Happy May Day to our Resident Marxist Socialists.
- Thread starter noble cane
- Start date
Pure communism and pure capitalism (or Libertarianism) both have fatal flaws.
The first kills the human motive to pursue goals and achieve.
The second coddles the human tendency to accumulate generational power and wealth.
So like nearly everything in life the only thing that really works is muddling through the messy middle.
The first kills the human motive to pursue goals and achieve.
The second coddles the human tendency to accumulate generational power and wealth.
So like nearly everything in life the only thing that really works is muddling through the messy middle.
i
in the second you succeed or fail bases on your choices.
in the first there is no measurement of individule success or faliure. The gov makes all you decisions and gives you what they think you need.
in the second you succeed or fail bases on your choices.
But it is not equitable either. Some people are born into great wealth and others are born into poverty and addiction. So equal opportunity is a myth.
No easy answers.
so my father worked hard all his ife and accumulated some wealth.
person x doest . why does his heir deserve mine.
person x doest . why does his heir deserve mine.
Neither of those things are true about those systems.
capitalism - look what I can achieve
socialism - the gov will take some of what I achieved and give it to someone who didn't achieve.
communism - the government will tell you what you want.
socialism - the gov will take some of what I achieved and give it to someone who didn't achieve.
communism - the government will tell you what you want.
I sometimes forget the lack of depth of debate over hear and decide to post something thoughtful. As usual I recognize my error and will go back to sports in the Alley.
True, but until you get off of your "pity party" soap box and accomplish things, one can be as
large a retardant as the other in producing a person of quality... A "silver spoon" can be an awfully
heavy onus to carry around....
Generally though, the old equation of less government=more freedoms is a good one....The
freedoms outlined in the Constitution are our most precious heritage, and we've done a damned
poor job of protecting them from "Big Tech" and the media at all levels......They both think "global"...
The European Union is a good example of why that don't work....Your borders disappear, and all
levels of government move away from the neighborhood....Except for enforcement.....
A government "of the people and by the people" is the furtherest thing from most professional
politicians minds.....
Last edited:
I get what you’re saying here but that’s not what I see as the biggest issue with communism. To me Marxism practiced as a form of governance takes an ideology that taps into a malevolent human pathology (through victim vs oppressor narratives) and puts the full violent force of the government behind it.
And to me the best of the Marxists’ critiques of capitalism is that it reduces meaningful traditions, interactions, behaviors, and relationships to transactions and profitability. Everything monetized and marketed to the point that nothing is sacred. Immoral actions taken and moral actions avoided based on financial gain.
Last edited:
Capitalism plays into the same human pathology, but it just does so in a different way. Instead of our leaders being despots in high offices (as is commonplace in communist regimes), they are just oligarchs in boardrooms. Greed and lust for power drives them both. They both control the mechanisms of government... one directly, one indirectly. If they want policy, there will be policy. If they want war there will be war.
In both systems you occasionally get leaders who rose to their positions by their own talents and exploits, but you also tend to get complete incompetents (usually ineffectual heirs of the first ‘great’ leaders / businessmen)
If we’re talking about the same thing here (the desire to level vengeance and retribution against those who have wronged you) the reason I see a difference with capitalism and communism/Marxism is that with capitalism this will occur but it’s usually only incidental to a profit motive. If a chunk of society wants to see a corporation punish an out-group this will make the corporation money so perhaps the corporation will do it, but the corporation doesn’t exist to right wrongs or impose will, it exists to make money. With Marxism the retribution is both a means AND an end and it’s a part of what makes it so attractive. The righting of the wrongs in the name of justice is often the point and there’s really no limiting principle as to what can be done to balance the scales. As a governing philosophy it’s quite scary.
Last edited:
Up until about 5 years ago, corporations existed because the government said they could and dictated the terms under which they operated. Now we have Amazon, which no reasonable and knowledgeable observer disputes the fact that their offensive cyber capability is mountains higher than the Pentagon. They just haven’t chosen to use it ... yet ... that we know of.
Do you think them not using it is due to Bezos influence/and or his future plans, or do you feel it's more of a bureaucracy than that.
you’re right, using the term corporation colloquially as I did was an imprecise way to make the point
They fully grasp that the American public would completely freak out if America was behind militarily at anything and would be especially alarmed if the Pentagon had to negotiate with a domestic company to conduct offensive operations at a heighten scale at wartime.
I don’t do this work, but I know people first hand who have been in the room when 3 star flag officers have asked for assistance from Amazon on offensive operations, not only did the Amazon reps correct the general about just how small the Pentagon capabilities are, they replied basically don’t call us we will call you. This is what the debate on the Hill is really about when it comes to breaking up big tech. Nobody really cares whether grandma’s racist Facebook post is being censored or nobody wants to listen or pay to store your telephone calls. But you can’t talk about the real reasons in public. People would go nuts.
Upward mobility is possible, but at some point existing wealth gaps play a large role in your success or failure. So, also the choices of you wealthy or poor ancestors.
William Blake said it best:
Every night and every morn,
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night,
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
Edit: not advocating for “communism” or “Marxism”. Just pointing out that simplistic ideologies gloss over a lot of problems. The above poem is true of humanity regardless of political structure.
The corporation as a whole does not decide what the corporation does or doesn't fund politically. That's usually chosen by a select few at the top, and punishing a group is as easy as making the right donations.
This is absolutely true. A corporation can railroad you just as easily as the government. But it doesn’t really challenge my contention that for one of them this kind of stuff is a bug but for the other it is often a feature.
Last edited:
The biggest problem I have with communism is the common mandate of a single party. Social Democracies are superior in my opinion because differing opinions and mandated elections maintain a balance of power and make it difficult for one person or group of people to dominate unless they are extraordinarily popular. The problem I do have is when capitalist democracies too the scales to systematically favor one party or group of people without regard to the actual level of public support they have.
In most cases, there are technical advisors or program managers from (pick a big tech company and insert here) that provide direct support to gov. These are separate business lines of the company, sometimes even a subsidiary, and highly compartmentalized. In order to fully understand why that happens, you have to understand how some of those big tech companies started, who allowed them to prosper, and what their function is to gov. When the CEO’s of said companies get too big for their britches or stop taking orders, they end up finding excuses to step down.
That’s normally true and the FBI has been using that model since the 30’s. It’s a different world now.
the problem with communism and socialism: the loss of individual liberty and freedoms, and too much reliance on the government.:
