Quote :

"this thread is just for fun and discussion. without a doubt, fucking retarded"

10/16/2006 7:32:55 PM

Well, the good thing is that Kris thinks we will progress to more efficient systems in the future, and I tend to agree with him. The part we disagree on is that he thinks communism is a more efficient economic system than capitalism (or any other economic system, if I read him correctly).

He is horribly wrong on this point, and as long as we think we will progress towards efficiency, I have nothing to fear from communists.

10/16/2006 7:51:52 PM

Lately I have been ashame of this country and it's endeavors. Our government makes us look ridiculous to the rest of the globe. And we vote for these people to take office. So we, advertently make ourselves look ridiculous to the rest of the globe.

10/16/2006 8:24:43 PM

Earl I wish you'd just shut the fuck up.

10/16/2006 8:25:18 PM

Quote :

"One thing we can see the human race doing throughout time is becoming more efficent, this is why I believe we will become communist. I don't "want" communism, it'll happen regardless of what any of us want or do."

haha

by what measure is communism more efficient that capitalism?

and as far as this Global Communist Destiny that you contend is inevitable, I have to ask...what is the track record to date? I haven't seen communism exactly whooping it on capitalism.

10/16/2006 10:31:54 PM

What are some other outdated ideologies from the progressive era that we can make threads about?

10/16/2006 10:33:48 PM

Quote :

"I've been saying the same thing for 5 or so years now."

He's not kidding. Even though Kris and I disagree at our cores on pretty much everything, I have to give it to him that he' is tenacious.

Through my Star Spangled eyes, his theory amounts to basically sucking the souls out of humans- erasing any love of liberty and hope to advance your station in life. The cowering, ignorant, souless lump of breathing flesh that would remain would quite probably see communism as a pretty good bet.

10/16/2006 10:34:32 PM

that's kinda what i meant by:

Quote :

"and what's the point of having a bunch of people confined to a boring, vanilla, middle of the road existance?"

10/16/2006 10:56:38 PM

Quote :

"Through my Star Spangled eyes, his theory amounts to basically sucking the souls out of humans- erasing any love of liberty and hope to advance your station in life. The cowering, ignorant, souless lump of breathing flesh that would remain would quite probably see communism as a pretty good bet."

Excellent quote, fellow lover of liberty.

10/16/2006 11:03:09 PM

Quote :

"The part we disagree on is that he thinks communism is a more efficient economic system than capitalism (or any other economic system, if I read him correctly)."

I don't know if it is the most efficient, but I think it's better than capitalism. I'd think even you would have to agree with me on this, there's got to be something better than capitalism. It does have some serious flaws. I mean you've got the whole instability thing, the slow reaction to market changes, the waste in inappropriately responding to market changes, the lack of economic foresight, the inability to take full advantage of economies of scale, inefficiency due to competition, inability to account for externalities, I could continue on, but I'm sure you know all these problems as well.

Quote :

"by what measure is communism more efficient that capitalism?"

It handles all the problems I listed above. On the downside, it requires a huge investment, a huge deal of knowledge and technology, and it's extremely difficult to get the level of precision neccesary to properly implement it, and if this is missed, the system will possibly fail.

Quote :

"and as far as this Global Communist Destiny that you contend is inevitable, I have to ask...what is the track record to date?"

Socialism grows worldwide slowly, I think Keynes made a huge step forward in this, but to be honest, it is extremely slow, and we see ups and downs, but this isn't much different from democracy's youth.

Quote :

"Through my Star Spangled eyes, his theory amounts to basically sucking the souls out of humans- erasing any love of liberty and hope to advance your station in life. The cowering, ignorant, souless lump of breathing flesh that would remain would quite probably see communism as a pretty good bet."

And I'll give you this, uf I could see whatever this little thing inside us that you value so highly, I'd probably want to keep it free and strong as well.

10/16/2006 11:05:10 PM

YOU'RE A GREAT AMERICAN, RANDY

10/16/2006 11:05:17 PM

you're just trolling again.

back to the topic at hand. Communism is best defined as:

Quote :

"Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a future classless, stateless social organization, based upon common ownership of the means of production"

The US Constitution protects individual rights to property, fundamentally contradicting Communism. There is no way it could fit in our Constitution.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.- Thomas Jefferson

10/16/2006 11:17:21 PM

Quote :

"Socialism grows worldwide slowly"

yeah...most democratic, capitalist countries seem to slide towards socialism...but few go all the way to it. a good number of no kidding dirty-commie countries have either transitioned to or are making headway towards the capitalist model.

Quote :

" There is no way it could fit in our Constitution."

haha, that doesn't have jack shit to do with anything.

[Edited on October 16, 2006 at 11:19 PM. Reason : asdfasd]

10/16/2006 11:17:41 PM

in the simplest terms, that is the biggest reason why communism and the united states are incompatible.

10/16/2006 11:20:37 PM

i'm just saying that something being incompatible with our Constitution doesn't mean much in practical terms.

10/16/2006 11:22:12 PM

Quote :

"On the downside, it requires a huge investment, a huge deal of knowledge and technology, and it's extremely difficult to get the level of precision neccesary to properly implement it, and if this is missed, the system will possibly fail."

So, you propose that we try and take this really tricky and hard to balance system that can be easily influenced by one or two corrupt leaders and implement it large scale; Instead of using another system that works arguably better and requires little to no oversight or technology. yyyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhh......[/Office Space]

10/16/2006 11:25:16 PM

and the whole point of the system in question is to make us all not particularly well off, with no room to better our situations, and to confine us all to our simple needs?

yeah, sounds like one helluva good time to me.

10/16/2006 11:29:49 PM

Quote :

"The US Constitution protects individual rights to property, fundamentally contradicting Communism. There is no way it could fit in our Constitution."

Wrong, re-read the constitution, you need to give only just compensation.

Quote :

"yeah...most democratic, capitalist countries seem to slide towards socialism...but few go all the way to it"

Who's to say they won't go further?

Quote :

"a good number of no kidding dirty-commie countries have either transitioned to or are making headway towards the capitalist model"

I guess you're talking about china, which I'd describe as taking 3 left turns because they can't take a right

Quote :

"So, you propose that we try and take this really tricky and hard to balance system that can be easily influenced by one or two corrupt leaders and implement it large scale; Instead of using another system that works arguably better and requires little to no oversight or technology."

Imagine purposing an airplane to someone a few hundred years ago. He'd respond with "You think we should make this dangerous and extremely hard to make vehicle, which could easily kill everyone in it and a few below it if the slightest thing goes wrong just because it can go a little faster than the vehicles we already have?" And surely you would be able to see his point, it does cost a lot of money, is extremely complicated and dangerous, and even quite silly, to go off the ground only to save a few hours. But we do know it works better, and I think you can see why.

10/16/2006 11:30:49 PM

at least the stated purpose of an airplane isn't to suck donkey dick, though

a better analogy for communism is when someone says "MAN, THIS SMELLS LIKE SHIT...CHECK IT OUT, MAN. TAKE A WHIFF."

[Edited on October 16, 2006 at 11:34 PM. Reason : asdafsdafd]

10/16/2006 11:34:33 PM

to answer the thread, no.

10/16/2006 11:35:40 PM

yeah, except an airplane can get you somewhere a heck of a lot faster than a mule could any day. And the fine-tuning of an aircraft is not particularly difficult. Flight was safely achieved with little more technology than wood, string, and canvas. whereas communism shows NO appreciable gains to capitalism.

actually, the analogy would be more apt like this:
we currently have airplanes. you propose we switch to donkeys.

[Edited on October 16, 2006 at 11:40 PM. Reason : ]

10/16/2006 11:39:34 PM

Quote :

"at least the stated purpose of an airplane isn't to suck donkey dick"

Communism works better, it doesn't have the problems I mentioned above, it's more efficent, it handles resources better. That is the ultimate purpose of economics, and this is a step up.

Quote :

"Flight was safely achieved with little more technology than wood, string, and canvas"

It wasn't really effective at that point. I mean if you wanted to get down that hill in Kitty Hawk, it would have been much easier to walk down it than to build a makeshift plane. And I understand how people like you lack the foresight to see the ultimate benefits of this system, much like how early americans would have had trouble seeing the ultimate benefits of a plane or a computer.

10/16/2006 11:43:09 PM

I think the reason we "fail to see the benefits" is because there are no benefits. we look around us at all of these failed communist regimes, and it's hard to see any benefits. NK, USSR, eastern Europe, hell, even China. The only reason China is thriving right now is because it adopted capitalist practices.

It's hard for me to see a system as "efficient" when I have to wait in line three weeks to get a roll of toilet paper.

10/16/2006 11:46:18 PM

Quote :

"I think the reason we "fail to see the benefits" is because there are no benefits."

yeah, in practice, there have been few advantages to communism.

in theory, there would be some advantages...but nowhere near enough, in my mind, to make it even worth considering...and that's even if it worked perfectly.

10/16/2006 11:50:43 PM

Quote :

"we look around us at all of these failed communist regimes, and it's hard to see any benefits"

The Romans fell, does that imply democracy is a bad idea?

Quote :

"It's hard for me to see a system as "efficient" when I have to wait in line three weeks to get a roll of toilet paper."

That's not really the same thing as what I'm talking about, and I have a feeling you don't have a chance of getting it no matter how much explaining I do.

Quote :

"there would be some advantages"

There would be some huge advantages, if you irradicated all the waste due to inefficencies in capitalism, the gains would be HUGE.

10/16/2006 11:56:53 PM

Kris is dedicated to the idea that one day whole generations of people will be willing to wait in the toilet paper lines, blissfully certain that one day their descendants will live in utopia.

Quote :

"The Romans fell, does that imply democracy is a bad idea?"

No, but Empire and plutocratic republics are.

[Edited on October 16, 2006 at 11:58 PM. Reason : ]

10/16/2006 11:57:32 PM

There are no toilet paper lines, you guys are still missing it, if there were toilet paper lines, then it isn't communism and it wouldn't be right.

Quote :

"No, but Empire"

Was empire all that bad? Certainly there's no place for it now, but didn't it get us here in the US were we are today? Would Rome have been what it was without being able to draw the resources off of a consolidated empire?

Quote :

"plutocratic republics are."

And it took trail and error to figure this out.

10/17/2006 12:04:55 AM

Quote :

"Places like the early western united states, or certain parts of modern day africa exist in a state similar. I'd say my favorite example of capitalism is under pinocet "

Right, because it is a fundamental tenet of liberty to have armed government thugs kidnap and murder innocent people at random. Or, we could stop mixing up ideologies. Pinochet was a corrupt murderous dictator which crushed the political liberty of his people (not that they ever had any to crush). But it is sensible for Pinocet to be your favorite, since all your favorite people have huge death tolls, the higher the better because it means they tried harder to impliment communism, right?

It pisses me off that me and Kris have been conversing for years and he still doesn't understand that economic liberty does not equal anarchy. Our founding fathers: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Locke, etc, would have laughed if you suggested eliminating the police department. Or, at least, they would quickly suggest to any society going without to quickly invent a police department. There is no economic liberty without a government to secure it for you, otherwise you have chaos (hence why it is called anarchy).

This is also why throughout the late 19th century, which you would call the heyday of capitalism, the Anarchists were a militant force to deal with: capitalism != anarchy. Just as communism != police state.

Quote :

"but didn't it get us here in the US were we are today?"

No, economic liberty got us all we have. An "American Empire" would only distract the American People (as it distracted the British) from the true objectives of capitalism: increasing efficiency and fulfilling human desires (in other words, maximizing profits and satisfying customers). If you don't remember, most Americans came here for purely self interested reasons (cheap land and plentiful resources), it was only later that England decided to take the effort of individuals and direct it towards wasteful political ends (Empire). Well, not entirely wasteful, the British Navy did become the de-facto police force of the sea, satisfying a necessary tenet of laze-fair capitalism: understandable and enforced laws to protect individuals and their property.

[Edited on October 17, 2006 at 12:14 AM. Reason : ^]

10/17/2006 12:05:54 AM

Quote :

"Right, because it is a fundamental tenet of liberty to have armed government thugs kidnap and murder innocent people at random. Or, we could stop mixing up ideologies."

Oh Pinochet was a capitalist, read up on his policies, there's a reason I picked him.

Quote :

"Pinochet was a corrupt murderous dictator which crushed the political liberty of his people (not that they ever had any to crush)"

And I'd say the same thing about stalin.

Quote :

"Our founding fathers: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Locke, etc, would have laughed if you suggested eliminating the police department."

Those aren't the US's founding fathers, or anyone else's. But I'm not suggesting eliminating the police department, just privatizing it.

Quote :

"Or, at least, they would quickly suggest to any society going without to quickly invent a police department."

But all it would take is a concentration of wealth to outgun or buy that police department and take advantage of the people. The reason you have to have a government is because it provides stability, whereas capitalism is by nature instable and self-defeating.

Quote :

"No, economic liberty got us all we have."

So economic liberty forced the native people off their land and took the land from mexico? There was a time where America did function as an empire.

[Edited on October 17, 2006 at 12:13 AM. Reason : ]

10/17/2006 12:12:37 AM

Quote :

"That's not really the same thing as what I'm talking about,"

how can there be any room to argue? If the system can't deliver something as simple as TOILET-FREAKING-PAPER, how can we expect it to be effecient enough to deliver something that is actually important? There's no "explaining" to it. Right now, I've got more toilet paper than I could ever want. Under communism, I can't find any. I can't even find sandpaper. There is no wiggle room.

In theory, communism works? Sure, if in this theory you remove everything that makes communism fail, yeah, it'll work. By the same token, perpetual motion is possible, if we remove friction and the laws of thermodynamics.

10/17/2006 12:13:15 AM

lol this thread has gone over even my head, ive created a monster.

10/17/2006 12:20:07 AM

^^You're not even trying to get it. There's no point in me typing if you don't even read it.

[Edited on October 17, 2006 at 12:20 AM. Reason : ]

10/17/2006 12:20:25 AM

i cannot get what cannot be gotten.

10/17/2006 12:24:25 AM

Probably happens a lot for you.

10/17/2006 12:27:02 AM

actually it happens for everyone. no one can get what cannot be gotten.

10/17/2006 12:28:30 AM

Quote :

"But I'm not suggesting eliminating the police department, just privatizing it."

I thought you were a communist? You seriously want to privatise the police department?

Quote :

"But all it would take is a concentration of wealth to outgun or buy that police department and take advantage of the people."

Then the government didn't buy enough guns. They were cheap, I bet a dozen manufacturers lined up to supply them, what was the problem? Too many anarchists in the White House?

A "Government" can never be conquered by a corporation, that is silly. It can be co-opted, at which point it is no longer a capitalist country but has become a corporatist country. This is why many true capitalists fear democratic government, it is too easily co-opted by special interests (I suspect communists have the same fears).

Quote :

"So economic liberty forced the native people off their land and took the land from mexico? There was a time where America did function as an empire."

No, there was a time when America failed as an capitalist state. Specifically, is failed to arrest and punish those guilty of force or fraud. No bid deal, no capitalist state has ever existed and will probably never exist (people are imperfect creatures, so their governments will always be imperfect). But it didn't always fail, perhaps a majority of the time land was purchased freely from the native Americans (usually in exchange for guns and other metal wares the natives were incapable of producing themselves).

10/17/2006 12:28:52 AM

Quote :

"I thought you were a communist? You seriously want to privatise the police department?"

In my little "explain to you why this doesn't work" example.

Quote :

"Then the government didn't buy enough guns. They were cheap, I bet a dozen manufacturers lined up to supply them, what was the problem?"

It was a small island, they couldn't out spend the richest guy.

Quote :

"A "Government" can never be conquered by a corporation, that is silly."

It tends to be criminal organizations, why would they need to abide by the government's laws if they were more powerful than it. This has happened in africa a number of times.

Quote :

"No, there was a time when America failed as an capitalist state. Specifically, is failed to arrest and punish those guilty of force or fraud."

It was an empire.

10/17/2006 12:34:36 AM

Quote :

"It was a small island, they couldn't out spend the richest guy."

Then they should have raised taxes. This isn't a complicated problem. Or perhaps we should ask why he wants to overthrow a capitalist government which isn't corrupt (like your African examples). If it is his wish to grant himself monopolies and use the government to fleece his neighbors, then doesn't he need to overpower not just the government but the entire gun owning population of the island (which includes all the other rich people)? To do that, doesn't he need to outnumber them? Since he doesn't, wouldn't such actions be suicidal?

Quote :

"It tends to be criminal organizations, why would they need to abide by the government's laws if they were more powerful than it. This has happened in africa a number of times."

No it hasn't. Not a one of those governments could even be described as corporatist; they were all either socialist, fascist, tribalist, or totalitarian when they were overthrown by rebel movements. There is a real question whether or not a capitalist government is capable of engendering rebel movements.

10/17/2006 12:44:57 AM

Quote :

"f it is his wish to grant himself monopolies and use the government to fleece his neighbors, then doesn't he need to overpower not just the government but the entire gun owning population of the island (which includes all the other rich people)? To do that, doesn't he need to outnumber them? Since he doesn't, wouldn't such actions be suicidal?"

He could just pay off more than half, and have them kill the others. The idea here is the problem that wealth inequality causes. But this is just one part of that problem.

Quote :

"Not a one of those governments could even be described as corporatist; they were all either socialist, fascist, tribalist, or totalitarian when they were overthrown by rebel movements."

Socialism is an economic system, not a political one. Most likely these governments were capitalist with some other political system.

10/17/2006 12:53:01 AM

Quote :

"He could just pay off more than half, and have them kill the others."

My God, to imply that others could be bought into committing un-provoked murder of strangers implies that you are capable of such a sale.

I don't know about you, but the odds of success are small (your army will promise to kill others, take your money, and turn you into the police), the rewards are small (in exchange for liberty your supporters earn slavery under you), so I do not suspect most people could ever be convinced to risk death on such a transaction... Maybe you would be willing, since you seem to think a majority of others would.

Not to mention, the largest monopoly ever formed in the corporatist world (where monopolies are a given) controlled less than 1% of GDP and was shared among thousands of owners, not a lot of power to throw around.

Quote :

"Most likely these governments were capitalist with some other political system."

We have history books to tell us what they were, we don't have to "Most likely" anything. Most engaged in extensive government ownership of the means of production (socialism), strictly planned private sectors (fascism) and directed all available economic might towards making political supporters rich in an effort to maintain tribal supremecy (tribalism). The form of government was usually corrupt dictatorship, the economic system was a usually a mixture of socalism, fascism, and tribalism.

10/17/2006 1:26:37 AM

Quote :

"I'd think even you would have to agree with me on this, there's got to be something better than capitalism. It does have some serious flaws. I mean you've got the whole instability thing, the slow reaction to market changes, the waste in inappropriately responding to market changes, the lack of economic foresight, the inability to take full advantage of economies of scale, inefficiency due to competition, inability to account for externalities, I could continue on, but I'm sure you know all these problems as well."

These are absolutely NOT solved by communism. In fact, as I read most of the list, I thought you were listing the problems with communism.

Instability thing - It is more instable, economically than communism. That's true. I don't necessarily see this as a flaw. I'm not a big fan of the status quo anyhow.

Slow reacton to market changes - Eliminating the market doesn't make it more efficient. It just makes it impossible to see the inefficiencies,

The waste in responding to market inefficiencies - This is a flaw of communism. You see, you get a bunch of people in a room that don't have complete information about people's preferences and try to plan for them. It doesn't work. This is why you have to resolve to eliminating preferences altogether. I will slit your throat before I let you turn humanity into a machine that has its preferences chosen for it by the government.

Lack of economic foresight - And who, praytell has enough economic foresight to beat the market? Bernanke?

Inability to take advantage of economies of scale - This isn't a failure of capitalism. This is where natural monopolies exist.

Inefficiency due to competition - WTF?

Inability to account for externalities - You're correct in this. I mean, theoretically you can account for externalities by yourself, but it is difficult. This is where most of us favor a bit of government control. Whether it be emissions laws, etc. or permit trading systems, most of us don't mind helping regulate externalities.



One thing I seriously don't get about your viewpoint is that you're in here constantly saying that market power is like the fatal flaw of capitalism. Yet your answer to fixing capitalism is to do away with competition altogether and give all the market power to one firm (i.e. the government). Do you not see the ridiculous inconsistency of that stance?

10/17/2006 7:13:14 AM

I didn't read any of the posts but I'll just say that for communism to work your leaders have to be honest and they can't be corrupt, so no.

10/17/2006 7:44:46 AM

I think we're forgetting here that the "poverty line" here in america is approximately equal to the standard of living for the middle class in communist states.

but good try, buddy.

10/17/2006 8:05:47 AM

except for health care of course

but still: this would not work.

10/17/2006 8:28:48 AM

Quote :

"My God, to imply that others could be bought into committing un-provoked murder of strangers implies that you are capable of such a sale."

All one would have to do is call them police and should any of those gun owners try to stop you, your police would stop them.

Quote :

"I don't know about you, but the odds of success are small (your army will promise to kill others, take your money, and turn you into the police), the rewards are small (in exchange for liberty your supporters earn slavery under you), so I do not suspect most people could ever be convinced to risk death on such a transaction... Maybe you would be willing, since you seem to think a majority of others would."

This situation has played out in africa several times.

Quote :

"We have history books to tell us what they were, we don't have to "Most likely" anything."

Well if you want to point out what they are/were or were we can find it, we wouldn't have to guess, but I'll still be willing to bet they were capitalist.

Quote :

"The form of government was usually corrupt dictatorship, the economic system was a usually a mixture of socalism, fascism, and tribalism."

Facism is a political idealogy, tribalism is a social idealogy, socialism is an economic system. You still need to learn the difference between these.

---------------------------------------

Quote :

"These are absolutely NOT solved by communism."

SUre they are.

Quote :

"Instability thing - It is more instable, economically than communism. That's true. I don't necessarily see this as a flaw."

Why isn't it? During the periods of rise and fall you have inefficiency.

Quote :

"The waste in responding to market inefficiencies - This is a flaw of communism. You see, you get a bunch of people in a room that don't have complete information about people's preferences and try to plan for them."

Yes they do. People's preferences have already been conditioned. It is known what they need, and how much of it they need.

Quote :

"I will slit your throat before I let you turn humanity into a machine that has its preferences chosen for it by the government."

Whys this such a bad thing? Humanity already has it's preferences chosen for them, they just have it done chaotically. All communism seeks to do is control and refine the environment that creates these.

Quote :

"Lack of economic foresight - And who, praytell has enough economic foresight to beat the market?"

I was refering specifically to the non-zero sum game trees in capitalism where a less optimal choice for all is made when multiple parties only have their own interest in mind. But communism's foresight is described in the post above.

Quote :

"Inability to take advantage of economies of scale - This isn't a failure of capitalism. This is where natural monopolies exist."

Economies of scale exist in most markets, not just the ones with a natural monopoly. For example, if CarCo was the only company that made cars, they could produce more cars for less money, however, due to the demand curve involved, they won't do this if left to their own devices.

Quote :

"One thing I seriously don't get about your viewpoint is that you're in here constantly saying that market power is like the fatal flaw of capitalism. Yet your answer to fixing capitalism is to do away with competition altogether and give all the market power to one firm (i.e. the government). Do you not see the ridiculous inconsistency of that stance?"

My problem with market power isn't the number of firms involved, I don't really care about that, what I take issue with is that it causes supply to meet demand somewhere other than optimal equilibrium. The government, however doesn't work in the same way. It will not neccesarily chose the price best for it, it is possible for it to chose the price that is best for everyone, not neccesarily to one that is just best for it. In addition, capitalism must have competition, however the entities involved seek to destroy it, and thanks to economies of scale and market power, they can.

Quote :

"I think we're forgetting here that the "poverty line" here in america is approximately equal to the standard of living for the middle class in communist states."

The poverty line here in america is approximately equal to the standard of living for the middle class in a lot of other countries regardless of their economic system.

10/17/2006 10:02:49 AM

^this thread doesn't require that kind of effort.

10/17/2006 10:10:19 AM

It's difficult for me to answer bigum's questions without being verbose.

10/17/2006 10:18:17 AM

Kris, I think our two main misunderstandings are as follows:
1) You find capitalism to be inefficient enough to warrant its elimination. I find it to be not only less inefficient than you do, I find it to be the least inefficient economic system

2) You think people can be conditioned not to want. I think that it is impossible to condition people not to have preferences. Look, do you really think you can condition a human not to prefer one color over another? Because even if we all have the same car, will we all have the same color car as well? In order to make this work, you would have to eliminate all forms of preference from human beings, a feat I call improbable if not impossible. You say you can do it through changes in policy and the use of propaganda, I say you cannot feasibly do so. The only way in which you can do this is to preprogram people to do it from birth over many generations (like in The Giver, 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, Farenheit 451, etc.) And it is not a coincidence that in each one of those books, the transformation failed in some way. I also think that even if it would be possible, it would not be desirable. I know you don't feel that you're suggesting a world reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange, but I think the imagery associated with the concept is the same. Humans without preferences are indeed clockwork oranges.

I guess there is room for disagreement on whether capitalism is sufficiently inefficient to warrant its replacement and also to whether a world without wants and preferences is desirable.

__

Every thread in the Soap Box deserves the kind of verbage that Kris, Loneshark, and others gives it. I wish we could all debate in this manner.

10/17/2006 11:04:34 AM

All you have to do is read these two sentences and you know that Kris has no idea what he's talking about and therefore can be left alone to be insane and believe that communism is better than capitalism.

Quote :

"I don't know if it is the most efficient, but I think it's better than capitalism. I'd think even you would have to agree with me on this, there's got to be something better than capitalism. It does have some serious flaws. I mean you've got the whole instability thing, the slow reaction to market changes, the waste in inappropriately responding to market changes, the lack of economic foresight, the inability to take full advantage of economies of scale, inefficiency due to competition, inability to account for externalities, I could continue on, but I'm sure you know all these problems as well."

At first, I thought he said that communism had these problems. I read on to his following responses and it's pretty clear that he means that capitalism has these problems. If he truly believes that, he is absolutely ignorant and doens't realize that government interference causes these inefficiencies that exist in capitalism... in other words, the more socialist a government gets, the more more inefficient the economic system becomes. (wrote this before I read bgmimms comments above... essentially the same thing)

Quote :

"There would be some huge advantages, if you irradicated all the waste due to inefficencies in capitalism, the gains would be HUGE."

Have you never seen a simple supply and demand curve and shown what happens when governments introduce socialist policies? Waste is created by interference.

BTW, bgmimms:

Quote :

"Slow reacton to market changes - Eliminating the market doesn't make it more efficient. It just makes it impossible to see the inefficiencies"

EXCELLENT observation...

[Edited on October 17, 2006 at 12:02 PM. Reason : bgmimms stuff]

10/17/2006 11:57:08 AM

Quote :

"Facism is a political idealogy, tribalism is a social idealogy, socialism is an economic system. You still need to learn the difference between these."

Actually no. Fascism is a real economic system, it describes an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned but state directed. Specifically, factory owners manage production and their work-force but are required to sell/buy their trades to state chosen firms at the state determined price. This is how Germany and America planned their economies during WW2 without nationalizing the means of production. This is not capitalism, it is not communism, so we use another word for it: fascism. Fascism the political system merely describes a one-party system, identical to the Soviet Union's one-party communist system. The only difference between the two is the economic system and what they did with it (Germany almost conquered the world and exterminated a race, USSR almost produced enough toilet paper).

Quote :

"Well if you want to point out what they are/were or were we can find it, we wouldn't have to guess, but I'll still be willing to bet they were capitalist."

You realize that "capitalist" describes an economy in which the police act to punish force or fraud regardless of the aggressor? I have never heard of such an African economy outside South Africa before apartheid. Most African states have been government fleecing operations, stealling as much as they can from the citizenry and giving it to the preferred ethnic community. Not to mention this was during the mid century when capitalism was discredited intellectually so every nation that didn't have constitutional restrictions (not a problem in a dictatorship) had nationalized the key sources of foreign exchange. I suspect many were corporatist in the beginning, thanks to colonialism, but transitioned to "other", hence why many African states have lower per-capita incomes today than they did at the end of colonialism (corporatism works better than socialism/fascism/tribalism).

^ Not to side with Kris, but the inefficiency he is obsessing about is real, it is only by the existance of capitalism that we have street corners with two to three gas stations. In a government planned economy (communism, socialism, fascism) there would only be one gas station, hence society spent 1/3rd as much on construction and man-power and could use 2/3rd the land for something else.

What he fails to recognize it that this "payment" (we build 2 to 3 times more gas stations than we need) buys information and honesty, both far more valuable than the steel, congrete, and effort it took to build this redundancy. For this hefty price we can find out how much the gasoline really costs and it makes producers charge this price.

[Edited on October 17, 2006 at 12:25 PM. Reason : ^]

10/17/2006 12:17:31 PM