At what point did Socialists become something to rant about?

czx · 20-03-2012 4:48pm

tony007 wrote: »

It doesn't have to be one or the other. The Soviet Union wasn't socialist.

ya, they were raging capitalists

Chuck Stone · 20-03-2012 4:52pm

benway wrote: »

Is there any real evidence that such a system could ever work in practice?

Not that I know of. There are times in history libs point to but they tend to ignore little things like slavery and children working in mines.

For me, it's as much of a pie-in-the-sky utopian ideal as anything that ever came out of the looney left.

Oh it's total pie in the sky for sure, almost to the point of being a cult with some people imo. It doesn't assure utopia though but it does claim that society would be a lot fairer so it is kinda preachy.

It's absolutely clear in my mind that what we're going through is the consequence of a failure of neoliberal, free market ideology. The way it worked was that the state stepped away - free movement of capital, light touch regulation, etc. - having been assured by the ideologues of The Markets that everything would be much more efficient, and generally better. Only to step back in when the thing overheated and and threatened to burst.

I'd see the state as being wholly complicit in the neoliberal (anything but free market) strategy.

Personally, I see the state as an invaluable bulwark against unrestrained corporate and gangster power.

I see it as a monopoly of decision making and force that gets infected by lobby groups, corporations, cartels, weapons manufaturers, PS/CS unions. It has control of the public purse so special interests rush in to influence it as best they can.

Why do you think the likes of AJF O'Reilly are so keen on pushing the small state agenda?

Never heard of him.

Many libertarians don't seem to grasp is the kind of chaos that would likely have been unleashed had the banks been allowed to fail.

Those banks? Perhaps. In libertopia, as it goes, those size banks would not emerge because there would be no mega-banks.

I mean, we may not have to pay the bondholders out of the public purse, we'd just have to watch as the country goes all Mad Max on us.

I couldn't care less about the bond holders tbh and I think it's immoral that those debts be passed on to people who had no part in it.

Not meaning to pigeonhole your views or anything, btw, I have no idea what you think about these things, not specifically addressing this to you ... but hey, it's the internet ....

I wouldn't describe myself as a libertarian although I do find many libertarian ideas interesting and possibly usefull in preventing future bailouts (which are inevitable currently in my estimation).

RichieC · 20-03-2012 4:53pm

czx wrote: »

ya, they were raging capitalists

Still a false dilemma. Ireland and indeed most of Europe have sat quite happily in the middle for a long time. in fact, so have the states. But don't tell the republicans that. it's been kept a secret from them.

pawnacide · 20-03-2012 4:54pm

czx wrote: »

ya, they were raging capitalists

nope just greedy communists. This is what this thread started out as. The distortion and bastardization of the word 'socialism' by the right to mean all things evil, untenable and anti individuality.

af_thefragile · 20-03-2012 4:57pm

K-9 wrote: »

What do you mean by Universities teaching them these immoral ways? Most of the criticism I see of Universities is that they are often too left wing leaning!

The recent controversy about Goldman Sachs would suggest that it when they get into the big finance companies that greed corrupts, pressure for profits, bonuses etc. Its happened in most cases, thinking of Enron, Bearings etc.

I think believing the free market will largely cure all this is a bit naive. People will always want to make profit and as long as stocks are traded or profit is the end all and be all, the small minority will ruin it for the majority who want to trade morally and respectfully.

Its the whole financial system which is based on exploitation. To correct it the whole system needs to be scrapped for a new one which is too much of an asking but its something Ron Paul dares on achieving in USA if he becomes the president. When you learn the "tricks of the trade" in the modern economic system, its all based on new ways to exploit capital and labour.

Its only a handful of financial corporations that work without morals and ethics. There are lots of entrepreneurs who spend a lot of money helping the poor and deprives.

Bill Gates is a very good example of an entrepreneur who has spend a big portion of his wealth helping poor people around the world and there are many others than him.

In fact private organisations have done more to help the poor around the world than any government has. All governments do is work on their own interests any help only those people who benefit them, ignoring those who don't.

benway wrote: »

Because a tipping point in technology was reached towards the end of the 19th century. More fundamentally, "businesses and competition" haven't driven innovation nearly as far as US state subsidies in the guise of military spending did - most of our high tech gadgets owe their existence to this. The internet is a good example.

And this "you can't have an iPhone and take a critical view of capitalism" line is weak, weak, weak. Must try harder.

There's no such thing as tipping point in technology. Many civilisations in the past made many great technological improvements and then perished.

You simply cannot ignore the contribution simple everyday objects like fridge, washing machines, televisions, cars etc. have made to modern life.

Car manufacturers are a great example. Cars have come a long way over the past century. Its not because of government spending and military research. Its because of competition driving innovation.

British car manufacturers used to make exciting but rubbish cars back in the 70s. Then the Japanese imports came in and their cars worked. Hence the Brits had to step up their game and start making cars that work to stay in the competition. Unfortunately most British car manufactures could not compete with the Japs and had to close down. But then the Germans showed they could make reliable cars like the Japs but better quality and more luxurious and it goes on. The car manufactures constantly compete with one another to build more reliable, cheaper, safer, faster, more luxurious etc. cars than the other one and the eventual benefit is ours because if it wasn't for the competition we would all be driving around in Lada Rivas.

Same with TVs and other electronics. Sure the government puts in a lot of money into military research but its the private corporations which take the military technology and put it to use for consumer products. You wouldn't have cheap LED TVs it wasn't for competition between Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic etc.

You simply cannot undermine what capitalism has done for us and if you do, you're blind and a hypocrite!

czx · 20-03-2012 4:59pm

pawnacide wrote: »

nope just greedy communists. This is what this thread started out as. The distortion and bastardization of the word 'socialism' by the right to mean all things evil, untenable and anti individuality.

The Socialist party of Ireland has done most of the bastardization themselves. Or are they not socialist?

tony007 · 20-03-2012 5:01pm

czx wrote: »

ya, they were raging capitalists

No, they were communists. You should read into it a bit more.

Kensington · 20-03-2012 5:03pm

pawnacide wrote: »

nope just greedy communists. This is what this thread started out as. The distortion and bastardization of the word 'socialism' by the right to mean all things evil, untenable and anti individuality.

I don't think "the right" have distorted the meaning of socialism at all - the self-proclaimed socialists of this country have done that all by themselves!

My understanding of socialism is your reward is in direct proportion to your contribution and that you must contribute to the best of your ability.

When you see the likes of the ULA and Sinn Fein coming out protesting for the rights of people who have lived in a council house, drawn down the dole and never held a job down in their lives but should continue to be handed out benefits indefinitely while calling to "tax the rich" because they're bad, disgusting, evil people for going out, working hard and earning so much money - is it any wonder people perceive a distorted understanding of what socialism really is?

af_thefragile · 20-03-2012 5:04pm

pawnacide wrote: »

But, again I'm guessing, you don't want the state making you do it where as I do.

No, I wanna be free to live my life as I do on my terms.
I believe I can spend my money more wisely than the state does.
If I'm a millionaire, I can do more to help the poor people than the state will do. I can set up non-profit charity organisations which work more efficiently than government run organisations. I can make sure the money goes to the people who need it rather than getting skimmed away by middle men and politicians.

Basically If I had the money, I can make better use of it than the government does.

Problem is this requires a moral conscience. Unfortunately there are many people who lack this and will want to keep all the money for themselves. This needs to change. People need to become more morally conscious. And I believe we don't need the government for this. People need to be able to think for themselves. It mostly comes from good parenting. Which seems to be something the modern world lacks!

Very easy to shift parental responsibility from the parents onto the state!!

happyman81 · 20-03-2012 5:08pm

Because so many of them are incredibly negative and moany, like every member of the ULA, bar none. Even when the rare bit of good news comes out about this country, they are all over it, moaning away. Impossible to like them.

pawnacide · 20-03-2012 5:11pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

No, I wanna be free to live my life as I do on my terms.
I believe I can spend my money more wisely than the state does.
If I'm a millionaire, I can do more to help the poor people than the state will do. I can set up non-profit charity organisations which work more efficiently than government run organisations. I can make sure the money goes to the people who need it rather than getting skimmed away by middle men and politicians.

Basically If I had the money, I can make better use of it than the government does.

Problem is this requires a moral conscience. Unfortunately there are many people who lack this and will want to keep all the money for themselves. This needs to change. People need to become more morally conscious. And I believe we don't need the government for this. People need to be able to think for themselves. It mostly comes from good parenting. Which seems to be something the modern world lacks!

Very easy to shift parental responsibility from the parents onto the state!!

So in order for Capitalism to become egalitarian all we need to do is rid the world of greed and hope that the new socially minded elite will cover all the basic needs of the population through their charitable works .. cool that shouldn't take too long.

K-9 · 20-03-2012 5:14pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

Its the whole financial system which is based on exploitation. To correct it the whole system needs to be scrapped for a new one which is too much of an asking but its something Ron Paul dares on achieving in USA if he becomes the president. When you learn the "tricks of the trade" in the modern economic system, its all based on new ways to exploit capital and labour.

So how does he propose to deal with the human intrinsic trait of greed?

Its only a handful of financial corporations that work without morals and ethics. There are lots of entrepreneurs who spend a lot of money helping the poor and deprives.

Bill Gates is a very good example of an entrepreneur who has spend a big portion of his wealth helping poor people around the world and there are many others than him.

In fact private organisations have done more to help the poor around the world than any government has. All governments do is work on their own interests any help only those people who benefit them, ignoring those who don't.

And Gates was perfectly happy to use his position to block new entrants or other competition in the market. The ends justify the means I suppose!

Machiavelli would have been proud!

af_thefragile · 20-03-2012 5:22pm

pawnacide wrote: »

So in order for Capitalism to become egalitarian all we need to do is rid the world of greed and hope that the new socially minded elite will cover all the basic needs of the population through their charitable works .. cool that shouldn't take too long.

Yes and No.

Yes that in order for humans to succeed and for hunger and poverty to be eradicated, people need to become more charitable and morally conscious.

No in that the world is not a pretty place, greed is something that will always remain and there will always be a handful of morally deprived people who will make things difficult for the rest.

But I don't give up on hope. I do believe 99.999999% of the world's population is good and people do care about others.

Problem lies in the current financial system which has bound us all. That is the root of all evil. It is this financial system which is destroying both the poor, the middle class and also the rich entrapping them in perpetual debt. When a person is trapped in debt, all he cares about is paying off his bills and mortgage, while the government is trapped in the similar situation of paying off its debts. That's where the problem arises. That's where humans become selfish because they need to acquire as much money as they can to pay off their debts and have nothing left to help other less fortunate people.

This picture illustrates it very well:
http://www.funnyphotos.net.au/images/net-worth-bank-loan-student-loan-credit-card-car-l1.jpg

The only ones who gain in this system are the bankers and the politicians who keep this whole system afloat.

If we need to improve out condition as humans, the current financial system needs to be scrapped first because it is this system (not capitalism or anything else) that is destroying us.

Watch this documentary on how the current financial system exploits us all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs

af_thefragile · 20-03-2012 5:35pm

K-9 wrote: »

So how does he propose to deal with the human intrinsic trait of greed?

And Gates was perfectly happy to use his position to block new entrants or other competition in the market. The ends justify the means I suppose! Machiavelli would have been proud!

Again, greed has always been considered a great sin in almost every religion. I'm not saying we all should become religious but the way greed had been dealt with throughout history has been through religion and morality. If people lack that, there will be nothing stopping people from letting their greed run wild and they'll end up destroying the society. People need to develop moral conscience. I said in my previous post, that happens through good parenting.
Lately we all want the government to take over the responsibility of our parents and expect the schools to teach our kids what good or bad is rather than it being the parents responsibility to teach the kids what morality is.

Also 99.99999% of the people are intrinsically good. Yes people have intrinsic traits of greed but people also have intrinsic trails that makes them share and contribute to others.

Well, I don't exactly see Bill Gates stopping competition. It will always be very difficult to compete against an established product which people have come to trust over the years. Yet Apple is a competitor to Microsoft which is doing pretty good. Linux is always there and there are new ones like ubuntu, joli cloud, google os etc.
Again you target your product to the audience. Most of the world's population thinks all computers look either like windows or Mac hence they will not like to work with anything other than what they recognise.

But then in phones HTC has been a relatively new brand in the market and it has been doing really well. Nokia used to be the leader in cell phones market a decade now, now people rarely buy a Nokia because the free market has allowed other manufacturers to take over that spot by producing better products.

pawnacide · 20-03-2012 5:37pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

If we need to improve out condition as humans, the current financial system needs to be scrapped first because it is this system (not capitalism or anything else) that is destroying us.

Watch this documentary on how the current financial system exploits us all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs

Just so I'm clear, you want to scrap the current financial system for a purely capitalist one and trust those said capitalists with the well being of society as a whole. You believe this will improve peoples lives ?

If yes, I have a couple of questions

1. Are you nuts ?
2. What age are you ?
3. Where have you been for the last 5 years ?
4. How ?

czx · 20-03-2012 5:40pm

tony007 wrote: »

No, they were communists. You should read into it a bit more.

Looking through the Communist Party of Ireland website:

'The Communist Party of Ireland is an all-Ireland Marxist party founded in 1933. Its aim is to win the support of the majority of the Irish people for ending the capitalist system and for building socialism—a social system in which the means of production, distribution and exchange are publicly owned and utilised for the benefit of the whole people.'

benway · 20-03-2012 5:42pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

Its only a handful of financial corporations that work without morals and ethics.

No corporation has morals and ethics. They're exclusively driven by the profit motive, their only responsibility is to their shareholders. Not saying this as a criticism, just stating facts.

af_thefragile wrote: »

In fact private organisations have done more to help the poor around the world than any government has.

Examples or gtfo.

af_thefragile wrote: »

Car manufacturers are a great example. Cars have come a long way over the past century. Its not because of government spending and military research. Its because of competition driving innovation.

And the fact that obscene amounts of money was put into these same manufacturers for the purposes of building military materiel during the second world war had nothing to do with these advances. Oh no.

Blinkers, son. Ron Paul is a nutjob as well, btw.

KyussBishop · 20-03-2012 5:43pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

Well, I don't exactly see Bill Gates stopping competition.

Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86 based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, Real Networks, Linux, and others. The judgment was split in two parts. On April 3, 2000, he issued his conclusions of law, according to which Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Microsoft immediately appealed the decision. On 2000-06-07, the court orders a breakup of Microsoft as its remedy. According to that judgment, Microsoft would have to be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft#Judgment

The European Union Microsoft competition case is a case brought by the European Commission of the European Union (EU) against Microsoft for abuse of its dominant position in the market (according to competition law). It started as a complaint from Novell over Microsoft's licensing practices in 1993, and eventually resulted in the EU ordering Microsoft to divulge certain information about its server products and release a version of Microsoft Windows without Windows Media Player.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case

Microsoft lost both those cases.

tony007 · 20-03-2012 5:45pm

czx wrote: »

Looking through the Communist Party of Ireland website:

'The Communist Party of Ireland is an all-Ireland Marxist party founded in 1933. Its aim is to win the support of the majority of the Irish people for ending the capitalist system and for building socialism—a social system in which the means of production, distribution and exchange are publicly owned and utilised for the benefit of the whole people.'

You were talking about the Soviet Union. Look at the policies there. The policies there decreased worker control over production. Therefore, not socialist.

af_thefragile · 20-03-2012 5:47pm

pawnacide wrote: »

Just so I'm clear, you want to scrap the current financial system for a purely capitalist one and trust those said capitalists with the well being of society as a whole. You believe this will improve peoples lives ?

If yes, I have a couple of questions

1. Are you nuts ?
2. What age are you ?
3. Where have you been for the last 5 years ?
4. How ?

I never said we need to scrap the financial system for a capitalist one. I said the current financial system is destroying world economies, which if you don't believe you are blind or like to hold blind faith in the government and the financial system.

What should be replaced in place of the current financial system is a whole other topic and it has nothing to do with capitalism.
In short the financial system needs to be replaced with an interest free system where the amount of money circulating in the economy is very tightly regulated (gold backed currency helps in tight regulation but its not necessary). But its a very large topic as its a whole different school of economics to the current keynesian and debt-interest based system. Two lines cannot explain it, either watch that documentary or look it up somewhere else. I'm not going to discuss it here because its a very big topic in itself.

czx · 20-03-2012 5:48pm

tony007 wrote: »

You were talking about the Soviet Union. Look at the policies there. The policies there decreased worker control over production. Therefore, not socialist.

Are Irish communists socialists?

pawnacide · 20-03-2012 5:51pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

I never said we need to scrap the financial system for a capitalist one. I said the current financial system is destroying world economies, which if you don't believe you are blind or like to hold blind faith in the government and the financial system.

What should be replaced in place of the current financial system is a whole other topic and it has nothing to do with capitalism.
In short the financial system needs to be replaced with an interest free system where the amount of money circulating in the economy is very tightly regulated (gold backed currency helps in tight regulation but its not necessary). But its a very large topic as its a whole different school of economics to the current keynesian and debt-interest based system. Two lines cannot explain it, either watch that documentary or look it up somewhere else. I'm not going to discuss it here because its a very big topic in itself.

Oh great so by you're reckoning we could have a kinda Socialist Capitalist system .. now you're just babbling.

benway · 20-03-2012 5:52pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

the current keynesian and debt-interest based system.

The what now? Hasn't Keynsian economics been largely sidelined in the past quarter century by monetarist and neoclassical approaches? Speaking of which ...

K-9 wrote: »

What do you mean by Universities teaching them these immoral ways? Most of the criticism I see of Universities is that they are often too left wing leaning!

Excellent piece here on the intellectual bankruptcy of professional economists, and the reasons for this:

http://www.iasc-culture.org/publications_article_2010_Summer_mirowski.php

tony007 · 20-03-2012 5:52pm

czx wrote: »

Are Irish communists socialists?

If they want to further socialist policies, then yes, I suppose they are. What matters is what happens when they get into power.

af_thefragile · 20-03-2012 5:54pm

benway wrote: »

No corporation has morals and ethics. They're exclusively driven by the profit motive, their only responsibility is to their shareholders. Not saying this as a criticism, just stating facts.

That is very very naive thinking.
Also makes you a hypocrite because you buy capitalist goods and hence you are supporting these corporations.

Examples or gtfo.

There are too many.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Non-governmental_organizations_by_country

And the fact that obscene amounts of money was put into these same manufacturers for the purposes of building military materiel during the second world war had nothing to do with these advances. Oh no.

Blinkers, son. Ron Paul is a nutjob as well, btw.

2nd world war was more than 60 years ago!
Car manufacturers have come a long long way since then.
A lot of the advances have comes from market competition and motor racing (which again is competition). Its because of Formula 1 that you have rear view mirrors, seat belts, crumple zones in cars. Also because of Formula 1 there have been made many improvement in carbon-fiber technology for building or using in cars.

I don't care what you believe about Ron Paul. He makes sense to me and many people around the world.

czx · 20-03-2012 5:56pm

tony007 wrote: »

If they want to further socialist policies, then yes, I suppose they are. What matters is what happens when they get into power.

Communists don't have the best track record to be honest.

pawnacide · 20-03-2012 6:00pm

tony007 wrote: »

If they want to further socialist policies, then yes, I suppose they are. What matters is what happens when they get into power.

ah that old chestnut .. maybe if they were in power the banking system would collapse .. oh wait it already did. Maybe taxes would rise .. oops that happened too with far worse to come. Maybe those damned lefties would bankrupt the country and then the IMF would need to bail us out .. guess what ?

Please stop with you're right wing scare tactics and face the reality .. the very people you want in power have indebted this nation and it's people for generations to come. Their interests are in protecting the status quo. I for one am willing to give the left a go.

tony007 · 20-03-2012 6:02pm

czx wrote: »

Communists don't have the best track record to be honest.

Certain ones don't. Same with capitalists.

tony007 · 20-03-2012 6:03pm

pawnacide wrote: »

ah that old chestnut .. maybe if they were in power the banking system would collapse .. oh wait it already did. Maybe taxes would rise .. oops that happened too with far worse to come. Maybe those damned lefties would bankrupt the country and then the IMF would need to bail us out .. guess what ?

Please stop with you're right wing scare tactics and face the reality .. the very people you want in power have indebted this nation and it's people for generations to come. Their interests are in protecting the status quo. I for one am willing to give the left a go.

What are you talking about?! I'm on your side!!

pawnacide · 20-03-2012 6:03pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

I don't care what you believe about Ron Paul. He makes sense to me and many people around the world.

Maybe you should start a cult.

benway · 20-03-2012 6:04pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

That is very very naive thinking.
Also makes you a hypocrite because you buy capitalist goods and hence you are supporting these corporations.

It's just a fact. Read up on your company law ... don't think it's me that's being naive. And goods aren't "capitalist" or "socialist". Anyway, the point isn't to attack the corporate world, or the capitalist system but to recognise its weaknesses and look to improve it. I'm a fairly lukewarm social democrat at best, but by the standards of many, it appears that makes me a raging pinko, the next thing to Mao Tse Tung.

While I'm at it, I think the solution is to include legally enforceable social responsibilities in the Memo and Arts of companies, but that's for another day.

af_thefragile wrote: »

There are too many.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Non-governmental_organizations_by_country

You'll need to do better than throwing out a list of NGOs. I've worked in the NGO / Civil Society sector, here and abroad. They generally have an ulterior motive, and quite often do more harm than good. Give me a robust state any day of the week.

af_thefragile wrote: »

2nd world war was more than 60 years ago!

In the past century, didn't you say?

pawnacide · 20-03-2012 6:04pm

tony007 wrote: »

What are you talking about?! I'm on your side!!

Bummer, Sry .. probably should've read your other posts first.

czx · 20-03-2012 6:09pm

tony007 wrote: »

Certain ones don't. Same with capitalists.

Any good communists for me?

tony007 · 20-03-2012 6:18pm

czx wrote: »

Any good communists for me?

I supposeJoe Higgins is very principled. He's probably the most prominent one in Ireland you can trust most.

czx · 20-03-2012 6:21pm

tony007 wrote: »

I supposeJoe Higgins is very principled. He's probably the most prominent one in Ireland you can trust most.

if only he was a country. Joe Higgins is a communist

tony007 · 20-03-2012 6:34pm

czx wrote: »

if only he was a country. Joe Higgins is a communist

You asked me for a communist....

Toby Take a Bow · 20-03-2012 6:34pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

There are too many.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Non-governmental_organizations_by_country

Weren't you supposed to be proving how non-governmental aid was better than governmental aid? And not just showing a link to examples of non-governmental aid. I'd be interested in seeing statistical proof of how non-governmental aid is better than governmental aid.

af_thefragile wrote: »

I don't care what you believe about Ron Paul. He makes sense to me and many people around the world.

He's not doing so well, even when just competing within the Republican primaries, in a country that at least likes to believe its own propoganda that it's a good example of a free-market country. Initially reading about him, I thought that at least he sticks by his principles, but the primaries showed himself to be hypocritical regarding his 'no-government' attitude when it came to abortion ("except with regards to abortion!"). Interesting how you criticise people for being hypocrites throughout this thread and seem to be unaware/ignore Paul's own failings.

RichieC · 20-03-2012 6:44pm

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

He's not doing so well, even when just competing within the Republican primaries, in a country that at least likes to believe its own propoganda that it's a good example of a free-market country. Initially reading about him, I thought that at least he sticks by his principles, but the primaries showed himself to be hypocritical regarding his 'no-government' attitude when it came to abortion ("except with regards to abortion!"). Interesting how you criticise people for being hypocrites throughout this thread and seem to be unaware/ignore Paul's own failings.

With Paul, intrusive government is a okay at the state level, the federal government is evil, though.. :rolleyes:

Toby Take a Bow · 20-03-2012 6:56pm

RichieC wrote: »

With Paul, intrusive government is a okay at the state level, the federal government is evil, though.. :rolleyes:

Ahh, fair enough so.

K-9 · 20-03-2012 7:27pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

Again, greed has always been considered a great sin in almost every religion. I'm not saying we all should become religious but the way greed had been dealt with throughout history has been through religion and morality. If people lack that, there will be nothing stopping people from letting their greed run wild and they'll end up destroying the society. People need to develop moral conscience. I said in my previous post, that happens through good parenting.
Lately we all want the government to take over the responsibility of our parents and expect the schools to teach our kids what good or bad is rather than it being the parents responsibility to teach the kids what morality is.

Also 99.99999% of the people are intrinsically good. Yes people have intrinsic traits of greed but people also have intrinsic trails that makes them share and contribute to others.

Well, I don't exactly see Bill Gates stopping competition. It will always be very difficult to compete against an established product which people have come to trust over the years. Yet Apple is a competitor to Microsoft which is doing pretty good. Linux is always there and there are new ones like ubuntu, joli cloud, google os etc.
Again you target your product to the audience. Most of the world's population thinks all computers look either like windows or Mac hence they will not like to work with anything other than what they recognise.

But then in phones HTC has been a relatively new brand in the market and it has been doing really well. Nokia used to be the leader in cell phones market a decade now, now people rarely buy a Nokia because the free market has allowed other manufacturers to take over that spot by producing better products.

As another poster pointed out Microsoft did abuse their position and as for Apple and Linux, small shares of the market really.

I see your point about morals but it seems people who don't have morals are attracted to areas like stock trading and being ruthless is seen as a positive trait, something to be admired. Your ideas all seem wishy washy to me and I really don't see why you've such faith in Paul to get towards those. The notions are just too vague and lacking any specifics to have a meaningful discussion.

czx · 20-03-2012 11:10pm

tony007 wrote: »

You asked me for a communist....

is he a socialist communist or soviet communist?

KeithAFC · 20-03-2012 11:17pm

Dudess wrote: »

It's become fashionable among youngsters to balk at social equality and to be a greedy, selfish, heartless ****.

You call it greedy, I call it the sharing of misery amongst the people. Socialism is failure, ignorance, envy and misery.

KeithAFC · 20-03-2012 11:40pm

Eric Cartman wrote: »

We live in an enlightened age of information, people have seen how mass socialism creates a bloated oublic sector, bails out banks, raises taxes , keeps everyone poor and allows mass immigration all in the name of 'equality' so its about time people stood up and looked for a better system , like capitalism.

It destroys traditional values in society. It promotes mass immigration. It is pro liberalism. It promotes shared misery amongst the working class people. It devalues the aspirations of people wanting to better themselves.

Channel Zero · 20-03-2012 11:48pm

benway wrote: »

Excellent piece here on the intellectual bankruptcy of professional economists, and the reasons for this:

http://www.iasc-culture.org/publications_article_2010_Summer_mirowski.php

More info here related to above and to OP:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/27/ayn-rand-the-tea-partys-miscast-matriarch/

af fragile
Am still waiting for that link i asked you for where you said Paul talks about "equality for everyone".
Fact is he doesn't advocate economic equality at all does he? He wants freedom alright, but not the nice shiny happy freedom some people imagine, more the dog-eat-dog **** you i'm alright jack type freedom. Freedom for the wealthy to completely disregard the poorer sections of society.

You also said "All governments do is work on their own interests and help only those people who benefit them, ignoring those who don't.

This is rubbish.

benway · 21-03-2012 12:24am

The Ayn Rand Institute co-hosted an “Intellectual Ammunition Strategy Workshop,” a day before the 9/12 Tea Party extravaganza in Washington, D.C. in September 2009

How sinister is that? An unholy alliance of the Randroids with God bothering Tea Party wackos, doing the bidding of billionaires like the Koch brothers, with Glenn fckin' Beck as their court jester? Might go some way towards explaining why unreasoning, lobotomised hostility towards "socialism" is on the rise, alright.

Dear libertarians,

Do you really want to be associated with these people? Really?

Kthnxbai,
B

dxhound2005 · 21-03-2012 12:46am

All through the Cold War Radio Free Europe (for the Eastern bloc) and Radio Liberty (for the USSR) broadcast on shortwave. American funded but they were only radio stations. What happened. The Socialist countries spent millions of dollars building high powered transmitters to jam the broadcasts. In the process ruining the shortwave bands for large amounts of the time for listeners such as me. This is the Socialist attitude to free speech. Meanwhile Radio Moscow and all the broadcasters from the East were allowed to broadcast free of jamming into the capitalist countries.

KyussBishop · 21-03-2012 1:41am

The dirty commie socialists.

nice_very · 21-03-2012 2:13am

reason number: ?? - when Ireland and spain elected fascist parties to govt

woodoo · 21-03-2012 2:14am

Dudess wrote: »

It's become fashionable among youngsters to balk at social equality and to be a greedy, selfish, heartless ****.

Only after they get their dole payments or student grants

Dudess · 21-03-2012 2:48am

KeithAFC wrote: »

Eric Cartman wrote: »

We live in an enlightened age of information, people have seen how mass socialism creates a bloated oublic sector, bails out banks, raises taxes , keeps everyone poor and allows mass immigration all in the name of 'equality' so its about time people stood up and looked for a better system , like capitalism.

It destroys traditional values in society. It promotes mass immigration. It is pro liberalism. It promotes shared misery amongst the working class people. It devalues the aspirations of people wanting to better themselves.

Oh noez liberalism! ****ing lol.

At what point did Socialists become something to rant about?

Comments