Socialism/Communism - why is everyone else always doing it wrong?

hatrickpatrick

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

It's a little idealistic. However when has Capitalism been implemented in it's most extreme form? We have only known and had pragmatic Capitalism. It seems to work. It encourages innovation, gives people freedom of choice and incentivises creativity and innovation. Has it faults, yes. As much as socialism, no.

Extremes of socialism which is communism has been implemented and has demonstrably failed on every occasion.

Many would regard the current status quo in the United States as capitalism taken to an extreme - the lack of state-funded healthcare being perhaps the most glaring specific example. If you can't afford life-saving medication or surgery, tough sh!t, enjoy the next life.

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I don't see any country doing capitalism in an equitable moral manner either, but it does seem slightly harder to manipulate people under capitalism than communism.

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Wanderer78 wrote: »

I'd disagree there to a point, Id have to agree with somebody like Michael Hudson that we are confusing wealth with debt. We have to start asking ourselves why are debt levels at an all-time high, particularly private debt, and has this actually benefited the majority, particularly financially and economically? I will agree though that capitalism has major advantages over other systems, many being extremely positive for the majority.

Ahh but debt is wealth if you can force other people to pay off the debts you incur for you.

Rumpy Pumpy

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

You have read the Communist Manifesto and you think you understand Marxism - got it.


Where did I catagorise 'social democrats as agents of the bourgeoisie'? - unless you think that Howlin, Burton or Blair are social democrats (and just so we are clear just because the have a 'Labour' tag - they are not).

You live in one of the greatest examples of a Social/Christian democracy the world will ever see. What makes it even more extraordinary is that it came about in less than 100 years after independence.

ancapailldorcha

Post deleted. Refrain from posting GIF's please.

Jolly Red Giant

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

You live in one of the greatest examples of a Social/Christian democracy the world will ever see. What makes it even more extraordinary is that it came about in less than 100 years after independence.

You mean this 'extraordinary Social/Christian democracy' that had institutionalised abuse of women and children orchestrated by the state and implemented by the Catholic Church - this 'extraordinary Social/Christian democracy' that has seen mass generational emigration and the break-up of families - 'extraordinary Social/Christian democracy' that has created an economy where the richest 300 people can double their wealth during a crisis while 90% of the population suffer a severe drop in their living standards and these 300 people now own 50% of the wealth in the country.

I would agree - it is absolutely 'extraordinary'.

Palmach

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

You mean this 'extraordinary Social/Christian democracy' that had institutionalised abuse of women and children orchestrated by the state and implemented by the Catholic Church - this 'extraordinary Social/Christian democracy' that has seen mass generational emigration and the break-up of families - 'extraordinary Social/Christian democracy' that has created an economy where the richest 300 people can double their wealth during a crisis while 90% of the population suffer a severe drop in their living standards and these 300 people now own 50% of the wealth in the country.

I would agree - it is absolutely 'extraordinary'.

Normally I don't bother trying to debate with communists because generally they are bitter one dimensional people beyond help but this drivel cannot go unanswered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index Have a gander where Ireland is. Top ten. Any commie countries in there? Nope. Nada.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/economic-freedom/map?countries=IRL&page=map&year=2014
Here's another one. There are loads more but they all tell the same story. Ireland is one of the freest richest and most advanced nations on Earth. Furthermore all the top performing countries are western liberal democracies. Along with Islam, Communism/Socialism is guaranteed to put you well down the lists.

Jolly Red Giant

Palmach wrote: »

Normally I don't bother trying to debate with communists because generally they are bitter one dimensional people beyond help but this drivel cannot go unanswered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index Have a gander where Ireland is. Top ten. Any commie countries in there? Nope. Nada.

It would be hard for any communist countries to be on the list when none actually exist.

Palmach wrote: »

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/economic-freedom/map?countries=IRL&page=map&year=2014
Here's another one. There are loads more but they all tell the same story. Ireland is one of the freest richest and most advanced nations on Earth. Furthermore all the top performing countries are western liberal democracies. Along with Islam, Communism/Socialism is guaranteed to put you well down the lists.

And you then start quoting stuff from a right-wing, conservative, neo-liberal, free-marketeer institute - no wonder they rank Ireland so high :rolleyes:

As for debating with 'communists' - maybe that is because you are incapable of doing so.

Valord

Yourself isit wrote: »

I don't agree with this either. People who work and have to work for someone else to earn a reasonable income are working class.

I don't see why people are happy with being called workers but not working class.

I think it's because most people's notion of "working class" is associated with not being particularly well-off and many very well-off people would fit into your definition of "working class". Most of the kinds of people that the average Irish person would associate with "upper class" (people who do things like join private golf clubs, send their children to fee-paying schools, own expensive property, holiday in luxurious locations, eat out in expensive restaurants, drive expensive cars) work for a someone else in the private sector.

This label applies equally to someone working a counter at the local petrol station as a VP working for one of the big multi-nationals, even though their personal and political interests do not align particularly closely and the former probably has more in common with a member of the bourgeois than with a fellow member of the working class.

I do wonder if there is a useful, concrete definition of "working class" that we can apply to our modern economy. In the US especially, it was noted by many media commenters that "working class" often specifically meant "white working class", and even then it often painted a very specific image of someone who was a farmer, miner, or factory worker, all of which are areas in general decline. It did not seem to refer very often to service workers who are a much larger portion of the economy. It was also interesting that despite Trump's apparent popularity with working class whites, his voters were, in general, more well-off than Clinton's. Does this mean that class is separate from wealth? And how separate is it? Is there still a correlation or are they completely independant?

Yourself isit wrote: »

You probably don't realise what CEOs earn if you think most would be poor after a year.

Most CEOs aren't working for Fortune 500 companies. Most work for small and medium businesses. While it's a good position to be in, most aren't set for life after a few years of work, unless they also own significant stock in the companies they work for, and often even well-off people maintain a lifestyle that requires them to keep working.

It's true that someone who makes, say, €500,000 net annual salary could probably feasibly live off that for the rest of their life, but someone making that kind of money will often be spending most of that money on things like a much more expensive house and car than the average person. If they were to try and live off that, they would have to live a more ordinary lifestyle, which something people find so difficult that some would literally rather die (and I'm not saying that to be flippant either).

BalcombeSt4

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Many would regard the current status quo in the United States as capitalism taken to an extreme - the lack of state-funded healthcare being perhaps the most glaring specific example. If you can't afford life-saving medication or surgery, tough sh!t, enjoy the next life.

You could say the 1840's here was capitalism in its extreme form. The government decided market force would settle the famine out for us, and if it kills 2 million well then so be it. The government of its time had a radical belief in the doctrine of laissez faire.

BalcombeSt4

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

You live in one of the greatest examples of a Social/Christian democracy the world will ever see. What makes it even more extraordinary is that it came about in less than 100 years after independence.

Well than that just reaffirms my belief that there is a better alternative to it then if this is the best it has to offer.

BalcombeSt4

Palmach wrote: »

Normally I don't bother trying to debate with communists because generally they are bitter one dimensional people beyond help but this drivel cannot go unanswered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index Have a gander where Ireland is. Top ten. Any commie countries in there? Nope. Nada.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/economic-freedom/map?countries=IRL&page=map&year=2014
Here's another one. There are loads more but they all tell the same story. Ireland is one of the freest richest and most advanced nations on Earth. Furthermore all the top performing countries are western liberal democracies. Along with Islam, Communism/Socialism is guaranteed to put you well down the lists.

I'm sorry but this is a terrible argument.

Germany prospered economically in the 1930's under the Nazi's. Is that an argument for Nazism? No.

The Soviet Union achieved rapid industrialization under Stalin. Is that an argument for Stalinism? No.

Valord

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

You could say the 1840's here was capitalism in its extreme form. The government decided market force would settle the famine out for us, and if it kills 2 million well then so be it. The government of its time had a radical belief in the doctrine of laissez faire.

The Famine wasn't just a case of the British government not intervening though, they actively intervened to make it worse.

Palmach

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

.
And you then start quoting stuff from a right-wing, conservative, neo-liberal, free-marketeer institute - no wonder they rank Ireland so high :rolleyes:
.

And the UN Human Development In dex

hatrickpatrick

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

You could say the 1840's here was capitalism in its extreme form. The government decided market force would settle the famine out for us, and if it kills 2 million well then so be it. The government of its time had a radical belief in the doctrine of laissez faire.

The current government is demonstrating the same laissez faire attitude towards housing, compared with the Simms generation of the early 20th century. Let's see how that pans out - if the fact that every single doorway in the city centre is lined with sleeping bags every day doesn't satisfy those who do not believe unrestricted capitalism to be a harmful force

Jolly Red Giant

Palmach wrote: »

And the UN Human Development In dex

You didn't link to the UN - you linked to a Wikipedia page - and as I said before - it would be hard for a communist country to be on the list when none actually exist.

Geuze

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Many would regard the current status quo in the United States as capitalism taken to an extreme - the lack of state-funded healthcare being perhaps the most glaring specific example. If you can't afford life-saving medication or surgery, tough sh!t, enjoy the next life.

Note that there are two federally organised health insurance schemes, as well as tax reliefs for health insurance.

Geuze

One aspect of communism that I would support is more mutually-owned co-operatives, e.g. like John Lewis, credit unions, building societies, etc.

johnnyskeleton

Geuze wrote: »

One aspect of communism that I would support is more mutually-owned co-operatives, e.g. like John Lewis, credit unions, building societies, etc.

Is that communism though? Under our current system people are free to come together pool their resources and set up a co-op/mutual society. In a communist system everything would be owned by the state so there would be no need/capability for private citizens to voluntarily pool their resources.

PeadarCo

Jolly Red Giant wrote:

You didn't link to the UN - you linked to a Wikipedia page - and as I said before - it would be hard for a communist country to be on the list when none actually exist.

Does that not tell its own story. There are over a hundred countries in the world. The only countries that could be considered communist like the USSR killed millions of its citizens and were violently repressive. If you don't consider countries like that to be communist you have a situation were over the century plus you've never had a communist country despite all the changes in government and revolutions in different countries. The system is completely unworkable

Geuze

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Is that communism though? Under our current system people are free to come together pool their resources and set up a co-op/mutual society. In a communist system everything would be owned by the state so there would be no need/capability for private citizens to voluntarily pool their resources.

Okay, fair enough, then it's not communism.

I was just going by the concept/phrase of communally-owned, and maybe confusing it with the word communism.

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PeadarCo wrote: »

Does that not tell its own story. There are over a hundred countries in the world. The only countries that could be considered communist like the USSR killed millions of its citizens and were violently repressive. If you don't consider countries like that to be communist you have a situation were over the century plus you've never had a communist country despite all the changes in government and revolutions in different countries. The system is completely unworkable

I think that communism is unworkable on any regional/national level due to human greed and self interest, but Stalinism wasn't communism, any more that the DPRK is democratic.

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Geuze wrote: »

Okay, fair enough, then it's not communism.

I was just going by the concept/phrase of communally-owned, and maybe confusing it with the word communism.

They're more along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

BalcombeSt4

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The current government is demonstrating the same laissez faire attitude towards housing, compared with the Simms generation of the early 20th century. Let's see how that pans out - if the fact that every single doorway in the city centre is lined with sleeping bags every day doesn't satisfy those who do not believe unrestricted capitalism to be a harmful force

The so called The Washington Consensusis is another form of modern capitalism in its extreme form. Whole developing nations being privatized leading to a giant, giant division of rich & poor. The most striking instance of it is in Latin America or the backyard as the US likes to call it, where you have a handfu of millionaires living in mansions & the majority living what are basically shanty towns.

Wanderer78

BalcombeSt4 wrote:

The so called The Washington Consensusis is another form of modern capitalism in its extreme form. Whole developing nations being privatized leading to a giant, giant division of rich & poor. The most striking instance of it is in Latin America or the backyard as the US likes to call it, where you have a handfu of millionaires living in mansions & the majority living what are basically shanty towns.

I'm sick of this Washington consensus ****eology, it's clearly obvious things such as neoliberalism are failing but we sit here watching a slow car crash, it's disturbing really

Tabnabs

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The current government is demonstrating the same laissez faire attitude towards housing, compared with the Simms generation of the early 20th century. Let's see how that pans out - if the fact that every single doorway in the city centre is lined with sleeping bags every day doesn't satisfy those who do not believe unrestricted capitalism to be a harmful force

Rent controls, planning restrictions, councillors voting against developments, height restrictions, land hoarding, etc. etc. I think you need to have a serious look at the reality of the situation before leaping to any conclusions. The government has its hands all over this crisis and can only do more damage with greater interference.

johnnyskeleton

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

The so called The Washington Consensusis is another form of modern capitalism in its extreme form. Whole developing nations being privatized leading to a giant, giant division of rich & poor. The most striking instance of it is in Latin America or the backyard as the US likes to call it, where you have a handfu of millionaires living in mansions & the majority living what are basically shanty towns.

If youre talking about Venezuela then yes there is a tiny wealthy elite and the rest of the country lives in poverty, runs out of basic goods etc. But a country like Argentina has a massive middle class and wouldnt be a million miles away from European standards of living.

Tabnabs

Peru is another shining example of an open and free country. Peru's economy thrived after the removal of price controls, protectionism, restrictions on foreign direct investment, and most state ownership of companies. Maybe it's the just wrong kind of Latin American country though?

hatrickpatrick

Geuze wrote: »

Note that there are two federally organised health insurance schemes, as well as tax reliefs for health insurance.

That still means that there's a wealth line below which one cannot access healthcare if one needs it, which is a capitalistic principle.

Suryavarman

Tabnabs wrote: »

Rent controls, planning restrictions, councillors voting against developments, height restrictions, land hoarding, etc. etc. I think you need to have a serious look at the reality of the situation before leaping to any conclusions. The government has its hands all over this crisis and can only do more damage with greater interference.

Facts mean little to an ideologue.