, and the world is generally poor. Therefore capitalism doesn't work. Buuuut I thought you just got finished saying history doesn't matter?

You are right, sir. I shouldn't have argued that history has nothing to teach us. I'm in danger of cherry-picking only those parts of history which support my argument. Sorry.

I know that in the response to the above comment, you're going to say something like 'No that's not really what I said', and then you'll basically step back on that statement and change its original meaning. Known at Cracked.com as 'Internet Argument Technique #3'. But of course you're not going to do that NOW, now that I've predicted it to your face.

And now you're going to say that I only agreed with you because you predicted that I would backtrack on what I said. Well that is not so! I totally would've conceded the point whatever you'd predicted. But maybe you did make me a little bit more apologetic as a result.

Mr. Oktalist, you seem very intelligent. You can articulate concepts, even if they're flawed. It'd be great to see your head on the good side.

Likewise.

[EDIT]Except, the communist argument has more to gain by attracting support, because the capitalist argument already has all the support it could want. Supporters of capitalism outnumber supporters of communism by orders of magnitude. Capitalism doesn't really care if you or I support it.[/EDIT]

"Everything I disagree with is indoctrincation, while everything I agree with is the plain truth." I guess we're all guilty of that particular logical fallacy.

You have far more grammar and sentence-structure skills than the internet requires.

Well, this is the Escapist. We like to maintain a higher standard.

 

[AnyNamePlease]

Communism would be great if we were all hard-working, for the community types, but people generally aren't that type.

But why is this? Is this an inherent part of human nature? Or is it something that humans learn from being raised in a capitalist environment? Out of all the criticisms of communism this is one that just boggles me. Okay, even if we accept that people are inherently greedy (which I don't) and we accept that being massively greedy is bad, then surely we want a society that attempts to counteract this, not one that majorly encourages it.

Besides, we would have to many artist and singers and not enough laborers unless we forced people to do a job, and then we'd have a bunch of unhappy people.

And this just makes no sense. Why would there be too many artists and singers? Why would we need a massive workforce of labourers? Under communism we wouldn't have the modern world's incredibly self-destructive obsession with growth as an end in itself.

If we say to convert now, then yes SOME people will be greedy. And here's the thing about Communism, we all need to do our fair share. I'm saying that if I had the choice between working an 8 hour day or a 10 hour day, I'll choose the 8 hour. If it doesn't make a difference I'm not going to kill myself over the work. I know people who work all night on deals, and I'm saying that they would rather do something else rather then kill themselves. I know that they're people who are motivated by money, and I am one of them. But it's because I like being able to buy a video game when I want. I like going to dinners and I like not having to worry about finances. You have to admit that yes, SOME people aren't going to kill themselves for no personal gain. It's just unrealistic to think otherwise.

I would rather be a writer then my job now. And I know people who have their own dreams, like singing and dancing. And if we had a choice, whose going to work in retail. There are jobs that people don't want to do, but they do it anyway. I doubt a plumber enjoys his job, but someone has to do it. It's not just about growth it's about people not liking work. And that's understandable. But they do it because they have motivation to do it. We need workers and labor and even if we cut down we need people to do it. That is a fact that we can't avoid.

I'm kinda lost in all the double negatives. If you remove the massive pressure to turn stupid profits then people won't pull 23 hour days securing ludicrous deals. The whole point of communism is that if you reorganise society and industry to cut out all the profit, there's no need for ANYBODY to kill themselves on long hours. Yes, people will have to do jobs they don't like (as they do under communism) but the hours they need to commit should be pretty small, leaving everyone time to pursue things they actually enjoy.

No actually. We need people to work hard for society to function. We need those emergency room doctors to spend tons of hours. We need doctors to go work and go help people. We can't all work 5 hour days, and some people if they want to get the job done need to work 10 hour days. I don't think we can have stores and restaurants open for a small amount of time for when their employees are actually there.

 

[CaptainKarma]

Communism would be great if we were all hard-working, for the community types, but people generally aren't that type.

But why is this? Is this an inherent part of human nature? Or is it something that humans learn from being raised in a capitalist environment? Out of all the criticisms of communism this is one that just boggles me. Okay, even if we accept that people are inherently greedy (which I don't) and we accept that being massively greedy is bad, then surely we want a society that attempts to counteract this, not one that majorly encourages it.

Besides, we would have to many artist and singers and not enough laborers unless we forced people to do a job, and then we'd have a bunch of unhappy people.

And this just makes no sense. Why would there be too many artists and singers? Why would we need a massive workforce of labourers? Under communism we wouldn't have the modern world's incredibly self-destructive obsession with growth as an end in itself.

If we say to convert now, then yes SOME people will be greedy. And here's the thing about Communism, we all need to do our fair share. I'm saying that if I had the choice between working an 8 hour day or a 10 hour day, I'll choose the 8 hour. If it doesn't make a difference I'm not going to kill myself over the work. I know people who work all night on deals, and I'm saying that they would rather do something else rather then kill themselves. I know that they're people who are motivated by money, and I am one of them. But it's because I like being able to buy a video game when I want. I like going to dinners and I like not having to worry about finances. You have to admit that yes, SOME people aren't going to kill themselves for no personal gain. It's just unrealistic to think otherwise.

I would rather be a writer then my job now. And I know people who have their own dreams, like singing and dancing. And if we had a choice, whose going to work in retail. There are jobs that people don't want to do, but they do it anyway. I doubt a plumber enjoys his job, but someone has to do it. It's not just about growth it's about people not liking work. And that's understandable. But they do it because they have motivation to do it. We need workers and labor and even if we cut down we need people to do it. That is a fact that we can't avoid.

I'm kinda lost in all the double negatives. If you remove the massive pressure to turn stupid profits then people won't pull 23 hour days securing ludicrous deals. The whole point of communism is that if you reorganise society and industry to cut out all the profit, there's no need for ANYBODY to kill themselves on long hours. Yes, people will have to do jobs they don't like (as they do under communism) but the hours they need to commit should be pretty small, leaving everyone time to pursue things they actually enjoy.

No actually. We need people to work hard for society to function. We need those emergency room doctors to spend tons of hours. We need doctors to go work and go help people. We can't all work 5 hour days, and some people if they want to get the job done need to work 10 hour days. I don't think we can have stores and restaurants open for a small amount of time for when their employees are actually there.

I don't know enough detailed communist economic theory, but you're misrepresenting what I just wrote. Maybe some systems of communism will keep the 38 hour week, maybe they won't, it depends on your interpretation.

 

[Shinigami214]

If you have much spare time, listen to Rush Limbaugh some. He's the #1 radio talk-show personality because every day he powerfully expresses a pure and true message.

Hilarious Next you'll be saying that Fox News is 'fair and balanced' as they claim to be.