I dont understand why we cant have both. I dont think anyone can disagree that both systems have their advantages. Many capitalist countries still get along fine, if not good with government owned (public) services. Here in canada we have public healthcare and education, two sectors in which i think privitization would only cause more harm then good. There are other sectors that eye think would benifit from public ownership as well are Communications, Banking (oh how i loathe the private banking system) and Food Production. As far as the perks of life go im capitalism 100%.
The nessesities and critical national infrastructure should be held accountable to the people as they are the ones they directly effect. A corporation is NOT accountable to the people. In the united states every privatley owned hospital could be demolished at the whim of its director, leaving the country with zero health services. Sure the chances of that are slim to none, but its a situation that could arise.
But i dunno. I dont like the fact that my thoughts are starting to dip into the red latley, but it sometimes seems the only way.
i agree. how hard could it possibly be to identify what is good about capitalism and good about socialism, put them together.
good about socialism- there is no 1% hogging one third of the money (seriously wtf)
good about capitalism- people are motivated to do new things by the prospect of luxurious living
so what is one way to reconcile these two things? what could we ever possibly hope to do to have both of these good things in the same system? oh why oh why god did you give us such a horrific unsolvable conundrum?
oh wait, my brain DOES work! ive got it! $50million WEALTH CAP.
CAPTIALISTS WAKE UP!!! WHAT IS SO BAD about a wealth cap?! huh!? why doesnt anybody answer me? i know exactly why: there is nothing wrong with it.
We already do have both since each is the other side of the other.
But in Hate of the bad in each, we blind ourselves to those bad aspects of each system: there are none so blind as those who hate and so don’t want to see what they are looking at.
In hate of takers, most givers have never seen that
there can be no givers without takers
nor can there be any takers without givers:
Givers take from themselves.
Takers give to themselves.
So too with capitalism and socialism.
Without Love, caps will only hog all, and socialists will only demand all.
What’s missing is Love for the bad in each.
When that Love for the bad comes in to join Love for the good,
we will have whole Love.
“The 1920’s through the 1950’s were economies of the hand.
The 1970’s through the 1990’s were economics of the head.
The 2000’s through 2020’s will be economies of the heart.”
Vlachav Havel
i love when billionaires keep all their money for themselves and their spoiled, unbalanced children. i love when they buy solid gold cars and more than twice as many rooms than they could possibly use. i love when they still want to pay their workers less and screw their stockholders more. i love when they govern themselves, because they do such a good job…
There are many negative things about Capitalism that cannot be fixed by a wealth cap. There should also be a living social wage. If there was a cap to wealth, I can only imagine the impoverished would be held down even further. Additionally, the exploitation of resources, the externalizing of safety measures to the public, and the absured amount of hours people work are all issues that should be addressed.
This negative column for socialism isn’t even close to empty. There must be a transition period between human beings dependent on being forced to wage labor and human beings using their productive capabilities freely. There needs to be a sense of meaning and purpose that is still able to unite the productive capabilities of social labor to the purpose of bettering human life. Our model for discovering new technologies must be adapted so that we can push technological advances for the social good.
yeah naber, the only solution i see is a ridiculously complex govt system with so much control over so many details that even i slightly doubt id be able to do it perfectly. this is no reason to embrace capitalism.
i dont know man, it seems like this would be the natural thing that humans would more than love to do. it seems like the only thing preventing this from happening is the fact that rich people love the idea of forcing wage labor. i dont think humans are intrinsically lazy, and i dont see how its neccesary that any commie society perpetuates laziness. if anything, working in a factory in a supposedly free society and never getting anywhere should make you feel like a complete failure and should make you never want to try again.
yeah this is the problem that needs to be fixed with rich people first, then i think the poor will follow suit, especially if the leaders successfully and accurately convey the image of loving benefactor.
yeah this would be weird, but i believe as far as the goal of human happiness is concerned, it will be much more efficient when technology advancements arent directed at making money, but happiness.
a govt committee established to discover new happiness technology sounds like a weird idea, but id freaking love to join it, and im sure most smart people would. but where to get the money for such a seemingly pointless commitee? oh right the billionaires that well rob.
I agree with this. I think that the condition in which people are forced to work, they tend to resent it. I think that people will continue to resent it unless there is a slow transition or a major shift in values.
That would be great, I think part of that is that people finally realize the insincerity of the powerful despite their rehearsed use of a flowery words.
I think a great project under this heading would be a project to develop the crop output to feed the entire world. This system would even be better if our efforts included developing production means that required little labor.
As far as I can tell, you are perfectly free to form a commune and live socialistically in a capitalist society. There is nothing preventing you from doing that, and most wouldn’t have any problem with you doing it, so long as you confine it to commune property.
In a socialist society, you cannot own your own business, (I mean own it, not merely have permission to use it through the government), you cannot speak freely, worship freely, read freely, develop your own home and property however you please. In most socialist countries you are assigned your job, assigned your home, assigned your life. In short, you cannot have capitalist enclaves within socialist society.
BUT you have got the idea!
Saying it means that you are on the way to meaning it…after you believe it!
As adults, we learn in partial reverse to kids:
Kids say it, then before they know it, they believe and mean it!
As adults, we have to believe it and beleive in it to say it, and then say it on our way to meaning it!
So you are on your way!
here is some help as to how else to say it syllable by syllable: it may be a little more long since it is all spelled out in Love:
i love when billionaires and pooraires so that I am always Love-rich as rich and as poor and so can equally love both the rich and the poor.
I love the rich keep all their money for themselves in Love of the poor, and to give it away in Love of themselves being poor, so that the Balance of Love is always equal.
I love their spoiled, unbalanced children and i love unspoiled and balanced kids since spoiled rich kids are first spoiled by hatred of them as poor by their parents, just as poor kids are also spoiled by hatred of them as poor by their parents.
i love when they buy solid gold cars and more than twice as many rooms than they could possibly use and I love it when they are poor as mice and live in rooms they can’t possibly fit in so I can really love poor people who now live that way.
i love when they still want to pay their workers less and screw their stockholders more and i Love it when they want to pay their workers more and bless their stockholders more and screw themselves instead.
i love when they govern themselves well and badly, because the first sign of good governance is Love for the good and the bad, for the well governed and the badly governed…and because the first sign of bad self-governance is hatred of self as badly governed!
here is some encouragement from those who may have more street-cred with you!
“If the first 7 editions of my introductory text on economics managed to omit 'Love” from the index, why cannot the 8th let well enough alone? It is not as if I have suddenly gone soft in the head. Rather it is a case of having, belatedly, come clear in the head: to explain the scientific facts that are out there to be explained, had Love never existed we should have had to invent it." Paul Samuelson, 12.29.1969 in Economics From The Heart.
"I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was THE RICHEST MAN of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the
souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the Love
he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the
world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I
was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board,
and nearly everyone with Hate received the news with pleasure. Several said,
“Thank God that son of a bitch is dead.”
There was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of
human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human
weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to
buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a
position of great power. He clothed his motives in the name of virtue,
and I have wondered whether he knew that no gift will ever buy back a
man’s Love when you have removed his Self-Love. A bribed man [in Hate] can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation with its little Love rang with praise and, just beneath, with gladness [in its high Hate] that he was dead.
There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize those fears. This man was hated by the few, [loved by the many]. When he died the people in their Love
burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed,
“What can we do now? How can we go on without him?”
In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of
frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their
vices are attempted short cuts to Love. When a man comes to die, no
matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his
life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me
that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action,
we should remember our dying and try to live that our death brings no
pleasure to the world which loves to hate words. Ezekiel 18:23-32.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the
never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me
that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal.
Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as
nothing else in the world is."
John Steinbeck
East of Eden
"The fundamentals of the whole economic condition are divine in nature and are associated with the world of the heart and spirit. ….
Hearts must be so cemented together,
Love must become so dominant that the rich shall most willingly extend assistance to the poor and take steps to establish these economic adjustments permanently.
If it is accomplished in this way of Love, it will be most praiseworthy because then it will be for the sake of God and in the pathway of His service.
For example, it will be as if the rich inhabitants of a city should say,
“It is neither just nor lawful that we should possess great wealth while there is abject poverty in this community,”
and then willingly give their wealth to the poor, retaining only as much as will enable them to live comfortably.
Strive, therefore, to create Love in the hearts in order that they may become glowing and radiant.
When that Love is shining, it will permeate other hearts even as this electric light illumines its surroundings.
When The Love of God is established, everything else will be realized.
This Love is the true foundation of all economics.
Reflect upon it.
Endeavor to become the cause of the attraction of souls rather than to enforce minds.
Manifest true economics to the people.
Show what Love is, what kindness is, what true severance is and generosity.
This is the important thing for you to do. ….
Economic questions will not attract hearts.
The Love of God alone will attract them.
Economic questions are most interesting; but the power which moves, controls and attracts the hearts of men is The Love of God.
`Abdu’l-Baha: Promulgation of Universal Peace, pages 238-239, 7.23.1912
all love to you as less poor and so richer than poor me!
iloveu
ohh i get it now ASEI, you have no clue what im talking about. i didnt say lets turn the US into stalinland, i sure would be a dumbass if i said that.
and i dont want to live in a freaking commune in this broken planet, i want to fix the planet. ASEI you seem to think that the ONLY way ANYBODY would EVER be a commie is if they are a failure and they want to leech off of rich people. thats because you dont know. trust me, youll probably be leeching off of me.
SIGH! thank god nabber, for a second i almost thought i was mentally retarded and nobody told me.
indeed. but i really wonder how hard it could possibly be to set up a fully objective uncorruptible leader selection system. i think the most important thing would be to select people who dont actually want to do it very badly. i mean the current selection process is pure insanity. i mean at the time, compared to king selection it was brilliant. but guess what, 200 years ago the world wasnt exactly the same as it is today.
i propose we go to africa, find a guy whos real good at leading charity organizations and put him in charge. i mean we say power corrupts, but look at who gets in power. maybe thats the problem, the selection process and not so much the act of having power. saddam was ruthless not because he was in charge and slowly realized he could get away with murder, he got in charge because there was some serious turmoil and like 5 revolutions in 5 minutes and in order for that to stop, fear inspiring ruthlessness was required.
i cannot imagine being corrupted. i mean there is really no way. there is nothing that i would want to gain. if i had a billion dollars right now, there are literally no things that i would buy except for a few video games. the idea of multiple palaces makes me vomit. the thought of more rooms than i use makes me vomit. one thing i know for sure, i am an incomparably better human being than dubya, and people in africa today are incomparably better human beings than me. and believe it or not, dubya is incomparably better than the people who inspired the tired cliche.
i dont think this is an insurmountable problem. i think the first step is to make it very very easy for absolutely anybody to become president. all you have to do is display a love for humanity, a decent brain, and little to no evil tendencies. if we picked people against their will to become president, then i think we will decrease the amount of bad leaders unimaginably. if 5 years of charity work was required to become president, same deal.
if anybody actually tried to make a good leader selection program, i think virtually all world problems would cease to be.
So, as far as I can tell, you hate the rich for being richer, or smarter, or luckier than you, yet you don’t desire what they have? Or perhaps you merely desire to destroy what they have because you want no one being greater in any of those respects than yourself?
Why do you feel that Africans are incomparibly better human beings than yourself? Is your standard of “better” merely the virtue of having less wealth, prosperity, and happiness? Of living impovershed and insecure lives? If so, the pursuit of your virtues should leave you and any that you force your moral code on in pain and misery. It will lead to the destruction of prosperity, wealth, and happiness.
If below average is taken to be virtue and above average is taken to be vice, whether the scale is intelligence, wealth, physical well-being, ect, I can tell you what direction the average will move under your moral code.
If, on the other hand, wealth, intelligence, and well-being are taken to be virtues, and their lack to be taken as something unfortunate to be avoided and corrected, then the pursuit of my virtues will raise the average in all respects.
I haven’t leeched off of anyone yet, except my parents as a child. I have no intention of leeching off anybody, and also no intention of allowing anybody to leech off of me. I believe in self sufficience as a moral obligation of the able-bodied and able-minded. I will pull my own weight and repay my own debts.
Either a society lives by the principle of letting people live their own lives and own their own lives, consequences and all, or it lives by any other principle whereby their lives belong to someone or something else. One is free, the other totalitarian. Like I said before, capitalists and socialists can coexist just fine as long as the socialists are part of their communes freely, and the capitalists are free to pursue their lives and fortunes sans interference.
The only way that any diverse group is able to coexist peacefully is when they are bound by the social agreement that they will live the way they desire and let others live their own ways. In such a society, the communists can hold their community on their land, and the capitalists can build and trade on theirs. (The freedom of ownership and property) The religious can worship freely in their churches, and the secularists can believe what they will in their places of gathering. (the first amendment, freedom of speech, religion and association). And as long as the violent conversion of one to the other, the violent preying of one group upon another, and coercive manipulation is kept at bay by recognition of such rights, any number of diverse groups can peacefully coexist. That is the genius of America.
BTW, and I post this as a challenge to all socialist/communist/progressive people. You all seem desperate to get rid of capitalism, or to seize the wealth of the capitalists. Yet, as far as I can tell, the capitalists have never stood in your way, in terms of your theoretical goals. They have never prevented you from sharing with fellow communists and establishing communities under your own social rules. In fact, many tried communes in the 60’s.
If your social system is at all preferable or desirable, and if it is capable of standing in its own right, then stop trying to tear down the capitalists and their way of life and go build a commune! Stop trying to seize and go produce what you think is your due. Live according to your morals and let us live according to ours. If it is a viable and desirable way of life, then you’ll be emulated. If it isn’t, then you’ll lose followers. But above all, live and let live. “Social selection” will follow in due time due to people choosing the way of life that makes them happiest.
ok asei, im gonna surprise you with something. i know i havent said it once yet, i know all ive done is give you the wrong impression with my love of vietnam and cambodia, but believe it or not, i do not want stalinland. believe it or not i do not want stalinland. believe it or not i do not want stalinland. believe it or not i do not want stalinland. VURRRRRUP! sorry about that, anyway
you can own your house, you can point to the bill of rights when i try and take it (which i do want to exist believe it or not). you can still play video games and have fun. you can wear jeans. you can still read books, even the ones that extoll the virtues of non-philanthropic billionaires.
what you cant do is hoard so incredibly much worthless objects that other people have slightly less than average as a direct result of your selfishness. if you want to be selfish and not donate your time and money to africa fine. if you want to accumulate $50 mil and swim around in it like uncle scrooge, fine.
why on earth would you want more than $50 mil? what are you gonna do with it? i dont understand. what could you possibly do with it? invest in your financially independent children? what if they are insane like me and they dont really want it?
ok asei. im gonna surprise you with something. i know i havent said it once yet, i know all ive done is give you the wrong impression with my demands for money for myself and my endless self-loathing and pitiful begging for mercy, but i actually am a rich, smart, incredibly lucky person.
did i say that? oh well im sorry, no all humans have the exact same amount of humanity inside them. it hurts the same amount when you starve if youre african or a rich smart lucky white person like us. the reason why i feel like they are more ‘deserving’ of immediate free food than you and i are is because they dont have food. we have food. we have shiny rocks that dont even make our lives better, and they dont have food.
yes thats right, i want all humans to strive to be like africans. if we all just give up our food until our bellies bulge with some kind of weird malfunction i dont even understand, the world will be utopia.
oh dammit youre right! i didnt even think about that at all! hunger is bad! boy im stupid.
oh i get it. so all we have to do is tell the country that being rich and famous and having lots of rocks and working hard your whole life, we tell the world that these are qualities we should all have, and they will easily find food for their stomachs! its just a matter of teaching them that work=food. now i get it.
doh! boy do i feel dumb.
thats weird, so either people are allowed to run amock and selfishly gain all the money in the world at the cost of starving everybody in the world except for them, or you are a slave to josef stalin. damn that sucks. cause i mean i had this other idea about it, but i guess if the world is either one or the other then i guess we have to go with this one and enjoy it before michael eisner eats all our food.
ah yes and what a magnificent life it is! mikeys heart fills with glee when he sees that his golden toilet seat has been polished. he gags at the thought that the person who polished it sat on a public seat at least once in their life. but luckily, the help runs from him so he doesnt have to see their dirty disgusting faces.
he can choose from fifty cars. fifty! its like, if somebody sees him in the hummer, and ridicules him for hiding his small dick with a big car, he can totally show up the next day in a lamborghini and thatll show those idiots!!
he has so many rooms in his house, he doesnt even understand why he bought them in the first place. what he does know is that whenever a chick is there, she will totally have sex with him! oh what a marvelous, incomprehensibly complete and fulfilling life.
[/sarcasm] boy youre so smart and perceptive asei. wait, didnt take, maybe needs another [size=75](er uh… it did!)[/size][/sarcasm] that oughtta do it
now thats a correct statement.
do you completely dismiss the possibility that capitalism is not exactly the number 1 most efficient, best, most perfect, beaufitul, flawless system for making sure that people have the chance to live the life they desire without unfair situations preventing them from achieving this life more than others? do you think everybody in america is treated fairly and given a fair chance? do you think there is anybody who actually has no chance at all? is it their fault for being born?
do you espouse social darwinism? do you think black people are lazy crack smoking retards? if not, why do you think they make up the majority of the poor?
oh and asei, one last thing. one tiny little detail. when you respond, first, do me a favor, read this post. at least once.
asei, if nobody was allowed to have more than $50 mil, you think your life would be worse? how? because [abstract argument vaguely directed at stalin and completely unrelated to the question]? oh ok.
true we could just go and start a community on a dirt pile and try to forget all of our old luxuries but 1) you cant unring a bell. 2) if our kids grow up and want to see the big world out there, they will be totally unprepared and 3) there are a lot of wonderful resources that would make a really great commie community if you would just slightly loosen your death grip.
and 4) no normal person who lives in brainwashed consumerism land would ever consider joining a technology free dirt farm. some technology=good, hoarding unimaginable amounts of money for no reason that you could even list for me=bad. i dont see the connection between these two things.
In socialism both gains and losses are socialized. At first glance this system might appear to be almost identical with private enterprise, with the community replacing the individual as both the actor and the acted-upon. In practice, however, the properties of this system are different, because “the community” is an abstraction, and abstractions can neither make decisions nor be rewarded.
I don’t see many bad things about socialist democracy
I do not see anything wrong with extensive social security
Good education
Quality Healthcare and Childcare
Raising minimum wage, improving working conditions
Environmental Laws enforced
A foreign policy supporting multilateralism
Well you didn’t refute my argument at all. As far as your leader suggestion, thats just poppycock; its not a practical nor real awnser to an all too real problem.
Aquarian wrote:
?? What does this have to do with socialism? It is such idealizations that lead to the Soviet Union and other communist regimes in the first place.
We need to come down out of the clouds and into the real world.
