new capitalism vs communism thread

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
You can contend all you want that that is not communism.

However, that is clearly what the Manifesto advocates.

I have read the Manifesto multiple times. I just went back and read it again a few minutes ago. You do not know what you are talking about.

There is nothing in that section that you quoted that describes what a communist society would look like. It describes, at best, a few policies that such societies would persue. Notice that several of these polices have also been enacted in capitalist nations, but I would not call Great Britain or the US capitalist because of the existence of progressive income taxes, government banks, and public education.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
The company is not a contract. The company is a terrain, a building, with productive machinery in it (be it computer or machine tools). And people working on this machinery. The company is a "moral person" (as opposed to a "physical person" - well, at least that's the terminology in French, but I guess it's the same in English) that signs contracts with its employees, manager included. But the owner of the company is accountable to no one but himself.
Actually, there are several legislations according to the size of a company: there are companies with unlimited responsiblity: if there is a problem, a failure to pay debts, etc, the owner will be forced to pay until the last dime from his pockets (and may have to sell his house, his clothes, or whatever). Such a legislation applies to very small companies, generally mono-personal.
Societies with limited responsiblity are basically the same principle, except that you can't rip the owner off everything he has. Such legislation applies to small, but not minuscule, companies.
Lastly, big companies are Anonymous societies, where the ownership is supposed to be divided among many people (but it's not mandatory: you may have an Anonymous Society with one person, or one "mother company" having all shares, and everybody knowing who that is). In this case, the owner is completely irresponsible. His company can have billions of debt, he'll never be worried. Useless to say, it can be very interesting to pillage a company and then let it die in a gutter with such a system.

If he owns the company, and he sends it into horrible debt and everything and it becomes worthless, then he's lost money. The company is one of his assets.

Tell that to the Siberians who have lost their jobs in the hand of greedy managers. Tell that to the 50-year-old workers who have spent their lives in the company, knowing no other job, and who'll never find a willing employer again. Tell that to these women for whom there is no work left in their branch. Tell that to those people who are left with zero income to feed their family, and who have to find a way to scrap some money, quickly. Tell that to people who entered depression as their world crumbled around them. Tell that to the inhabitants of the village surrounding the factory, who have lost all economic activity.

Yep, tell that to them.

It's fairly easy for the likes of you and me to find work afterwards. We are alone, we have nobody to feed but ourselves, we are young (and hence able to learn a new job), we are well educated, we have parents to shelter us while on the dole.
Those who suffer first from this kind of pillaging, however, aren't as favored as us. They have families to feed. They are usually old or middle aged, and learning is much more difficult at that age. They are poor and have very little time margin to find a new source of income. And they are often despaired because they assisted powerlessly at the destruction of a workplace they held dear.

Yeah, that's so easy to find a new job

This is why I support a "social safety net" and the government employing people for various civil works (like road maintenence).

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


I have read the Manifesto multiple times. I just went back and read it again a few minutes ago. You do not know what you are talking about.

There is nothing in that section that you quoted that describes what a communist society would look like. It describes, at best, a few policies that such societies would persue. Notice that several of these polices have also been enacted in capitalist nations, but I would not call Great Britain or the US capitalist because of the existence of progressive income taxes, government banks, and public education.

No, but the critical distinctions are the points made about taking state control of both the means of production and of communication.

Totalitarianism!

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, and wrt patents, I hold the view of Jared Diamond - that is, they are one of the proximate causes of the technological superiority of Western civilization, not a fundamental cause.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
No, but the critical distinctions are the points made about taking state control of both the means of production and of communication.

Totalitarianism!

Is Britain totalitarian? The have control of much of production and almost total control of communication.

[Berzerker]

Is Britain totalitarian? The have control of much of production and almost total control of communication.

In practice? Almost. In mindset? Yes.

[Az]

Death to the evil commie queen!!!!!!111

[DaShi]

Someone found the queen!

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Azazel
Death to the evil commie queen!!!!!!111

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by skywalker
don't just say "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".

Ah, but this is the most important part. First you have to make the primary purpose of your system to treat all citizens equally. That's where real change comes. Otherwise only the rulers change.

Please make your question more specific. Some of use don't have time for very long posts.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Ow, ow, my eyes hurt. To...much...spam...

Anyways, I'l make the argument that capitalism works because it fosters ownership. Ownership helps to extend a person's understanding of self through the ability to give away and receive compensation for things created. By being able to own what you have created you can extend greater control over your ideas and your identity.

The general case is for someone else to own what you create and for you to recieve a wage for creating it.

[JohnT]

.... he's baaaaAAAAAAaaaaack....

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Wheres my rabid dog emoticon?

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Ned
Spiffor, here is a bit from the Manifesto. I see nothing in this that requires the IMMEDIATE cessation of government. The USSR appears to be the very empitome of the what Marx described as communism (in its intermediate form) in the Manifesto.

"We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...festo/ch02.htm

The only thing missing from this plan is political structure of the government. A constitution with checks and balances is needed so that power is distributed in a effective way. That's what the USSR missed. Other than that the plan is a good one. People don't just instantly conform to communism. Government needs to mold citizens into communists.

[Ned]

Kidicious, I'm glad you agree that the USSR was in fact a Communist state.

[Ned]

Kid, Sparta was a communist state as well. Agreed?

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Ned
Kidicious, I'm glad you agree that the USSR was in fact a Communist state.

It had a very poor political structure. That was the biggest problem, and the problem that caused such suffering.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Ned
Kid, Sparta was a communist state as well. Agreed?

I don't think so. Why do you say that?

[Ned]

All Spartans were equal, they ate all meals in common, etc., etc.

[Ned]

Ditto the Helots. They were all equal as well.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Ned
All Spartans were equal, they ate all meals in common, etc., etc.

Didn't they have slaves though?

[Ned]

Kid, the structure of society had the warriors and the field laborers. Both were equal.

In a way, the helots were slaves because they worked the fields. But they really worked for the state - from each according his ability to each according to his needs worked at both the Helot and the warrior levels of society.

There were no property rights and no wealth at any level. Thus the word Spartan.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Ned
Kid, the structure of society had the warriors and the field laborers. Both were equal.

In a way, the helots were slaves because they worked the fields. But they really worked for the state - from each according his ability to each according to his needs worked at both the Helot and the warrior levels of society.

There were no property rights and no wealth at any level. Thus the word Spartan.

They still had a class system. The Spartans had control over the division of labor, correct? If so there is a gray area. If one class controls another class, economically and politically, that is little different from one class formally owning the farms like in a feudalist society.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Government needs to mold citizens into communists.

Can't you people ever learn? If we want to make a good communist society, we're supposed to learn from past mistakes.

What you are doing here is to advocate totalitarianism. I thought we all agreed on loathing totalitarianism

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Spiffor


Can't you people ever learn? If we want to make a good communist society, we're supposed to learn from past mistakes.

What you are doing here is to advocate totalitarianism. I thought we all agreed on loathing totalitarianism

It's not totalitarianism. In fact, it's little different from what we have now. Now we mold citizens into being good capitalists. Citizens have to be socialized into the system that they exist in. There is no natural process that does that, only Kaos.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Kidicious


They still had a class system. The Spartans had control over the division of labor, correct? If so there is a gray area. If one class controls another class, economically and politically, that is little different from one class formally owning the farms like in a feudalist society.

The helots worked for the state just as do workers in communist societies.

The warrior class did not have any wealth. They also worked for the state in a military capacity.

In one sense, the Spartan society was two classes, worker and army. The USSR had two such classes as well - plus a third, the Communist Party itself.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Ned
In one sense, the Spartan society was two classes, worker and army. The USSR had two such classes as well - plus a third, the Communist Party itself.

I think Marx would say that no one should have to be forced into one class or the other. Certainly he would say that all citizens should be treated equally. It's hard to say whether the Spartans and the Helots were equal, but the Spartans had more political power (I think) so I think they were elite.

The USSR did not live up to Marxist ideals and really didn't ever make a honest effort to do so. Stalin claimed to be trying to make a true communist society, but of course that was bull. He was just making himself more powerfull.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kidicious
It's not totalitarianism. In fact, it's little different from what we have now. Now we mold citizens into being good capitalists. Citizens have to be socialized into the system that they exist in.

OK, this is better already.

[Kuciwalker]

People don't have to be "molded" - they should be taught to think for themselves (methinks this is time to google some Nietzsche quotes )

[curtsibling]

@Ned:

The classical world to which the Spartans belonged, was a far cry from the 1900's which the USSR tainted.

Although far from perfect, the Spartan ideal was one of pure warrior philosophy.

Something far nobler than the meagre offerings of our insane and stained era...