Communism

[Morgoth]

No matter which of your points I take, it suffices to reiterate two quotes I have already made a few posts above:

 

An idea that fails to account for basic human nature is fundamentally flawed. And when that failure means that it will inevitably cause massive harm if tried in the real world, that idea is evil.

 

It's evil because attempting to put it into place will inevitably cause massive harm. Now that we know the consequences, it can safely be judged evil.

 

To make it even clearer:

 

Hey, they aren't even drawbacks of the regime, they're faults of the people.

 

Quote #1 labels any system that does not incorporate flaws of human nature, which results in harm being done to the people, evil.

 

You listed the drawbacks of capitalism. [...]  We just have to make laws to prevent them.

 

Capitalism does not require laws, through the establishment of a legal framework we are not practising capitalism anymore, but a modified version of it which tries to prevent the most severe harm capitalism would otherwise do to the people; cf. quote #2.

 

At the moment you are only supporting the conclusion that capitalism is evil.

[Peregrine]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, since I only said two of those.

 

 

As for quote one, the criticism is about failing to account for human flaws, not to incorporate them. Communism fails because it ignores the fact that people are generally selfish, and not idealistic enough to make it work. The evil comes in because this failure leaves the system open to horrible exploitation by the people that aren't idealists. And so you get something like soviet russia, a dictatorship and communist in name only.

 

A better system would be one that recognizes the human flaws, and includes protection against them. Asking people nicely to be something they aren't doesn't count.

 

 

And quote #2 has nothing to do with capitalism. It's just a counter-argument to the idea that putting communism into place wasn't evil because nobody knew it would produce such bad results. Now this isn't true, and we know the massive harm communism will cause if it is attempted. There are no excuses anymore, anyone trying to enforce a communist system is evil.

[draighox]

To Morgoth:

These quotes are only about harm done when putting the system into place. Capitalism was here for a long time and evolved naturally. The main flaw of your sequence of logic is, you say that if capitalism is put in place of some better system, the capitalism will cause more harm than that system. Since we don't have a system, which is better than capitalism, you cannot state that capitalism causes more harm than something else.

 

Using your logic, everything is evil, because there isn't anything that doesn't cause harm.

[Morgoth]

To Peregrine:

 

I never intended to claim that you said all things I quoted - inadequate use of the quote feature on my side.

 

The term incorporate is badly chosen, what I meant was that the system should not ignore, but be aware of the flaws of human nature and accordingly take counter-measures to prevent them from having a harmful impact.

Of course, everybody should recognize that every ideology does not meet such a requirement, simply because it is an ideology - prevention of harm that is caused by the flawed human nature can usually only be achieved by laws which establish a certain framework, irrelevant whether people adopt those laws voluntarily (i.e. they would not have done what is prohibited anyway) or are forced to.

 

As far as the second quote is concerned, I do think that it says more than its plain literal meaning. If putting communism into place means harm it is evil, if putting capitalism into place means great harm that is not evil? Probably not. Consequently, I presume that the argument can be extended not only to the establishment of a certain ideology/regime (however you name it), but also to its effects once it has been put into place (in whichever way).

 

To draighox:

 

You can't honestly tell me that while the question of how much harm the establishment causes is relevant whereas the effects after the establishment do not matter.

I can also not see where the necessity for Smith's Wealth of Nations was if capitalism is completely natural and has been there all the time. Nor do I understand how medieval guild structures or mercantilism comply with capitalist ideology.

I cannot say that everything (What is everything? Do we know everything? Can we even know everything?) causes harm, but the infliction of harm can be labelled evil in my eyes - but should not be judged hastily, seeing how many implications and associations the word "evil" has.

[Darnoc]

Is capitalism evil or not? Yes it is, and it is proven quite easily.

 

Communism is evil for disregarding the flawed human nature and therefore being open for exploitation. The original intentions of communism are not evil, but the results are. The system in itself is not evil, human beings are evil and therefore communism doesn't work.

 

Capitalism is evil for encouraging the destructive, selfish and dark side in human nature and through the evil results which can be seen in most parts of the world. The original intentions of capitalism are evil, therefore the whole system is evil.

 

Conclusion: Capitalism is more evil than communism, for being evil from the beginning to the end, while communism has at least good intentions, but simply doesn't work because of human nature.

 

Solution: Invent a new system which takes in account the flawed human nature, but doesn't encourage the darker sides of it. I think Democratic Socialism isn't such a bad choice, but we can certainly come up with something even better. Capitalism and Communism are not the only things which exist. Come on, guys, be a little creative and think of something new!

[draighox]

OK, let's compromise. Original intensions of capitalism aren't evil, but some results are.

 

The original intentions of communism are not evil, but the results are. The system in itself is not evil, human beings are evil and therefore communism doesn't work.

How many times do I have to repeat that the original intentions of communism are evil?

Communism takes goods from the more efficient and gives it to the less efficient, as I said. That way, the more efficient must work to support themselves and the less efficient. That's exploitation.

 

Capitalism is evil for encouraging the destructive, selfish and dark side in human nature and through the evil results which can be seen in most parts of the world.

How does it encourage it? It doesn't encourage anything, it just doesn't prevent it.

 

The original intentions of capitalism are evil, therefore the whole system is evil.

The original intentions? That everyone has right to their property? Yeah, right.

 

Capitalism is more evil than communism, for being evil from the beginning to the end, while communism has at least good intentions, but simply doesn't work because of human nature.

Yeah, because capitalism has killed much more people. Yeah, because there was capitalism in Soviet Russia and China.

Capitalism is good intentions and some evil results. Communism is evil intentions and horribly evil results.

[Darnoc]

How does it encourage it? It doesn't encourage anything, it just doesn't prevent it.

 

Then you don't understand capitalism. Capitalism is about competion, about being selfish, about doing everything for yourself, even when this includes harming others. So, capitalism clearly encourages humans to be evil. Therefore, the capitalistic system is evil.

 

The communistic system tries to make everyone equal. This is not an evil intention, but a good one. It was only badly put into reality, with horrifying results, since the system doesn't work with the human nature.

[Morgoth]

Let's take a simple example to show that capitalism in its purest form implies massive harm being done to the population.

Imagine a capitalist country with a prosperous economy - it has become so prosperous because everybody is following the basic principles of capitalism: be selfish, the only thing that counts is one's own personal profit. Of course this results in a state where workers are being paid minimal wages, thus do not have much spare money to put aside, and since not everyone can own his own company and make loads of money, most of the people are employees depending on their job in a large company.

Now let's add to this scenery a typical economic effect: saturation of the market. Business activity decreases, accompanying the shrinking demand. Of course this does not remain without effects on the job market. With the lower demand, companies require less employees, the superfluous workers are fired and become unemployed.

Consequently, we should now pose the question of how the newly unemployed deal with the situation. Due to minimal wages, their financial reserves are quickly used up, and they have no possiblity to pay for food, accomodation, clothes or anything else they might need. The result? They freeze to death, starve, dehydrate or die in some other way. Providing they have just enough money to bridge the recession, they'll find work again, and the same thing will happen again. If they become old, there's no way for them to receive a pension because they never had enough money to put aside.

The same effect accompanies disablities or some other inability to work - there's no one except you who cares for you, and since you cannot make ends meet for yourself, your unproductive self is got rid of by a natural death by starvation.

 

Simple enough?

[Malchik]

At the end of the day, as Darnoc points out, all western governments operate a kind of compromise where certain capitalist principles (relatively free-market for most goods, relatively free mobility of labour), sometimes legally constrained although not IMO enough, operate with certain communo-socialist ones (minimum wage, employment rights etc.).

 

One interesting fact that no one has pointed out is that you cannot have democracy in a truly capitalist society as their ideologies are opposites. The US, a country that comes closest to espousing capitalism in today's world, is a good example. It runs elections on a (somewhat modified) version of one person one vote but the votes mean nothing as the power and influence on government decision making is directed away from the people towards the corporations with the most money and lobbies with the loudest voices.

 

The more capitalistic a country becomes the less democratic. So, if you believe in democracy, capitalism is as much of an 'evil' as communism.

[draighox]

Yeah, because there was capitalism in Soviet Russia and China.

My mistake. What I meant is "Yeah, because the Lenin and Mao were trying to establish capitalism".

 

Then you don't understand capitalism. Capitalism is about competion, about being selfish, about doing everything for yourself, even when this includes harming others.

I disagree. That is just blaming the system for your own selfishness.

dictionary.com Capitalism -

"An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market."

 

The communistic system tries to make everyone equal. This is not an evil intention, but a good one.

Wrong again. That's evil, because by making everyone equal you exploit the more efficient people.

 

 

 

To Morgoth:

USA some 80 years ago. I don't think people were dying then.

Of course, some allowance is necessary, just to ensure that people don't die.

And I disagree about paying minimal wages. If you want to keep good workers to yourself, you'll pay them more.