An actual thread on the matter! (Capitalism Vs. Socialism/Communism)

[Madame Adequate]

So, rather than filling up all the other threads with our back-and-forths on the matter, here's a thread wherein we can actually discuss the matter without being off-topic (Which the mods have graciously not come down on us for. Thanks guys ).

So, I'm sure you'll all be aware of my views on the matter. And there are at least a couple of others hanging around who feel similarly to me.

Note; Let's try and keep this thread to capitalism and communism/socialism/whatever. It's fine to hold up America as an example of a failed economic system if you believe it is, but let's not get into talking about how terrible the War is or anything.

My support for capitalism stems from my belief that the ultimate, singular, fundamental, and inalienable right of all sentient beings is that of self-jurisdiction. I am slow even to concede that the police force and military are justifiable, and it is only Human nature which prevents me from simply being an anarchist.

There is no other economic system which allows this self-jurisdiction except one where ALL necessities AND luxuries are abundant to the point of being available to everyone in excess without requiring any effort from anyone in return. This is an obviously utopian state of idealistic existence, and one we are at least hundreds of years away from. (A combination of near-infinite power, hugely advanced automation, and the capacity to assemble anything from anything (Ie atomic manipulation.) would be needed.)

Any system which takes more than the bare minimum of taxes is overstepping the boundaries of the state. By definition, economic control is social control, and social control is by and large abhorrent. There is no justification for telling a person where to spend their money; the money is a representation of the person's skills and efforts and time. It belongs entirely to the person. No individual owes anything to any other individual except through choosing to make that commitment.

[Shadow Nexus]

Not again

[War Angel]

Pure Capitalism sucks, but I think Communism sucks more. I'd rather live in a place where it'd be hard to survive, then a place where my survival depends on others.

[Cloud No.9]

communism can work. it did in israel.

once you start taking taxes then a boundary has been crossed. and it's a boundary that needs to be crossed.

lets examine when taxes paid for the government, army and nothing else. the industrial revolution period of the 19th century.

it was a time of cholera. they streets and wells were filled with sewage. people were dying on an epedemic scale because noone cared about sewage. it wasn't the governments or councils job. and noone was going to pay for it out of the goodness of their heart. and the people most affected by it were too poor to pay anyone to do it. and alot of people died to the government saw sense and ended the madness and with the help of brunel built a sewer system that is the one we still use today. and noone is dying of cholera.

in the end government intervention ended the cholera epidemic.

it was paid for out of acquired revenue but brought an idea forward of government intervention.

then the country went to war (i can't remember if it was the boer or crimean war). and lots of the working class went to sign up. and were turned away. they weren't suitable, underweight, louse ridden, mal nourished with no intelligenced. the government was lacking in working class troops not because they didn't want to sign up but because they just weren't fit enough.

a country without an army would have been silly. so the government at the time had an idea. it was the foundations of the welfare state. sick pay and access to a doctor, injury pay, education, child labour laws, the end of the work houses, pensions etc. and the next war the country went into the great war. we won and had no lack of troops.

other problems were in that time frame. housing. at the time when the people were flocking to the cities from the farms they were working in factories. working in factories was a bit like selling your soul. though it had been practiced before in the rural environment it has harsher in the cities. as a factory worker you basicly belonged to the factory owner. the food you bought was from him, the house you lived in was his, the water you drank was from his well (see above). and the easiest way to make money is too keep money.

so the houses were . and i mean . single rooms for the whole family. no bed, no gas, no running water, no furniture, a single room. and not a big room either. no ventilation and no heat. food was horrible and often posinous (lead in the bread to make it weigh more was common as was adding dyes).

this of course was a bit of a problem since the government now realised that it's duty was to the people (especially if you need them to fight wars). and so they thought the slums needed to go. and after 1918 many did. "homes for heroes". they knocked down the slum housing and built council houses. fully gassed and with running water, heat, ventilation, windows, electricity. the full works. the plan was never fully completed due to an economic down turn and lack of materials for such a job. but it was the start.

on the topic of factories. working conmditions. working conditions were not great. many maimings, removal of body parts and injuries resulted. cotton mills ended up with people cutting hands stuck in places. children crawled around the back of the machines removing fluff and sometimes were crushed or raised their head at the wrong moment. but there was no law against it. fine to do what you wanted. such instances of people collecting sewage in city centres for fertilizer in large heaps was common practice too.

the government then looked at this and thought that this was never gonna be a good thing. people were dying and getting ill and this was not a great looking thing for the worlds most powerful nation. and all those damned european countries were being nice to their people now and had democracy and this made britain look bad. that and less people meant less taxes and less army. so things had to be done. and laws were changed. no child labour, employers were no responsible, and the first health and safety and environmental health laws came in. no more dumping stuff in the street either.

so what else did the government need to do? education. badly educated children were not good for the economy. so off to school they went. mothers needed care when they were unable to work. babies need extra money. a few other extra's.

alot of this was also out of self interest for the government. the labour movement and unions were gaining support and the working class were gaining the vote. appeasing them meant keeping in power.

but it saved lives. could be why we won the war. and was the foundations for modern britain.

and modern britain kept me alive and educated me.

[Madame Adequate]

communism can work. it did in israel.

I contest that it would work on a large scale (Under 7% of Israel's population was in a Kibbutzim.), moreover I don't care if it works well. It's wrong. As something of an aside, have you heard of the Westermarck Effect? It's fine in families, but could be very damaging in a communal society. I'll also note that Spiro and Bettelheim found people in Kibbutzim found it harder to bond closely to other people, though they found it easier to make a alrge number of loose friendships. Can you say 'Brave New World'?

once you start taking taxes then a boundary has been crossed. and it's a boundary that needs to be crossed.

I agree, that's what my support for the military and police force is about (Although their powers should be greatly limited.). But the boundary must only be crossed because of necessity and it must be crossed to the minimal possible degree.

lets examine when taxes paid for the government, army and nothing else. the industrial revolution period of the 19th century.

You mean the time when Europe rose from being another set of fueding monarchies into a democratic and first-rate continent?

it was a time of cholera. they streets and wells were filled with sewage. people were dying on an epedemic scale because noone cared about sewage. it wasn't the governments or councils job. and noone was going to pay for it out of the goodness of their heart. and the people most affected by it were too poor to pay anyone to do it. and alot of people died to the government saw sense and ended the madness and with the help of brunel built a sewer system that is the one we still use today. and noone is dying of cholera.

That is not a valid argument. Most people just weren't aware of the link between sanitation and disease. Nowadays you can ask any common Joe on the street and he'll be well aware that sewage systems exist for a reason. The Industrial revolution caused problems, yes, but it was the first real attempt at it we had. How can anyone expect it to be free of problems? Now we are aware that the government has a duty to protect people from coercion and exploitation.

in the end government intervention ended the cholera epidemic.

Epidemics and diseases (IE Disaster control) are another aspect of government which I support.

it was paid for out of acquired revenue but brought an idea forward of government intervention.

Which is a great shame. They should have done their part and stepped back.

then the country went to war (i can't remember if it was the boer or crimean war). and lots of the working class went to sign up. and were turned away. they weren't suitable, underweight, louse ridden, mal nourished with no intelligenced. the government was lacking in working class troops not because they didn't want to sign up but because they just weren't fit enough.

The Crimean would have been the one. At any rate, you're sincerely telling me the justification for socialism is war? Ok, well, if you can reconcile that with your stance against Iraq...

a country without an army would have been silly. so the government at the time had an idea. it was the foundations of the welfare state. sick pay and access to a doctor, injury pay, education, child labour laws, the end of the work houses, pensions etc. and the next war the country went into the great war. we won and had no lack of troops.

None of those are things I object to. I merely object to the government forcing me to have system 'X' for, say, pensions when I would prefer system 'Y', or no system at all for whatever reason. You just don't understand it; I am not much for contesting and arguing about which system is more effective (Though I make the case anyway because it's where most of the other side likes to fight.). I care about only the fact that it is wrong to steal.

other problems were in that time frame. housing. at the time when the people were flocking to the cities from the farms they were working in factories. working in factories was a bit like selling your soul. though it had been practiced before in the rural environment it has harsher in the cities. as a factory worker you basicly belonged to the factory owner. the food you bought was from him, the house you lived in was his, the water you drank was from his well (see above). and the easiest way to make money is too keep money.

An infringement on self-jurisdiction, thus illegal in any society worth discussing.

so the houses were . and i mean . single rooms for the whole family. no bed, no gas, no running water, no furniture, a single room. and not a big room either. no ventilation and no heat. food was horrible and often posinous (lead in the bread to make it weigh more was common as was adding dyes).

My answer for today's supposedly equivalent scenarios (Because, I don't know if you're aware, but the 19th century is not analogous to the 21st.): Don't breed until you can afford to sustain your children. And don't breed more than you can afford to sustain. Lead in the bread is a crime. No problem in getting the companies torn apart in any decent law system.

this of course was a bit of a problem since the government now realised that it's duty was to the people (especially if you need them to fight wars). and so they thought the slums needed to go. and after 1918 many did. "homes for heroes". they knocked down the slum housing and built council houses. fully gassed and with running water, heat, ventilation, windows, electricity. the full works. the plan was never fully completed due to an economic down turn and lack of materials for such a job. but it was the start.

And have you been to a council estate lately? Everywhere I've ever seen in Britain, 'council estate' is synonymous with 'pit of depression, drugs, and a lack of hope'.

on the topic of factories. working conmditions. working conditions were not great. many maimings, removal of body parts and injuries resulted. cotton mills ended up with people cutting hands stuck in places. children crawled around the back of the machines removing fluff and sometimes were crushed or raised their head at the wrong moment. but there was no law against it. fine to do what you wanted. such instances of people collecting sewage in city centres for fertilizer in large heaps was common practice too.

"but there was no law against it." And there's no need to discuss this further, because putting employees in dangerous situations is, oh, what's that word again? Oh yes, illegal.

the government then looked at this and thought that this was never gonna be a good thing. people were dying and getting ill and this was not a great looking thing for the worlds most powerful nation. and all those damned european countries were being nice to their people now and had democracy and this made britain look bad. that and less people meant less taxes and less army. so things had to be done. and laws were changed. no child labour, employers were no responsible, and the first health and safety and environmental health laws came in. no more dumping stuff in the street either.

And I don't have a problem with those laws. But they are merely an extension of law and order, not of social control espoused by most socialists.

so what else did the government need to do? education. badly educated children were not good for the economy. so off to school they went. mothers needed care when they were unable to work. babies need extra money. a few other extra's.

Yes, because we all know how well the public school system works. I hear almost universal complaints from Americans about theirs, and I am sure they are horrified to hear that in my experience Americans get a better education than British children do in the public school system. But both are horrifically flawed.

alot of this was also out of self interest for the government. the labour movement and unions were gaining support and the working class were gaining the vote. appeasing them meant keeping in power.

Hardly allows one to make claims of altruism. What would you say if the government used tax money to find and implement a cure for your disability, and then set off on an imperialist mission with you on the front lines?

but it saved lives. could be why we won the war. and was the foundations for modern britain.

Because modern Britain is such a wonderful place, free of social ills, with such shining examples of culture as the Tate Modern and Allison Lapper Pregnant.

and modern britain kept me alive and educated me.

Good for you. Modern Britain kept my father on his ass and didn't compel him with any kind of work ethic, and it put me through a largely useless system where I only learnt how to cheat and lie so that I didn't have to go through the same drudgery yet again. School taught me very little intentionally.

[Cloud No.9]

the below history lesson is about what happened when the laissez-faire idea was followed. and it sucked. it really did. people died and suffered. then the government saw that it was a crsp idea to start with and got rid of it and started the welfare state.

democracy is why europe is socialist. it's why it was done.

the disease thing..... there was an idea about where disease came from. miasma (bad smells). and it was on the right track. things that tend to carry disease do smell bad and rotten. and open sewers and crap on the street smell very bad. people thought at the time that was what was causing disease but couldn't be bothered doing anything. the discovery that cholera came from water is an interesting one which i shall share.

cholera was a huge problem and many people wanted to find out the cause. one doctor examined the causes and found that alot of people that had caught it came from one area that had one well. he then turned off the well (thinking that the diseasse was in the foul water) and that area got water from a cleaner source and the cases dropped. this was well before the government had employed brunel to do anything about it.

diease control costs money. and that cost is gonna come from you.

my justification for socialism is not war. it was in fact a historic point. not my view.

the government saw the people were starving and took from the rich to give to the poor. and it saved lives. or you can let the rich keep all their vast wealth and watch the poor die. that is the basic choice. and that was the choice the government saw at the time and took action on. the poor couldn't afford a pension, health care, insurance for sickness or injury. but it was needed. and it needed to be paid for.

i thought you were laissez-faire milf. in that system the factory system and bread would not be a crime. it would be sorted out by society. which didn't quite work as the 19th century shows. same with child labour and health and safety. laissez-faire allows it.

the statement of the liberals motives for the welfare state being motivated by the need to stay in government is not me saying it is a good thing. it's just history.

american education is worse than british. and especially scottish. i had an american friend of mine (exchange student) tell me that the maths she was doing was far more advanced than anything she had done (we are doing revision of logarithims right now). also the scottish system is far greater than the english. example. a higher is 3/4 of an a level course. but the higher course takes 1 year. the a level 2.

and what the hell is wrong with that statue?

[Madame Adequate]

i thought you were laissez-faire milf. in that system the factory system and bread would not be a crime. it would be sorted out by society. which didn't quite work as the 19th century shows. same with child labour and health and safety. laissez-faire allows it.

No, that's anarchy. I'm a supporter of minarchy, not anarchy. Although yes, I have at least enough faith in Humanity that we would boycott a company which sold bread filled with poisons. Again: The 19th century Industrial Revolution is not analogous to the 21st century, when we've had a good 150 years of this and we know where the problems lie.

american education is worse than british. and especially scottish. i had an american friend of mine (exchange student) tell me that the maths she was doing was far more advanced than anything she had done (we are doing revision of logarithims right now). also the scottish system is far greater than the english. example. a higher is 3/4 of an a level course. but the higher course takes 1 year. the a level 2.

I don't know about Scottish education, but I can assure you that American children of equivalent age to me were doing math at least as advanced, and usually more advanced, than I was. Having looked at what my friends are doing here (Not entirely representative, but still a fair spread of people.), my school for example didn't teach us a single thing about matrices until we reached year 12 (Ie A-level). In America, children in year 10 (9th grade) do matrices. Oh, and Britain has no honors system, and nothing to actually help the more intelligent students reach their potential. Finally, the US system has far moer emphasis on actually helping parents know where their children are. My friends have report cards with their grades something like every three or four weeks. I dunno about you, but in my school we got two or three per year.

Now, I know there are plenty of flaws in the US education system. There are flaws in any system which has an end result of a grade or qualification. Both systems are failing the majority of their students. But the American one is still hanging on to some semblance of sanity, whilst Britain considers 47% not just a pass, but an 'A'.

and what the hell is wrong with that statue?

I know, right? Next to Lord Nelson, Sir Napier, King George IV, and Henry Havelock, in a square surrounded by the National Gallery, Canada House, St. Martin's-In-The-Field church, Admirality Arch, with four mighty bronze lions sculpted (Or so rumor has it) from the cannon of the French fleet Nelson repelled, and bordering The Mall, The Strand, Whitehall, and Charing Cross Road, there is an armless, naked, pregnant woman. I have no qualms with the disabled. Or the naked. Or women. Or pregnancy. But she's hardly a hero of the Empire, now is she? Glad we agree on at least one thing. =)

[FFGuevara]

Oh god no i hate debating on the internet. And can someone change the title to Fascism/Capitalism vs Socailism/Communism? Since thats should be the correct title

[theundeadhero]

I'm not taking sides on this argument but I will point out that the US Army follows a basic Communistic standard. Individuals sacrafice for the greater good of the US Army.

[Madame Adequate]

Oh god no i hate debating on the internet. And can someone change the title to Fascism/Capitalism vs Socailism/Communism? Since thats should be the correct title

Then you should probably stop posting in EotW so much, seeing as every thread becomes a debate.

I'm not even touching your facism comment. Either you're trolling or you're too far from reality to see sense. I'll just wait for Cloud.

[FFGuevara]

Fascism has alot more simularities to Capitailism then you think. Take away profit and semi democracy and add Racial glorification and Totalitarianism and you have Fascism.

[ShunNakamura]

Hmmm... A day in Public School-

I go into english class. My teacher begins debates on why Richard Cory died in the end. We debate for 45 minutes using what evidence is available till the bell rings.

I go into Psychology class. The teacher begins class discusion on certian mental illnesses that we recieved notes on the day before. He gives examples of people and we must diagnose them and give support as to why. Afterall he ain't so nice to give us clear cut cases.

I go into Physics class. And immediately start a lab. The class was 90% labs. Shooting off rockets to get trajectory and then hitting targets with calculations. Without calcs it doesn't count. And many others.

I go to Wester Civilization class. We spend entire class periods discusing different causes and effects of certian events.

I go to Senior Government. Entire class is spent learning about the upcoming election and what each canidate as to offer and then debating issues. Or we spend the class period trying to come up with a better way of handling public school funding. We also had a 3+ page paper due aweek on american politics etc.

And that doesn't even begin to explain the rest of the classes.

But as a final stab. In college advanced math what we are being taught I learned in 9th and 10th grade. In english we are being taught what I learned in HS. The papers are easier to score high on as well. An A here wouldn't have gotten me an A at my school(then again the teachers did believe if a student was good that they should be graded on a harsher scale. Basically they expected more then a piss ant effort from me. And they could recognize it when I did give them such an effort).


Anyways I don't care for it when Public schools are bashed. The teachers that are in the schools are sometimes the problem. We out perform the Private schools here cause we got the better teachers. The school with the better teachers(and staff) performs better, not whether or not it is private or public.

[Cloud No.9]

milf britain does have an honours system. it's the 4th year of university. 3 years is yhour desginated degree. 4th year is your honours year. and 5th year is your masters year.

and that statue has every right to be there.

[Madame Adequate]

milf britain does have an honours system. it's the 4th year of university. 3 years is yhour desginated degree. 4th year is your honours year. and 5th year is your masters year.

and that statue has every right to be there.

Right, because the very last year of university (Which people might not go to for the very reason that they don't get recognized or challenged.) compensates for a decade and a half of not being given a single piece of recognition or pushed to the actual limits of one's intelligence. :rolleyes2

Also; I'm not going to consider anything you ever say on culture, anywhere, ever.

[Cloud No.9]

university's entire job is to challenge. it takes the top 10% of the population and then extracts from that the best. and education can challenge. advanced higher physics wasn't really a breeze. rotational motion is not a walk in the park, neither is AI in advanced higher, matrices in maths aren't on my fun list either.

and that statue happens to be there because it stands for everything that this country is. they very thing that the men in the statues and buildings surrounding it fought for. it's about invidiuality and the right to be respected and found as a person no matter what your state.