Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The only non-consensual aspects of capitalism are due to nature, or life itself... as in, we have to work to produce things instead of sitting around waiting for it to appear.
You can choose to do absolutely nothing if you want, but you won't have a very nice life unless someone chooses to take you on as a burden.
It is becoming quite clear that the statist not only believes consent can be given by being born but each person is owed a house, food, water, and medicine no matter what they do in life by again...simply being born.
Apparently the birthing canal is some magical place where all kinds of crazy stuff happens. I need to go back to 7th grade health class and read up on this whole sex ed thing again cuz I don't remember any of this the first time around.
Leningrad as my location is for blanks and giggles.
Hence there was my
Quote:
Capitalism is the consensual exchange of goods and services between two parties. Under capitalism all property not privately owned (as in one is mixing their labor with it) can be claimed by the first individual who wishes to mix their labor with it thus making it privatized.
All States are involuntary. All States regulate. All States don't allow private individuals to claim unused land for private use in some variation. If a State "owns" land that means all private properties are unable to use this non-privatized land or factor it into their consensual exchange of goods and services. Therefore an involuntary State sullies the ability of the private parties to negotiate under true capitalism.
You have no recourse with the State. If they say eminent domain...that's it. Protest and you'll be caged.
Consent requires that both parties are free from duress and have the cognitive ability to enter into such an agreement. Surely me signing a contract with a gun to my head or while being in a coma someone picks up my hand and signs on the line for me is not consensual because I was under duress in the first example and not cognitively able to give consent in the second.
Even the lowly statist can understand that.
As you can see capitalism requires that no involuntary State be present. Again, unless you have a theory I'm not aware of.
Where did you get this definition from?
Link please.
The only non-consensual aspects of capitalism are due to nature, or life itself... as in, we have to work to produce things instead of sitting around waiting for it to appear.
You can choose to do absolutely nothing if you want, but you won't have a very nice life unless someone chooses to take you on as a burden.
Well there you go.
Therefore to talk about capitalism as something "consensual" ( unlike "communism") simply doesn't make much sense.
If the latter one controls population with the help of ideology, the former one - with the help of money.
Socialism is honest in its aims, agree with it or not.
That is, it is an economic operation that can vary in its extent. At one end of the spectrum, we have socialist mechanisms like insurance. At the other extreme, we have full blown wealth redistribution. It's all socialism, just to varying degrees. Socialism is honest about that.
Communism, on the other hand, is fundamentally dishonest in its aims. Which is why people become confused by it. That's the intent, so that you can't effectively fight it.
Whereas socialism is fundamentally economic in its operation, communism is fundamentally social in its operation.
That is, the core aim of communism is to shape the social sphere.
This is because shaping of the social sphere removes the political power of the underclass to fight against the overclass. Another term for this overclass would be the ruling State, which will always be comprised of a foreign people or person in a true communist state.
If the ruling class (State) is the same tribe as the people being ruled, and thus shares in their political interests, then that form of government is known as and generally operates as National Socialism.
There are various examples of pseudo communist States (ie: China) that look and operate closer to national socialist states, as well as various States of all Stripes that are functional communist States (an entrenched ruling class, combined with usually multi-ethnic masses who have exceptionally low effective social function and political power in general) . The trick to this discernment is to look at what a nation actually is, and what it does, rather than what it says that it is or does.
Nat Soc social policies are inverse of communist social policies, while sometime Nat Soc and communist countries are able to share shades of economic policies between them.
This is also how you can verify that communism primarily acts in the social sphere.
If it did not, then National Socialists and Communists would not be perpetually at war given some (ever irrelevant) similarity in economic policy.
All internal political power is gained or lost in the social realm, and not the economic realm (true economic power also being a function of the social realm), which is why both communism and National Socialism emphasize (opposite) social policies over any importance lent to economics.
Economic policies are always a mere tool meant to enhance the political power and well being of a sociopolitical group, and as such are best used and changed as appropriate to meet that goal rather than dogmatically adhered to.
The group who ignores this wisdom, and instead incorrectly adheres to a dogmatic approach to what is meant to be a mere tool in a nation's quiver will always be defeated and controlled by groups who better understand the rules of the game and thus better employ differing economic policies, for ever more political strength, when appropriate.
The aim of communism is to deconstruct unifying sociopolitical institutions, which in practice facilitate the rise of political power for any group, so that anyone who is not in-charge (who is not a foreign elite) has no chance of effectively cooperating (building political power) with his neighbors to challenge that government. Thus, religion and the family are targeted as the pillars of the effective political body. People are encouraged to individualize instead of identify with an ethnic or other (religious, etc) sociopolitical group. Alcoholism and drug use is encouraged because they render a percentage of people socially dysfunctional, which hurts a groups ability to be politically functional (powerful). Poverty is de facto mandatory. All so that there can be no effective cultivation of political power to challenge the ruling State.
Socialist nations who do not so debase their populations are not communist in nature nor form. It follows that capitalist nations who so debase their populations are communist in nature and form. It also follows that economic policies are largely irrelevant as long as the goal of politically disempowering (via social debasement) the people that the communist state rules over is accomplished.
The "commune" part of "communist" is a reference to its attempted falsehood. In other words, communism half-heartedly attempts to substitute a false and politically unworkable sense of "class revolution" or class bonding as a psychological placeholder for the community bonds that it forcefully removes.
That placeholder role is the only functional one for communism's supposed attention to socialist economic principles. The reality of the class revolution is that so called class politics can never be successful at true cultivation of political power, because it offers nothing socially comparable to the traditional social bonds that it destroys.
This is why the proletariat never has and never will break free of its communist dictators. It has zero political power, because communism has removed its political basis for such when it excised its ethnic social bonds and put the politically DOA concept of class consciousness in its place.
No people will consistently pass on knowledge, money, connections, and the other tools of power to other random people just because they share an economic class with them. However, people will do this for those who they share closer social bonds with. This is why the class revolution, and individualism in general (being the same animal), are false political teachings.
There will always be a State. Whenever two people get together to rule a third person, they constitute a State. This process can never be stopped, and moreover you wouldn't wish to prevent this from occurring because preventing two people from politically cooperating only means that two more will come along and dominate them because you prevented them from defending themselves. Now expand this valid logic as large as you need to to realize that any bluster against "the State" as a concept is an immense waste of time and mere noise in any conversation.
This is exact promise, against the State, is the one that the original communists made to the proletariat before that proletariat went on to be murdered by the tens of millions and virtually enslaved for seventy years by communist overlords.
So, kindly tell those who would try to stop or otherwise derail a legitimate conversation about communism, with shallow and simplistic anti-State dogma, that we prefer to be able to politically defend ourselves against murderous tyrants and we also prefer to have conversations about political reality rather than one dimensional fantasies. Political power does not come from individualism. Political weakness and vulnerability does. Don't be fooled into being an easy target for those who would make chattel out of you.
Status:
"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
(set 6 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,603,118 times
Reputation: 5697
When I said in the OP "Communism is an economic system, not a political system", I had in mind the idea that
*A lot of political acts are not motivated by economics ("hot potato" social issues, patriotism, nationalism, "Hot Potato", even crime in general - totally aside from the strict monetary losses resulting from a crime)
*Dictatorships can still have capitalist economies. While it's true there has been no communist democracy, it's also true that capitalist dictatorships have existed, even within most posters lifetimes (as said by another poster, Chile and South Korea are late 20th century examples).
*Oppressive governments (Apartheid South Africa, Jim Crow South) often labeled as "communist" any efforts for social change that did not involve taxation or turning over all privately-held "means of production" to the state. Again, desegregation is more of a social and political issue than a strictly economic one.
*Calls for regulating personal use of one's own wealth-creating property, even without government seizure of that property (environmental regulations, workplace safety, ease of access for people in wheelchairs, product safety easily traceable to the store owner, others). No this is not communism either, for the government did not seize ownership of all "means of production" from the private owners.
Other matters, not the complete list in this thread, but some ones I found frequently.
*Saying I support communism or that I'm a crypto-communist. Anybody claiming this is assuming - incorrectly - that anybody (especially a known "liberal") who simply describes communism without rancor is a supporter of communism. This is frankly sloppy thinking. It's the equivalent of saying any conservative white Southerner who explains the South's history of race relations is a supporter of segregation.
Just so I won't be accused of whataboutism, I'll say that I firmly believe in the basic concept of private property and the right of the owner to retain profits and use them for his or her own personal use in any legal way. In fact, I oppose communism on the grounds that (1) it doesn't work - every nation that tried to establish communism has had its economy ruined, due to excessive government intervention. They produced goods and services for which there was no demand. Lack of private ownership destroys incentive, while a distant bureaucracies simply are incapable of deciding how much of what good to produce for the civilian mass-market.
That said, I'm not a laissez-faire pure "invisible hand" type of capitalist. The US (and most of the western world) tried that in the 19th century, the result being that the business owners were more concerned with profit than consumer and labor protection. So government, however imperfectly, being a referee to balance owners rights and public rights is the best system we know of so far. That's the motive behind any fair and necessary government regulations. Yes, there are regulations and laws that are out of date at best, outright foolish at worst. But going back to Charles Dickens' time would be much, much worse.
With social democracy - in which the means of production remain overwhelmingly in private hands but taxed at high rates in order to prevent huge wealth gaps and to provide key services widely regarded as a human right (education, even higher education, health care, etc.). This how social democracy is different from democratic socialism. The former allows for private ownership to be the dominant economic system, the latter has government ownership of (primarily) heavy industry and key sectors of the economy, yet retains a democratic political process.
Hopefully, this clears up the intent and purpose behind what I say.
There is no force in capitalism. Once force is initiated it is socialism
Goodness you really have no idea what those terms even mean aside from biased ancap drivel you read.
Capitalism an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
Socialism a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Communism and socialism are economic systems, not political ones. To communism’s founder Karl Marx, history is about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, while economics is about the middle class (bourgeoise) and nobility exploiting the working class, namely by paying the worker less for his or her labor than the actual value of goods and services the worker produced, in effect stealing part of the workers’ labors and paying them just enough to survive. Marx’s solution was to abolish all private ownership of property and have the workers own the means of production (farms, mines, forests, factories, transport lines, and any item that can produce wealth for the owner). In short, communism centers on who owns the means of production.
Laws regulating property privately is not of who owns the land. It’s a matter of regulating human behavior, more of a public policy matter than an economic one. Therefore, communism does not cover such matters. Nor does it cover taxes, what we pay in order to maintain a police force, legal system, and military in order to protect society from threats to it (invading armies and criminals). It also includes funding public goods that the private sector could never hope to accomplish well on its own, if at all (roads, bridges, dams, rural electrification, etc.).
Again, this is not a question of who owns what, at least outside the geographic range of the project (the government could always declare imminent domain over a property IF the owner is justly compensated). It is a question of our individual obligations to society (promote mutual security, mutual obligations to help fund projects which neither individuals, nor the private sector could ever develop on their own, but yet are considered vital for even minimal functioning of all members of a society).
In short, once the question shifts from outright ownership of wealth-creating properties and to our obligations to fund police, military, and mutually helping each other fund needed projects beyond the ability of the private sector to do so, it’s not about communism any more.
There is no example of a successful communist country. All of them have failed. The closest to success is Cuba, where the people are don't have enough to eat, can't speak their minds, can't assemble peaceably, can't organize politically. The can'ts go on and on...
Every country that has overthrown communism is better off for it. Not one has gotten worse in any way.
Communism is all about controlling behavior to the minutest detail. And thought and speech even more. There is no corner of the human soul that is safe from it. It considers human obligations to society as limitless and failure to perform them as criminal.
I'm sorry to say it OP, but your post reveals a depth of historical ignorance that I never knew existed outside of communist countries.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
