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[Solomon Grundy]

Just what do you think of Communism. Personally, I think it is a very good way to run a government if you apply it right. Everyone basically making the same amount of money, it probably fluctuating from job to job based on the importance of it. I could see myself living under a government that followed Communism to it's purest form. None of that applied communism shit Lenin and Stalin spouted. Pure Communism is the stuff that was coming from Karl Marx, or just Marxism.

[InternetIsSeriousBusiness]

Even if a communist government starts out stong, it will always currupt in the end.

[Innovation]

Do you not believe that one should be able to choose whom to hire, whom to buy from, whom to sell to, and whom to work for? Let's not take individual and economic freedom for granted. It's entirely a misconception that communism is a form of government. Karl Marx described an economic system in which resources would be distributed "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Essentially, it is a system in which there is no incentive to work, as there is no reward for working harder than another. Communism proves to be flawed terribly, even theoretically. Notwithstanding, there have been a number of attempts to implement such a system, each time failing. The only way to ensure communism is via a totalitarian government, thereby forfeiting any way to keep the government in check, and thus communism is not actually ensured. Collectivism is inherently bad. Take China for instance. What was originally idealized by Mao Tse-tung has now become an abusive, unmanaged government. There is no longer even a trace of its communist roots, and its human rights records are horrendous. There are plenty of other examples as well, including North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and Argentina. The "angel" that will organize a communist society for us does not exist.

If these topics interest you, I suggest you read Free to Choose by Milton Friedman and/or The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek, both being very interesting and fundamentally philosophical in nature.

[Radiation]

Actually, Communism is a very interesting idea. Like already stated, it does not work in large scale. But on the other hand, in my opinion, it works actually pretty darn well in small scale. For example, your family is a communistic organization. Every child is equal. Am I not right? Parents love the children all equally, buy things for them, tell them what food at home they should eat, I mean, you name the next one...

[ipivb]

From what I understand of communism, it is the large-scale idea of robin hood's "steal from the rich, give to the poor". Not everyone can be in the middle class. Not everyone can be in the working class, and not everyone can be in the upper class.
Capitalism is based on the idea of freedom. You are free to start your own business, and take as much profit as you see fit.

It is pointless to give away money to the poor. They are poor either because of their lack of work, their parents lack of work, or rarely, because of bad luck. If it is wrong for someone to be poor and have less opportunity just because their parents were poor... does that mean it is also wrong for someone to inherit wealth from the their rich parents?

IF I were rich and decided to have children, I would probably want them to inherit my wealth. If I end up poor and have children (BAD mistake), then I am sorry for them but I don't expect other people to just give them money because they were unfortunate.

If poor people would stop having so much children, then poverty and unemployment would not be so widespread. We have more people than we have jobs for... because too many people are popping out children on minimum wage.

[Geri]

Communism wasn't meant for the consumer society where everyone just want to keep buying better stuff than his/her neighbours. Capitalism is offering freedom but it is also a downward spiral in economy because of the steadily growing inflation which is unavoidable due to the currency system. To slow down the sinking, both the people and the government are piling up debt upon debt until the whole country is crashing under the weight and then they become "less capitalist" for a while. This happens in every major crisis, the government with the taxpayers' money is funding companies to avoid going bankrupt and they take control over economy. This is a fact, it is happening all the time, it is happened even now in the USA. Capitalism is the system of slow but steady failure on a very large scale. You don't notice it in years, maybe not even in decades because you don't see that your country is deeper and deeper debt with every generation. If you look at the numbers however, it becomes clear.

Communism on the other side is dictatoric. They plan what they need and you will do that, regardless that you want it or not. It is ideal to build up an independent, secluded country which is able to maintain it's economy and keep the balance. In a well managed communist country, there is no unemployment (if you don't have a job, you are forced to work) but there aren't ridiculously rich people either. Regardless of what you heard, there are classes in communism too. Obviously, a lawyer will earn more than a simple worker but the difference between them is not so huge as in capitalism. It allows you to live a simple but relatively secure life (as long as you do what they want).


If you want to model it in small, capitalism is the same as the average credit card user. If you don't have money, you just borrow some and pay it back later. Always just make sure that the bad things will happen later and not now. At the end, you can easily find yourself in a situation where you loose your house, your car, everything you have purchased and you have nothing. But hey it was fun while it's lasted.

And communism is (as itapa) said is like a family. You have your "parents", you get some fix allowance and you cannot go bankrupt that easily. In turn of course you have to do what your parents are saying.

Obviously, none of the systems are working.

Communism would be possible if humans would not be greedy (like all of them would be faithful Buddhists), but that is not the case. Thus equality will not exist.

Capitalism will allow you to do whatever you want as long as you have money and if you don't have it, you are worthless and you can go to the grinder. Probably one of the biggest problems are the companies and the lack of serious punishment for serious crimes. For example if you just drop nuclear waste in the middle of a playground and 1000 kids will die because of that, they will not execute those who has made this decision and managed the whole operation, even though they are killers. Maybe they will arrest a few leaders but more likely they just have to pay some fine. Oh my, who cares. After all the whole thing is about committing crimes to have higher income than the fine that you will have to pay for it. (In a hard communist country, you would be executed even for small things, like not reaching the desired productivity with your company so you have to put yourself together.)

So capitalism could work, but it should be more strict. As it is now, it is useless. First because companies have mostly unlimited power and secondly because people doesn't realize that companies are worthless without them. If there would be an organization to protect and guide the people (which will not happen for obvious reasons), then it could work. But this would require sacrifices from the people. To care about their environment. Obviously the consumer society is trained to not care about the environment just have fun and leave everything to the professionals. And then there is the banking system which is all about building economic slavery. The recent crisis has happened because there were too many unpaid debts and there will be even more in the future.

In theory, both system could work but in reality, none of them considering human nature and mostly human greed.


EDIT:

And for those who do not understand why are there more poor people, here is a very very dumbed down version of the banking system in a stupid cartoon, mainly trying to rely on the patriot feelings in the USA (yeah people are not getting poorer because they work less and because they have kids):


Link

[Maes]

Communism is a pretty general, it all depends on the leader of the time.

[Radiation]

I agree with Geri; it's the human quality of greed that makes Communism impossible to prevail.

[ipivb]

Look a China. Capitalism is working fucking excellent for them. They are doing it right.

The bottom line is a lot more simple than anything that has been said. China has more things to export than we do. That means, over time, China will gain more money, and the US will lose more. Eventually, the US will lose buying power, and China will gain more.

If the US was filled with people willing to work for a fraction of minimum wage, and it was legal, and we had lots of oil or other goods to export, we would be on top. But we don't have that, so we are in debt. We can choose to live poorly, or we can choose to keep taking loans... what would you do?

The world is the way it is, no idea is going to change it.

[Geri]

China isn't totally capitalist as people are not free, therefore the market is not free either. They don't care much if a few million people will die for the greater good.

Due to their strict and cruel methods, they have surpassed every other country. Even the USA, considering that China has tons of investments while the USA has tons of debts. So even if China is only at the 2nd place so far, in summary they are standing better.

Cheap workforce win the day...

Soft communism (or socialism) is somewhere between the 2 edges. It isn't that bad, people have rights, they are living an average life with a house and a car and it can be maintained for a while. Maybe China will switch to that on the long run if they have conquered the world already.

[AhMunRa]

Any government communist or capitalist falls to corruption. As utopian as it sounds communism is proven not to work, as capitalism is also proving not to be working.

Maybe a mix of the two.

As for people working for a fraction of minimum wage, imagine your parents suddenly go from making what they currently do to about a dollar a day. How would that affect your life? And if they were injured at work, there is no hospital care available to them, due to not being able to afford it. The job they had at their factory was given to a younger healthier person.

How is that better?

Don't confuse China having open trade with the rest of the world. Open trade is not capitalism. This money goes direct to the government. They are as communist as they have been since Mao was alive.

[Geri]

[ArcaneKnite]

[freesunday]

Communism is a pretty general, it all depends on the leader of the time.

[Seergaze3]

Communism will be sucessful in poor countries, where the government is corrupt and the farmers are poor, the farmers rise up (look at russia and china) and build a new government, they want equality, so they make communism up, where everyone got their equal share

but also in almost any case they fail in the end, this is because at first everyone was happy then the government start to distribute even lands/wealth/food on everyone, ultimately, ppl realize no matter how hard they work, the government still gives the same to all, so the society gets lazy and the country collapse

the original idea is good, but it lacks motivation and competitively compared to capitalism, and those 2 are the major attribute that we need to advance