Weeee!

[PhoneLobster]

Housing crisis? Debt Crisis? Economic Crisis?

What more can the irresponsible policies of conservative governments in the last decade plus the unregulated greed of really unpleasant corporations bring us.

How about this

[Draco_Argentum]

Just be glad we aren't paying for air yet.

[Username17]

That's hardly new though, it's just more painful to us in "civilized" countries because globalization allows that kind of shit to get back to our common people. A decent enough historical perspective can be found Here.

The people writing that are crazy by the way, but those facts are fairly well documented and that's a pretty short and to-the-point essay. I nonetheless feel it important to point out that I am not a LaRouche supporter.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Oh I don't endorse the source or anything. It just seemed like a fairly reasonable single article relating to the situation.

Its all over the news if you keep your eye out.

[Crissa]

Just because you're crazy or paranoid doesn't mean you're not also right.

But we're all taught to examine the messenger more than to confirm the message.

-Crissa

[Jerry]

Capitalism: Putting a price tag on everything it can get its grubby hands on.

[JonSetanta]

I wonder about the merits of a pseudo-capitalist communism some times.
I might be a peasant farmer or factory worker under such conditions, but at least I would have steady work.

[Jerry]

I wonder about the merits of a pseudo-capitalist communism some times.
I might be a peasant farmer or factory worker under such conditions, but at least I would have steady work.

Communists and Capitalists never got along well, even though both of their goals involved improving the livelihood of the working man. Irony.

[Username17]

The real irony is that it is every capitalist's dream to become a communist.

A free market approaches being a planned economy the more power any particular producer or vendor has. So by the time a corporation "wins" capitalism and becomes a monopoly, they aren't capitalists anymore - they are making the plans in a planned economy.

The fact that capitalists fight communists has much more to do with the fact that capitalists compete with other capitalists than it does any actual ideology distinction. No capitalist worth his salt would agree to market restrictions before he has clawed his way up to ownership of the market. It is only after they have become dominant in their field that it becomes advantageous to them have governments come in and close the market altogether.

---

The best example of this in practice is Ming Dynasty China. The merchants became wealthy and powerful and were able to buy their children into the bureaucracy. Once their children were in the government, they had the government shut down all the merchants and conduct all trade in the empire itself. While capitalism was ended, the actual people who had the most money then had all the money and had thus "won capitalism."

-Username17

[Jerry]

The real irony is that it is every capitalist's dream to become a communist.

A free market approaches being a planned economy the more power any particular producer or vendor has. So by the time a corporation "wins" capitalism and becomes a monopoly, they aren't capitalists anymore - they are making the plans in a planned economy.

The fact that capitalists fight communists has much more to do with the fact that capitalists compete with other capitalists than it does any actual ideology distinction. No capitalist worth his salt would agree to market restrictions before he has clawed his way up to ownership of the market. It is only after they have become dominant in their field that it becomes advantageous to them have governments come in and close the market altogether.

---

The best example of this in practice is Ming Dynasty China. The merchants became wealthy and powerful and were able to buy their children into the bureaucracy. Once their children were in the government, they had the government shut down all the merchants and conduct all trade in the empire itself. While capitalism was ended, the actual people who had the most money then had all the money and had thus "won capitalism."

-Username17

This is where you and I disagree. What you described sounds less like Communism and more like a dictatorship.

I believe that the spirit of communism is for the community to decide what's best for the people, not an elite few with money and power.

Of course, there are many "Communist" regimes like that, but I don't really consider them true Communists.

[Maxus]

I've always been suspicious of communism. Apparently, all property belongs to the People, but I'm damned if I've ever heard anyone explain who The People are, and what everything belonging to everyone at once means.

Are you allowed to house-swap freely? Or borrow your neighbor's car if you want to impress a date? If I go out and get too dead-drunk to drive, am I allowed to go into the house of someone I don't know and crash on the couch, and only courtesy would require me to explain things to the homeowners in the morning?

[JonSetanta]

Perhaps the term communism was misrepresented. Ideally, the Marxist proposal was more like a utopia, which of course is impossible given our current (eternal?) human disposition and economic/political structures.

Perhaps, as Frank hinted, every time the Little People relax in their new-found, hard-earned "people's nation", the Tafts and Roosevelts of the world step up quietly and lock the doors behind them. It's human inclination to keep-it-in-the-family, and high ranking insular governments are indeed large clans, fighting to keep their Family in a stable position above all other Families.
So, in effect, capitalism and communism were illusions painted thickly over the strong undercurrent of feudalism and royalty.
Look at England; so much for the riots and wars of the past, eh?
Their royalty are still looked to with deep respect and support, even after generations of bloodshed to rebel against that very same rule.

[Bigode]

I've always been suspicious of communism. Apparently, all property belongs to the People, but I'm damned if I've ever heard anyone explain who The People are, and what everything belonging to everyone at once means.

Are you allowed to house-swap freely? Or borrow your neighbor's car if you want to impress a date? If I go out and get too dead-drunk to drive, am I allowed to go into the house of someone I don't know and crash on the couch, and only courtesy would require me to explain things to the homeowners in the morning?

Everything belongs to the state. The state's hopefully forced to do what the citizens want/need (remember, the citizen doesn't know what they really need) in an efficient manner, which's generally not achieved allowing the stupid acts you mention.

[Maxus]

Then it's inefficiency caused by having too much work to do and having too much room for human error, because everything that happens or gets to people, has to be decided or supplied. No wonder the USSR had all kinds of shortages and the Russian jokes at the time were about a semi-insane bureaucracy.

One of the major selling points of capitalism is that it's mostly self-managing. If you let people take what jobs they can and buy what they want and invent new stuff for their own profit, things will manage themselves. Although the unrestrained captialistic market that existed at the turn of the century proved you there has to be some state control and some ground rules.

[Bigode]

Yeah, that's why we have to mix both.

[Calibron]

For communism to work well you either need a well and practically educated and well informed populace without any major dissent or self destructive tendencies or an efficient and perfectly benign bureaucracy to run things. The first never exists when communities get beyond a certain size and the second is, well, lets just say its probably most likely we end up getting ruled by machines before we can find one of these.

[JonSetanta]

For communism to work well you either need a well and practically educated and well informed populace without any major dissent or self destructive tendencies or an efficient and perfectly benign bureaucracy to run things. The first never exists when communities get beyond a certain size and the second is, well, lets just say its probably most likely we end up getting ruled by machines before we can find one of these.

Only countries in the world I can think of that fit the criteria are Japan and Sweden. Maybe Russia accomplishes the same though multi-racial yet unified national pride, but a bit more sloppily.
But even then, they accomplish 'stability' through racial homogenity and generations of cultural genetic favoring for logical minds. People follow the laws because it's The Right Thing To Do.
Not every nation has that circumstance, or luxury.

[Koumei]

I can't really speak for Japan, seeing as I don't know anyone who's actually lived there a great deal, and although heaps of people have self-destructive tendencies as individuals (which is different from the "let's destroy society!" kind), but Sweden has major issues.

Specifically, the non-Swedish Swedish. It looks like the problem is universal where someone from any given place, upon moving to another place, believes that they have moved their own country with them, thus they need not bother to learn the local laws, customs and languages, instead forming communities of their own, not fitting in, and breeding an atmosphere for racial tension.

[Crissa]

Koumei, you've just described the last three hundred years in North America.

The only difference is that the people crowing for assimilation never had to assimilate themselves, or had their culture be the one 'chosen' by force over others.

-Crissa

[Maj]

The only difference is that the people crowing for assimilation never had to assimilate themselves

I daresay that the implication behind this statement is that people don't voluntarily wish to assimilate. Is that what you meant?

[JonSetanta]

Hell, I wish I could un-assimilate my lineage. Gaelic and German as alternate languages were both lost in the move West.

There are, however, very insular immigrant communities in Europe imposing or attempting to impose restrictive proposals upon the 'natives'.
For example, Slovaks and Polish in England, Arabs in Sweden, and Romanians generally everywhere (even here in Baltimore, along with thousands of Russians imported to Ocean City, MD) although they do tend to adapt better than other 'ethnic' groups.

[PhoneLobster]

The "beware the migrant ghetto, they want to take over and make us like them, so we better take them over and make them like us or else!" thing has been around for every migrant population since forever.

And its a bunch of twoddle.

Pretty much the only migrant populations to regularly do that are white Christian westerners and we did it with god damn guns and disease and open warfare not by opening Greek speaking delicatessens in Greek neighbourhoods for Greek speaking migrants.

I'd have to say that on the whole when it comes to domination of of a host culture the strategy of not being able to communicate with (let alone "attack") the locals and simply building your own temporary cultural presence with a kebab shop and a mosque while your kids all learn English and get mobile phones is not exactly what I would regard as an aggressively successful strategy in cultural domination.

I for one am not afraid. Harden up and eat your damn humus you cowards!

[Calibron]

All the different foods are the best part of having your country aggressively culturally dominated.

[Username17]

On the communism/capitalism thing:

Marx demonstrated quite persuasively that Capitalism was an inherently temporary system whose internal contradictions would eventually force it to change out of all recognition. He personally was quite the idealist, and his proposed long-term solution was for the people take control of the government and the means of production and form a hyper-democratic society where all major decisions were subject to mass review.

But the thing is that there is another resolution to the same contradictions which is a lot uglier and has actually happened a few times: The richest of the capitalists get so rich that they purchase the government, and then they shut down the wheels of capitalism and the avenues of individual expression so that no one else can challenge them by the same channels which brought them into power in the first place.

Marx was and is correct that a shift to a planned economy and a unification of the ownership of the means of production and the state is inevitable. But while his vision was essentially Star Trek, that is not in fact the only possible outcome. The other outcome is Ming China. One is really good, one is really bad.

One involves the move to a post-scarcity unity, the other involves an economic contraction where those in power deliberately destroy wealth ad reduce quality of life in order to increase the percentage of the pie that they personally own. Both are valid answers to the dilemmas that Mark posed. Both are possible outcomes for the future of any particular nation and the planet. And that is why it is not OK to be complacent just because a planned economy is inevitable.

-Username17

[Crissa]

A portion of each generation from immigrants assimilates.

The trouble in Europe isn't that they're insular. It's that they aren't citizens of the country they're ghetto'd in. That means their children can't assimilate. That's hardly their fault.

-Crissa