kyledude Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Only a fascist, 1-world government can save us now! That is, once the banksters fully collapse the economy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Lombardi 18 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I think words from this thread and the submissions of videos explaining the current financial crises are really worth looking at later on. It is depressing to see that last one from a Marxist perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyDraft Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I think words from this thread and the submissions of videos explaining the current financial crises are really worth looking at later on. It is depressing to see that last one from a Marxist perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Lombardi 18 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 The only thing more depressing than a Marxist perspective is believing that we are currently living at the pinnacle of humanity. Don't think of it as being pessimistic, rather consider it optimistic. That is, there are those who believe we, as a species, can achieve so much more. If you truly think about it, there is nothing more uplifting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DYU3ster Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I don't know. It seems awkward to think of it as uplifting. The nature of how we live is going to be so revolutionary otherwise we will just break down. The element of greed is always among us (at least most of us, and I am certainly not immune, but I am in "good company"). It seems awful to "give up" and accept this fact, but at the same time, greed will always dictate how people are being treated. No 'system' (financial, political, legal, or any other means) will ever work. "Communism" is a great theory, but completely impractical to implement. Socialism is also good too but the aura of the good side of capitalism seems to draw our interest more while turning a blind eye to the bad parts. On the other hand, it's easy to tell people to share their wealth when you have none and they worked hard for theirs. It is probably easier for a wealthy man (or woman even) to voluntarily give up his money but no matter how much he or she gives up, it will never stop the many problems today. I just can't accept an 'uplifting' possibility for our future. And no, the sky is not falling but we have to get real here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Lombardi 18 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 All humans are motivated by greed, there is no denying in that. However, what makes you think Communism works? The only countries that are still adopting to a communism ideology would be Cuba and North Korea. While almost every country uses a democratic political system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyDraft Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I don't know. It seems awkward to think of it as uplifting. The nature of how we live is going to be so revolutionary otherwise we will just break down. The element of greed is always among us (at least most of us, and I am certainly not immune, but I am in "good company"). It seems awful to "give up" and accept this fact, but at the same time, greed will always dictate how people are being treated. No 'system' (financial, political, legal, or any other means) will ever work. "Communism" is a great theory, but completely impractical to implement. Socialism is also good too but the aura of the good side of capitalism seems to draw our interest more while turning a blind eye to the bad parts. On the other hand, it's easy to tell people to share their wealth when you have none and they worked hard for theirs. It is probably easier for a wealthy man (or woman even) to voluntarily give up his money but no matter how much he or she gives up, it will never stop the many problems today. I just can't accept an 'uplifting' possibility for our future. And no, the sky is not falling but we have to get real here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyDraft Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 All humans are motivated by greed, there is no denying in that. However, what makes you think Communism works? The only countries that are still adopting to a communism ideology would be Cuba and North Korea. While almost every country uses a democratic political system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Lombardi 18 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 This is a well written response. It is clear you have considered these questions in the past. At the risk of being too brief, I will say the following: the notion of communism, or socialism - whatever label you wish to give it - is not what you conceive it to be. That is, for me, when the notion of communism and so on is mentioned, notions of a vanguard or whatever is archaic and has shown to be an absolute failure. This, by extension, includes planned economies. The obvious question remaining then is what does it mean? To this question I would steal from Zizek and simply say that communism, in the 21st C, represents the ideal that the distribution of resources must occur in a manner that is NOT a planned economy or a market economy. That is the extent to which I will construct our future. This is not necessarily because I lack the capacity to envision something else (I do and I don't), but rather that to enforce them would be contrary to the very ideal. In other words, whatever mode we evolve to as a species should be a socialist one conceived via popular methods. The post Capitalist discussion is often vague and lacking for this very reason. Many, such as myself, who write and publish about radical alternatives are not seeking to indoctrinate the population with some 20C Marxist-Leninist vision of the world. To the contrary, much of the aim is to push/pull/promote people to envision something other than what we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DYU3ster Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I like how you pointed out my quib about communism but ignored the rest of that same sentence which stated it was completely unpractical to implement. Communism is a great theory. The even distribution of wealth - factory owners and workers are all working towards a greater goal for each other and there is no financial disparity between people. We all know how unpractical this really is. The two countries you mentioned Cuba and NK are not communist at all, in reality. A lot of corruption goes on there (though it is found everywhere). It is why I said no system actually really works. Democracy for such a large population is actually a fail because we all have different opinions, yet we can't always be on the same page. Look at the division in Canada (French speakers, landowners, the poor, etc). How do you expect wealth to be so equally distributed for such a diverse group of people? It just doesn't happen. Fact is, we're overspending for everything and spreading wealth around actually wouldn't help fix problems. It would be nice if the military funding was used for something else but fact is, it is necessary. Who are we defending against? Outside forces of course. If people really were a peaceful group of people, why would militaries of such huge sizes be necessary? BTW, I am not being anti-military person. I'm just saying that there are so many things that we didn't HAVE TO SPEND that we end up spending on anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyDraft Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Thank you for the compliment. I cannot be a master at this subject and I know this. However, the arguments, if we can call it that, by posters present something so engaging that it feels physically REAL in your hands. It probably is a tip of the iceberg when it comes down to the facts presented by multiple points of view on a larger forum of people, but nonetheless very interesting. We all lament about the "good old days" and this time period will differ from generation to generation, but we all have something that we could look back on and how different it will be from this point forward. Without sounding too overly dramatic, someone (anyone) who completely buys into (bad pun) the current system is a suitable candidate for the mental ward. So much for my future dreams of living in luxury that other people could do before in the past. Living in luxury is great, IF you are the one with the wealth. But for those that don't, they can only look at the grim reality of what they will will never have. It just doesn't sound so appealing. And with the more rapid discoveries of bank fraud and other injustices done upon people, I really hate the fact that there are people out there that are having a really good time profiting from everyone's misery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Lombardi 18 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 What do you mean Cuba and N. Korea are not communist countries? A totalitarian government ruled by one party / leader that has total control of all human aspects.. Seems like the definition of a communist country to me Since people are motivated by greed, using a democratic system allows people to pursuit in their best interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyDraft Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 What do you mean Cuba and N. Korea are not communist countries? A totalitarian government ruled by one party / leader that has total control of all human aspects.. Seems like the definition of a communist country to me Since people are motivated by greed, using a democratic system allows people to pursuit in their best interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toro Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 If that is YOUR definition of communism, then Hitler is communist and so was Mussolini. Cuba/N. Korea is not communist. It's funny that you didn't mention China, even though many people know they are not really communist either. Their way of operation does not fit a true communist ideology. Their disparity of wealth is one major indication of that fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Lombardi 18 Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 Well, if you want to be ideologically pure, then there is no such thing as capitalism either. So we shouldn't be talking about replacing capitalism because it doesn't exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toro Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I'm not sure how that relates to be being "ideologically pure". But I do think you're being semantically argumentative. Capitalism itself is an idea, much like communism is. Like George Carlin said, ideas are made up - like Mother Goose - they're fairy tales. Whether these ideas are abstract or not, your post is a distraction from the real problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyDraft Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 Hey, you're the one arguing what is and what is not "real" communism. What real problem are you trying to solve doing that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toro Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I'll play in your game of semantics. Based on the assumption that you are drawing on Marxist-Leninist principles when defining Communism, I will ask you this: does, or has, a country ever existed whereby the proletariat owns the means of production? The answer, in short, is no. Thus, by extension, no Communist state has ever existed. On an aside, that is not how I define Communism, but I will work with it in the spirit of this semantic debate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyDraft Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 What matters is not the theory. What matters is the practical application. Theory tells you about how an ideological construct should operate. Practical application tells you about how an ideological construct does operate. I can say that capitalism has never been tried around the world because there is always government interceding at some point to make rules which interferes with the market and the allocation of capital through the pricing system. So I can always blame some failure of capitalism as not a failure of capitalism but instead as the failure of government attempting to interfere in the market. "If only government would let the market work," I'd say, "everything would be fine." Of course, my ideologically pure definition of capitalism is very convenient for me because I can always say that capitalism is never a failure. It's the same with the Marxist ideologues. North Korea or the USSR or Cuba or Vietnam aren't really communist economies, they're "state corporatists" or whatever the ideological apologists want to define it as. The ideologues never seem to contemplate that the communist economies that tried and failed were indeed the closest representation of communism and they're assumptions about human behavior are wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toro Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 To which I would reply the only reason government interference is required is because if capital was left to its own devices, the whole system would collapse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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