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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by skywalker
Here's your chance. Explain why what I'm about to say is wrong.
Communism is immoral, because it is slavery. I produce a commodity, my labor. I sell that commodity in exchange for money. If you require that I give that money to other people who have less money, then you are really requiring me to give my labor, without compensation, to them. Thus, I am their slave. Slavery is immoral. |
That's a bad choice of words. I take it you have heard of the Labour Theory of Value?
The LTOV specifies that each person receive the value of his labour and not have it taken from him (or alienated) by some other person, that other person typically being an owner of capital. The compensation you recieve must be proportional to the labour you expend. That is the core of the Marxist position. In some cases we will have to redistribute income to those who cannot work, but that does not affect the core of the argument.
If you use purloined labour as your argument, then you are actually using the communists' own argument, which is pretty funny IMHO.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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After the USSR, Maoist China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, Albania, and the other litany of communist paradises that were/are little more than police states and where the common folk had/have nothing but slavery or death, their choice, it is amazing that anyone can seriously continue to call themselves communists. I almost think that communism must be some sort of mental disease.
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Curiosity
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
After the USSR, Maoist China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, Albania, and the other litany of communist paradises that were/are little more than police states and where the common folk had/have nothing but slavery or death, their choice, it is amazing that anyone can seriously continue to call themselves communists. I almost think that communism must be some sort of mental disease. |
Let's look through the list.
USSR: Russian was a third world country when the communists came to power, fresh out of an Imperial dictatorship and with a democratic government that no-one would have expected to last. Over the next 50 years it experienced growth beyond anyone's wildest dreams, building a superpower out of a nation of goatherds and distillers, even while fighting and taking massive damage in two world wars. It permanently changed the way economies all over the world are run by making the idea of planning an economy mainstream.
Eventually, it's one-party system was changed to a westernized democracy by means of politics, with minimal blooshed.
Maoist China: Again, the Imperial system was falling into ruins with revolution threatening to tear the country apart. The communists united the country, ended the threat of interminable civil wars, and gave the people more of a say in the running of their country than at any other time in their history. Now the country is experiencing an economic boom, and again, it looks like becoming a superpower in the next 20-30 years.
North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia - True, though these are more examples of dictatorships with communist rhetoric than of communist states.
Cuba: After replacing a fascist dictatorship the Cuban government was forced to endure the threat of invasion, being a pawn in the cold war, and a trade embargo which has meant that Cubans must pull themselvs up by their own bootstraps. In spite of that, while few are well off, no-one starves or is denied medical care, something the USA has not managed to achieve. If they are ever treated fairly then Cuba has the educated population and cheap labour to take off economically.
Albania - no idea 
The point is that, by and large, communist states have done much better than their contemporaries in a despotic form of government. Sure it's great to have a westernized democracy. Unfortunately democracy in most places has been merely a short interlude before the takover of the next Generalissimo. Communism has provided long-term stability and disipline in the the military - both vital if democracy is ever to stand a chance.
And of course there's always the hope that you can combine the best of both worlds - there's always a first time. 
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SKILORD
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Live free or Die
Mar 2002
time: 05:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Here's your chance. Explain why what I'm about to say is wrong.
Capitalism is immoral because it is slavery. Someone produces a commodity, and begins to manufature it. As they hire more and more workers, they begin to branch out. They begin putting down factories in other countries like China or India or Burma, where they force workers to work for a few cents each day. They cannot leave lest they starve, thus they are the corperations slaves. Slavery is immoral.
(And, just for effect: ) I spit on your covetousness, I spit on your jests. I spit on you each as individuals, not as a mass. I spit on your dogma, your blind faith in the righteousness of the strong.
I know, it's a really bad troll BUT.....So were they  |
Slavery is immoral, but is also contradictory to the tenets of Capitalism. Capitalism in Ideal at least states thast all men should be paid according to the work which they accomplish wheras Communism, in Ideal, states that you should work for the good of your brothers while ensuring that no man exceeds you.
In practicality the lack of a Union system in the third world is the only thing that allows them to be raped by american corporations. They will soon realise that the corporations need them, just as European and American workers discovered long ago and will take what is fairly theirs.
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Curiosity
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SKI,
quote:
Does this mean that we should punish the thrifty? If the workforce is willing to accept the pay, then what is wrong with it? |
Often nothing. For a skilled workforce and a market where labour is rare it works well.
However, unions are only practical where you have a stable job and a reasonable number of employees who cannot be easily replaced. Otherwise the theoretical 'value' of a person's labour can well fall below the point at which they are able to survive. That's why all developed nations have some sort of protection for the lowest-paid, however capitalist they may declare themselves to be.
Unions without any legal restraint can be just as bad, of course.
quote:
Amassing a great deal of capital is simple? I hardly seem to think so. If it were so simple as you paint it I doubt that we would ever have heard of Marx. |
I didn't say it was simple. I said 'simply by', i.e. with no other necessity.
Sometimes it is simple: you inherit wealth, for example. I'm living off my capital right now, and it's quite a nice lifestyle. I'll stop after I leave university, though.
CEO's are not the issue, btw. Few CEOs actually own the companies they manage these days. The issue is with someone who has a million shares in Xerox and no need to ever contribute further to society. They may consume vast amounts of resources and give nothing back.
To my mind there are worse problems in capitalism, especially when entrenched interests attempt to hold back progress. See, forex, the RIAA attempting to keep music 'physical', advertising determining that an inferior product wins over a superior one, the timber industry campaigning against hemp fiber.
Unfortunately, to quote Marx very roughly, 'the technology determines the society'. But we still don't really know what sort of society the information age makes possible...
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Tiberius
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Europe
Jan 2000
time: 06:31
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How many of you did actually see where communism leads?
In theory it may sound good, but it becomes in time something like this:
- one party system: same politicians, all in the same boat. Make no mistake: they are the same people, only now they can do whatever they want, because the choice of vote doesn't exist anymore.
- the newspapers, the televisions are all state-controled. They are saying obviously only what the communist party wants you to hear. No critics allowed.
- everything belongs to the state, therefor no one cares about anything. "Why should I care that my company is not going well? My boss won't sack me." The boss is the state, represented by an obscure clerk working in an obscure office in the capital. He cares about the company just as much as the workers who are happily stealing everything they can.
- in communism there is no unemployment! So let's just hire anyone, even if there is no need for their work. We will just put them behind a desk to move papers from one end of the desk to the other one.
- Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than the others. Down with the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy! Long live the communist party leaders and their relatives and friends!
- Give the power to the workers! Sure, the workers know how to run a business. Oh wait, they don't have to know it, because the state knows everything. They will just give them "precious" advices.
- "To each according to his needs" - who will decide my needs? Some committee? Well, let's see, I think I have a friend in that comittee; Hurray! I need a bigger house!
- supply and demand? Forget it, the state knows it better. We will just manufacture x quantity of this and y quantity of that. What? It won't be enough? You DARE to question the party leaders' wisdom? It WILL be enough. So what if those children will have to stay hours in front of the milkshop to buy some milk? It will strenghten them.
- we can't let the evil capitalists to spread their rotten ideas! Therefor every citizen will keep its passport at the local Police, and will have the right to travel abroad once every two years; if he gets the approval.
I could continue this list for days, but honestly I'm tired of all this. I don't even want to think of it anymore.
As much as I respect GePap, Che, Tass or other communists here on Apolyton (and ironically usually I agree with them, on other issues, even if mostly I just read and don't post) I honestly think they have no idea how the jinnee would behave once you let it out from the bottle.
Hey, I'd like to believe in fairyland, too! 
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29-09-2003 08:44
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