02-03-2002 17:45									#181
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quote: I don't think there would be a realalistic chance of Germany going communist in the 1920's, the communists would have been put down by the French army.

And half of France would have spontaneously joined the revolution.

There is something some people don't understand. Even Stalinism cannot be compared to Nazism in ruthlessness.

Even the most hardcore Trotskyist would tell you that Stalinism is relatively better than Nazism.

Velocyrix: It seems to me that you don't know what you're talking about.

Life in most communist countries was good compared to what it would be if they were capitalist. In many 3rd world countries it was so much better, that people fought really hard for it. Everything looks inefficient compared to the US economy.

quote: I ask the question again, how many failed attempts do you NEED in order to finally become convinced that it just doesn't work?!

Just tell me how many failed attempts did democracy have until it managed to replace monarchy? And how many failed attempts did most subjugated nations had before achieving independence?

quote: How many people made MILLIONS by applying themselves diligently in the US this year alone?

These people made millions by exploiting others. No man's surplus value counts in the millions and you know it. Plus, the number of millionaires says nothing to me about the effectiveness of the system. What talks to me about the effectiveness of the system is that it constantly requires the people's wages to be reduced, in order to keep up profitability and it constantly requires an army of people out of work and desperate to get a job. It says all by requiring people to starve in Africa so that you can buy a car.

Capitalism is inefficient and unfair just as aristocracy was. It is outdated and it will go down some day.

	02-03-2002 17:56									#182
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quote: Originally posted by Dalgetti When two government-run factories compete. I believe that a competition can benefit even a communist system , due to the fact that if there are two ideas of the same product , for example, the one with the better overall quality will eventually succeed.

I have been thinking of ways to improve productivity, and competition is an effective way, there are major flaws to it that its supporters fail to mention.

The big one, I think, is the incredible inherent wastefulness of competition.

Consider a hypothetical situation of a city with 1000 potential car buyers and two car makers fighting for the market. How many cars will each make? It's unlikely that each will make 500. Due to the nature of such competition each participant will want to hog the whole market, thus creating a monopoly so it can charge outragous prices for its products and services.

However, unless one side is truly incompetent - and both sides play by the rules - no one can gain a monopoly. So what happens to the excess products?

What's worse if the products are perishable such as farm produce.

There's a lot of stuff getting trashed everyday.

	02-03-2002 20:07									#183
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Axi:

If life was so much better in these as yet unnamed communist countries, then do you have any theories which might explain why the Soviet Union collapsed under its own massive beaurocratic weight and why China has elected a more capitalistic stance with regard to privatized industries. Those two countries represent the LARGEST real world examples of communism? (or, are you gonna hit me with the argument "...but, but...those guys aren't REALLY communists!")

The fact is that any time you introduce a change in the underlying economic substructure, there IS a period of disruption as the new system finds its legs and sorts itself out. Once that period of disruption ends in a newly capitalistic society, its productivity and standard of living shoot through the roof.

To deny this is to turn a blind eye to what economic system powers ALL of the world's most powerful economies today.

Ummm....none for the USA, to cite a real world example. We kicked the Monarchy out and installed a democratic process. With help (and even we had help), the same story can play out anywhere, especially given that we are willing to provide that help (yeah, I know....you're about to bring up a wide variety of US foriegn policy snafus, and you'd be right...we've made PLENTY of mistakes, but...we've also done a LOT to help newly forming capital markets....Earlier, a question was posed--might not have even been on this thread, asking "why would the USA want to help build up a country's capital market KNOWING that said country would one day be a competitor?" The answer is simple: Competition is what makes a thriving capital market!)

As to your comment regarding exploitation of workers....this is the old communistic standby, and it's really somewhat funny.

In America, nobody puts a gun to anybody's head and forces them to work anywhere. What's funnier still about Communists claiming Capitalistic exploitation of workers are the following points:

* Communistic forced resettlement plans (ie - Move here or we'll kill you)

* Communistic forced collectivism (ie - work here or we'll kill you)

And that's not exploitation????

Methinks you are seeing communism through rose-colored lenses and not looking at historical examples.

The number of millionaires a given economy creates per capita, per year is NOT a direct indicator of the efficiency of an economic system, that is true. What it DOES do is point to the fact that private ownership of property (be it physical or intellectual, or anything else) is a HUGE boon with regards to productivity and the creation of wholly new and previously unconcieved markets. That's why so many of the best and brightest minds flee communistic oriented societies to come to places like the USA....they know their ideas, and their creativity will be justly rewarded.

Again, this is not stuff I'm just pulling out of my arse....this is stuff that actually happened, and one of the major reasons I'm continually mystified that people are still clamoring to give Communism/Fascism/pick-your-favorite-ism one more go, and on a global scale, no less.

-=Vel=-

	02-03-2002 21:34									#184
	A very good point UR ... Increase Your PM Length

yet, I still would go with competition as I described in the case of consumer goods . Some people will choose the product which is more economical , and some will choose the more fun and luxurious.

anyways, a very important thing with consumer goods is making enough of them , so there won't be no shortage situation. I am talking about a 2%-5% buffer that would protect from shortages , which is essential .

Proction competition can be replaced by opinion polls of consumers , but still you'll have to have more than one think-tank to come out with a product , so that the one most people vote for will be the one chosen.

I am still thinking of details to an efficient working structure in this case , and would be glad if you would help.

	02-03-2002 22:52									#185
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

When has the minimum wage ever gone lower?
When have people taken less money to work if they're still a competent employee?
When did it become every country's objective to feed everyone in the world?

You're also ignoring one important point; there are many places in the US and throughout the world, where unemployment is 3% or lower (4% is considered zero because of people who don'n want to work or are unable). My hometown was that way, and is still close to that mark, which means, we had more jobs than people to fill them. It was an employee marketplace, employers had to pay more for people than other places, for the same work.

	02-03-2002 22:54									#186
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The answer to the question of what happens to the excess products is that they're sold at discount (and sometimes, in the case of goods with a short shelf life, yep....there's a certain amount of waste).

Excess production leads to a glut of supply, which puts downward pressure on price.

Competitive markets face this stuff all the time, and the proper course of action to make the correction is to adjust your outputs for subsequent production runs. This is one of the many reasons that centrally controlled and planned economies don't work, actually. In a free market, each business owner decides what to produce and how much to produce based on the demand curve. In a five year plan, for example, outputs are dictated by some guy who (regardless of the amount and quality of raw data at his disposal) simply cannot make informed decisions about the precise levels of production of goods needed across all sectors of the economy.

Free markets change on the fly to meet chaning tastes and demands of the consumer, but I'd imagine it'd take a lot of slashing through red tape to get something altered on the fly to a five year plan.

-=Vel=-

	03-03-2002 03:25									#187
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Don't you guys have better to do on this thread than insulting each other?

bump

	03-03-2002 04:56									#188
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quote: Even Stalinism cannot be compared to Nazism in ruthlessness.

You keep telling yourself that.

	03-03-2002 05:11									#189
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: Even Stalinism cannot be compared to Nazism in ruthlessness. You keep telling yourself that.

And you keep telling yourself the opposite.

	03-03-2002 06:06									#190
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Who says I am? Foolish Pattycakes..

I think they both are the same in horror. Both are equally ruthless.

	06-03-2002 20:34									#191
	Put an end to popups!

I'm from Apolyton and I'm here to bump.

	06-03-2002 21:00									#192
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I'm from Apolyton too and I'm here to tell Echtelion to say something else except bumping his own thread repeadetly. I mean this is so cheap it's hilarious

	06-03-2002 21:05									#193
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Those must be the 28 most terrifying words in the English language...

	07-03-2002 07:28									#194
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I wouldn't have been tempted to answer the poll unless one of the options was "neither".

Both Bolshevik Communism and Hitler's National Socialism were horrible monstors. Both practiced genocide, one against Jews and Gypsies, the other against a variety of troublsome minorities. Both stripped their populations of the vestiges of humanity. To offer a poll and not give the respondents a third alternative is akin to asking someone the question: Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?

	07-03-2002 13:11									#195
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(mainly replying to the original post)

First thing to note - History is written by victors.
Second thing - Both systems were abused from their original ideas, both are inherently totalitarian.
I don't want to discuss the difference of killing 8 million people (Hitler) or 13 million people (Stalin) for ideological reasons (not counting the war). Both made war where they could. Proof on Stalins side: The Hitler-Stalin pact where Eastern Europe was divided between Hitler and Stalin, and when Hitler started the war, of course Stalin occupied his share - and he kept it after the war (Usually forgotten for reasons of political correctness -- History is written by victors.) Stalin wasn't quite prepared to wage war with Germany.
IMHO, there were two differences - Stalin knew he was a criminal. Hitler didn't know that. (And that's why Stalin made by far more rational politics.) The Nazis were reliable. If you were German and shut your mouth, you were quite safe (except for the war). I think Hitler never really understood why Netherlands, England and Scandinavia didn't join the war on his side. If you were Jewish, you could have known that life is very dangerous -- at least after 1938. Many Jewish didn't want to realise this for a reason a Nazi never would understand -- Patriotism and love of the home country. Stalins terror was inherently unreliable. You could be denounced by anyone. The Nazis always had a reason to kill, put someone in prison etc. - If for being Jewish, gypsy, homosexual or what else, but you could tell it in advance. As I'm not any of those I would have had a safer life in Germany (my parents survived), than in Russia. Things would have changed in the 50s, however, because it is relatively clear that Hitler would have moved to catholics (the part he couldn't absorb in his own movement), and perhaps also to "Bekennende Kirche" (Confessing Church. Hitler successfully tried to split the protestants, and "Bekennende Kirche" were those who weren't willing to follow him). And I would guess that my father were killed before 1960. As a Polish person I probably would have preferred Russia. OTOH, there was quite a lot of antisemitism in Stalinism as well.
So, don't follow a sick choice, please think yourself, stand up and fight. The next Hitler can be red or blue as well as brown. And Jewish, African, or Asian as well as German.
(When reading a poster which opposes some group or something, I usually try to replace the attacking by "German" and the attacked by "Jews". If this turns out to be Nazi propaganda, the original thing essentially is. They are the dangerous. If they aren't, this technique wouldn't work, because there is something specific.)