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COMMUNISTS REALLY UR ONE FUCKED UP LIL COOKIE

At 9/25/10 06:17 AM, Sajberhippien wrote:

Not necessarily. The key factor is that income is set democratically and that there's no profit in capital. Communism can mean a lot of different things.

You're right inasmuch that wages are not necessarily equal. However, you cannot support the utterly ridiculous concept of "democratically decided upon wages", can you?

So yes, in a communism other people than now would become doctors. Those that want to save people's lives would become doctors, instead of those wanting to earn a lot. And of course, since communists are historical materialists, they believe people will behave and think differently in a communistic society (material standards and environmental factors clearly affect people's behaviour).

Well firstly, we're not living in a free market, and so you can't blame these problems purely on a market economy.

Secondly, it's retarded to claim that people will have these radically different values under communism.

Please understand this: The near universal valuing of material position is not a consequence of living in a private-property market economy. Private property and a market economy are the consequences of people valuing their material position.

...which in turn comes from evolution, because those whose psychology lead them to value improving their personal, material circumstances were the ones who contributed most heavily to the following generations.

The point being is that our "Selfish" nature is inherent and a consequence of our evolution, not from living in a "capitalist" system.

And to monopolize those ideas. It's easy to see that in areas where there's no ownership of ideas (for example, art before the 19th century and the current open source movement) there's still a lot of ideas.

Guess what Einstein, copyright, patent and intellectual property laws do not emerge on a free market, but rather they are the product of.....the state INTERVENING in the market i.e. making it not a free market.

By the way, how does it feel supporting an economic system that has been tried literally dozens of times and has never worked? That has ALWAYS resulted in poverty and stagnation and death? lol m8 give up already

First off, I want to state that I'm not really a state-of-the art communist; I'm sure as hell some kind of socialist, but I haven't really found my one true place on the spectrum. I find a lot of nice things in both anarcho-communism, anarcho-collectivism, libertarian socialism and mutualism, and I do believe in a revolution, but exactly what kind of society I want past that, I'm not 100% sure.
Secondly, I want to state that I'm not from the US, so try to be tolerant if I have any factual errors about your country, and any lacking language skills I have. I will however, debate it from a somewhat US perspective; when I talk about the government, I'm talking about the US government, eg.

At 9/25/10 06:58 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 9/25/10 06:17 AM, Sajberhippien wrote:

Not necessarily. The key factor is that income is set democratically and that there's no profit in capital. Communism can mean a lot of different things.

You're right inasmuch that wages are not necessarily equal. However, you cannot support the utterly ridiculous concept of "democratically decided upon wages", can you?

I would like an explanation of how you think the concept is ridiculous, because I'm not sure I understand how you mean.
Are you saying that it's impossible to have? In that case I disagree strongly, in fact, it's somewhat practiced in the public sector already (though I am the first to admit the government isn't democratic, it has democratic elements). How this would be impossible on a more local scale I cannot understand at all, and I've even been part of a group with democratically chosen wages (given, we were only 7 people, it wasn't a recognized company and we didn't make that much money), but I don't see how being 1, 5, 50, or 500 more people would change the basic dynamics of it.
Are you saying it's suboptimal? In that case, suboptimal to what? Production efficiency? Living standards of the workers? The democratic ideal?

So yes, in a communism other people than now would become doctors. Those that want to save people's lives would become doctors, instead of those wanting to earn a lot. And of course, since communists are historical materialists, they believe people will behave and think differently in a communistic society (material standards and environmental factors clearly affect people's behaviour).

Well firstly, we're not living in a free market, and so you can't blame these problems purely on a market economy.

While you CAN blame a lot of problems on communism, despite there haven't been truly communistic societies? Or you can state that communism can't work because there's never been a true communism, while free market works despite there never having been a free market?

Secondly, it's retarded to claim that people will have these radically different values under communism.

Why? A slave from the 16th century sure had different values than you do today. A slave from the 16th century had different values than a king from the 16th century, and an indian child worker has different values from the primary owners of Nike.

Of course different material standards and different hierarchal structures affect people's values.

Please understand this: The near universal valuing of material position is not a consequence of living in a private-property market economy. Private property and a market economy are the consequences of people valuing their material position.

Of course, and that's something anyone that has read marx, kropotkin, proudhon or almost any other kind of socialistic literature is very well aware of. Just because something is valued doesn't mean it's always good; historically, people have been traded time and time again, both as slaves and as wives.

The point being is that our "Selfish" nature is inherent and a consequence of our evolution, not from living in a "capitalist" system.

Yes. This I agree with. I'm not saying that having a communistic society will make everything roses and rainbows and that everyone will gladly share everything they have.

However, not all kinds of ownership have been around for so long. Immaterial ownership isn't more than 200 years old, and owning the earth was more or less unknown to the native americans when you first settled.

And to monopolize those ideas. It's easy to see that in areas where there's no ownership of ideas (for example, art before the 19th century and the current open source movement) there's still a lot of ideas.

Guess what Einstein, copyright, patent and intellectual property laws do not emerge on a free market, but rather they are the product of.....the state INTERVENING in the market i.e. making it not a free market.

I'm not a proponent of a state, mind you. However, there's a lot of capitalism proponents that think that phrases and ideas can be property, and while you don't (and I agree), you still think the earth can be property (while I don't), so that's mostly a part of the definition of what can be owned and not. You'll find a lot of proponents of capitalism that support intellectual property, but you'll be hard pressed to find a single communist that supports it. Ideas are often a part of the means of production, so patents would be impossible in any communistic society (otherwise, it isn't communistic).

Note though, the term free market isn't in itself tied to capitalism; mutualism includes a free market but no capitalism, and state capitalism doesn't include a free market. I guess we could get into a debate about definitions as I know you might disagree, but for this discussion on various social and economic models, I use "free market" for trade not regulated by a state, and "capitalism" for an economic model where the means of production are owned by specific entities rather than the people (as opposed to communism).

By the way, how does it feel supporting an economic system that has been tried literally dozens of times and has never worked? That has ALWAYS resulted in poverty and stagnation and death? lol m8 give up already

Well, you've yourself said that we don't live in a free market society, so I could ask you the same thing. But I'm not really interested in discussing ethics and exactly why I support it; if I want to discuss that, it won't be on newgrounds. I'm mostly interested in discussing communism as a system, so actually, you could ignore my stance in it. That I'm in favor of communism over capitalism is irrelevant when discussing the systems.

Does anyone know if socialism is neccessarily communism?

At 9/25/10 02:55 PM, Aesopian wrote: Does anyone know if socialism is neccessarily communism?

Socialism and communism are different things.
Socialism is an economic and political ideology proposing communal ownership of the means of production; that the people own the means of production instead of an elite few (whether corporations or state capitalists). It promotes a planned economy where the people decide what they need and produce it.

A communistic society is a state-less, class-less society with communal ownership of the means of production. In that way it's far more specific than socialism.
Most communists of the marxist/leninist school see some kind of state socialism, under the dictatorship of the proletariat (which actually is kind of a false translation seeing as how the word has shifted meaning; it should be seen in the context of being the opposite of the "dictatorship of the burgeoise", which is what the current situation is, according to marxist/leninists), as a transition state between a capitalistic and a communistic society. Democratic socialists even believe we can get there through reform (without a revolution).

In theory, it would be an incredible way of living.

Communism is the most best society and political way to live, but only in theories. It is technically impossible these ideas really work on pratice, have no logic. The only times which the communism worked was with the indians because they're life was just fish, hunt and such, for example, when they get some fishes they don't will use 'commercial' ways to it, if one got two fish and other just one, they just throw them on a bucket and share with everyone, that is communism but on our current society, always will be a 'damaged' politic, the money goes always to the State where doesn't share with the population, that is not common. Also, communism can works just on small groups.

At 10/1/10 11:55 PM, Spysociety wrote: Communism is the most best society and political way to live, but only in theories. It is technically impossible these ideas really work on pratice, have no logic.

This saying has been repeated over and over and over again without any logical basis. Communism isn't 'technically impossible' if the world's second largest economy operated under a centrally planned system for over 65 years. It didn't collapse because it was centrally planned. It collapsed because of a mindlessly bureaucratic system, corruption, incompetence, and resentment of the regime.

In some sense, a free-market system is somewhat better ordered than a centrally planned one. It is self-organizing, but not necessarily intelligent; it doesn't serve any one particular interest, it just happens to be the best at moving capital around. There needs to be some level of state direction, which is why there are no countries with completely unrestricted economies.

China has liberalized in the past few decades but the state still dominates heavy industry and the military-industrial complex because it's strategically relevant. That hasn't stopped it from attaining an annualized growth rate of over 10% for the past thirty years.

DEMOCRACY RULES

take that Zimbabwe

Pretty much with communism it is so much better than a bureaucracy in how they can get things done quick. But a communist economy sucks really bad because nobody wants to work if everythings controlled by the govt.

i dont think its awesome. The rules that we have now are good