maxorator

Here you see the difference between communism and democracy. Communists would kill the rich guy (who probably earned his wealth) and distribute it among the 10 starving people. In democracy the government would set a tax which makes the rich guy pay a lot more, and then distributes the money between the 10 people as a living allowance. The only difference is that the communists would have murdered an innocent person.

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Akkernight

Seconded.

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Neo1

Nonsense!

Communism is an ideology, democracy is a political system, they are not comparable in that sense! If you want to compare communism, compare it to capitalism, where the rich guy gets to keep the money and the other 10 dies from starvation, or, as some like to call it, "free market economy".

Besides, what you describe here is not what Karl Marx envisioned.

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maxorator

I'm sorry. I just forgot to mention that what I described is a side effect of using the good-in-theory communism in real life. And don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, Estonia was occupied by the USSR for 50 years. And what we learned during that period is that communism doesn't work with democracy. Therefore communism can be opposed to democracy.

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Neo1

The ideas of communism have little or nothing to do with the fascist rule of the USSR and Stalin.

fixed.

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Shakti

Problem is that communism is based around the principle that everybody WANTS to chip in and do what is good for everybody. Problem is this only works in fluffy-duffy-wonderland. In reality there will always be people that will always do what they gain the most from, no matter what. And that especially goes for people with power, they want more power. So marxisism is a fluffy-duffy-theory on how to run a country but it can never work and will never work because in the end people are egoistical bastards whose only goal is to gain as much as possible.

cyberfish

And the problem with capitalism is that it will somehow push people into the 2 extrema. Some people will get really rich, some people will starve to death. Good or bad would depend on how you look at it. The average wealth would certainly go up (dead people don't count).

Heavy taxing is a compromise between the 2. If you tax 100%, you get communism. If you tax 0%, you get capitalism. If you tax 50%, you get Canada.

Neo1

And people wanting to gain as much as possible is also exactly what is wrong with capitalism. The ones with money make even more money by keeping the working classes in poverty, and they do that with their disgusting lobbyism. The only people in America with any real kind of influence are the ones with a big tank of money.

Neither system is perfect, but why not strive for perfection?

People usually argue that capitalism is necessary because otherwise there would be no real incentive to create better products and whatnot. Well i personally believe that equality is a million times more important than creating incentive (ie. profits) for companies to pursue. This profit-hunting is totally undermining democracy, the same democracy that the critics of communism is trying to defend.

Has anyone here seen the documentary, "The Union"? I realize that it is a completely unrelated matter, but still, the pharmaceutical lobbying described in that film is exactly what i'm talking about, lobby against change, to increase profits, it's disgusting!

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anon

FTFY

Part of the picture is probably what you spend the tax money on. I don't see a direct link between collecting taxes and stopping people from starving.

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abachler

This thread is going nowhere...

zacs7

It's been there, and back

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Shakti

Im not saying capitalism is the solution (i didnt even mention it). All I said was that communism is flawed and will never ever work because it works against the very basic human behaviour. I myself live in sweden which has about 30% tax on income which is distributed among healthcare, social security and whatnot. I think it works quite well (not perfect by any means) but as any system has grounds for improvement. But i sincerely belive that communism is not an improvement but a breedingground for even more divided societys than what we have now (just aswell that pure capitalism is a breedingground for divided societies).

The answer IMO lies somewhere inbetwean the 2 extremes.

cyberfish

True, but if government has no money (no tax), it doesn't need to worry about where to spend it on.

Assuming a responsible government, if it has a lot of tax money, there is no reason why it won't be saving the starving people.

mike_g

Maybe, but who was the person that derailed the subject into a rant about white supremacy?

Claiming that Chinese people are any less intelligent is just plain stupid. While your ancestors in Wales and Germany were busy whacking each other over the head with sticks, the Chinese had around the same level of technology as the Romans. Many of the things you take for granted originate from China, you just probably don't know about it. They also discovered America and Australia over a hundred years before the Europeans. If there was any failed policy, it was that they made other cultures kowtow, instead of colonising. If they did that, it would be Chinese people ruling these countries, while we would all be crammed into Europe. Then, perhaps, they would be the ones dictating morality to us now. Asians also seem to have a higher level of aptitude to us. Japanese school children spend less time in school than Americans, but still outperform them. There is a thousand year social and cultural gap, but the Japanese are still effectively an extension of the Chinese race.

Anyway, in the last 500 years China got into a bit of a slump. Do you know the effects British colonialism had on the country? Most Chinese people do, and if anything this is precisely the situation that the Chinese government wants to stop happening again. If you look at the stats, they have done a very good job of working themselves out of a bad situation in recent years, even if it has taken a lot of oppression and sacrifice. They are even staring to get an obesity problem.

I'm pure white, so I have no racial ties to drive my argument. I just happen to have an interest in Asian history. I would be keen to continue the argument against you and your redneck chums, simply for the satisfaction I would get by humiliating you for your ignorance.

MarioF used India as an example, which I will use too. If you think the difference between rich and poor is big in the west, you will be shocked if you ever go to India. On the one hand you have wealthy people that can compete with the richest of Westerners. On the other hand, poor people live on the brink of survival. In India poor people don't have pensions or social security. Having a large family is seen of as a symbol of status, so many poor families have a lot of children. Children could be considered as an investment: you feed them until they are adults, then they get a job and look after you when you can no longer provide for yourself. The more kids you can provide for in you youth, the more you will receive when you are old.

The problem with this is not only due to limited space, irrigation, etc; but wealth. Say all these poor children go to look for jobs from rich people. For convenience I will categorise people as rich or poor with one rich person to every 100 poor people. Now these poor people have to compete to give the rich man the cheapest price, the more people competing the cheaper the price, and the more they fight with one another for the peanuts he hands out. Over time, the more disparate the situation gets the more likely all these poor people fighting one another get to banding together and killing the rich person. One of the reasons this continues for so long, is that by nature, Indians are an incredibly passive race. On one hand I see its easy for us in the west to see it as a noble feature, on the other its just plain masochism.

One thing for sure though, is that if things don't change violence will erupt, its just a matter of time. China already has a somewhat effective solution. Its not perfect, but it works.

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whiteflags

Because a rich person obviously needs only one type of service or good, and no one in your huge, dumb family can learn to do something else(!). Chances are these rich people need people to work for them if they are interested in staying rich through profit. What the hell are you even comparing? Even if a company selects 1 out of 100, chances are there needs to be more than 1 person doing bar for every company foo in the country, unless the only rich people in Lousy-Countrystan are government officials that run the economy. Believe me, you can get screwed by capitalism, but no one owns everything you have. When you have nothing (and is that ever a feat, to actually have nothing), charity is there to help you.

Never mind that you can also get rich by owning your own business, with work, luck, and a country that lets you own your property.

It's easier than ever to get educated and do something, and yet we still have to argue about countries full of idiots who can only depend on the government.

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