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Thread: Communism vs. Capitalism

  1. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by WUnded Fox View Post
    don't forget the trade off between public good and profit.
    companies will and do, sacrifice your health to increase their bottom line.
    constantly cutting corners.
    decrease nutritional value to reduce cost. healthy food is not as profitable.
    erode safety standards to reduce cost. safer products cost more which reduces profit.
    use inferior materials to increase sales. a long lasting product reduces profit.
    use unhealthy materials to increase profit. higher production costs reduce profit.

    and the funny thing is that only 5% of this population is rich.
    the ones fighting tooth and nail for capitalism aren't even reaping the benefits. they are victims.
    This is why we have the EPA, the FDA, health department, business licensing, OSHA, and all the many other USA federal and statge government regulatory agencies.

    The thing is, the free market possesses the power to punish immoral businesses. For example, pretend I am an environmentalist. So I am mad at BP for the gulf oil spill. I can simply protest and punish BP by no longer purchasing their gasoline or oil products with my hard earned money. This is the beauty of free market capitalism. My money talks. If I don't like a company's product or service, i punish them by going to a competitor instead. Our freedom of press allows us to compile consumer reports and rate our satisfaction with companies in our free market. I can read about other consumers' pleasant or unpleasant experiences with a particular company. So in this respect, many argue that the free market does a fair job of regulating itself.

  2. #17
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    you're delusional.
    and this is coming from a wealthy person who owns his own business.

    most whores love their pimp.

  3. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by power to the people View Post
    Precisely as you said it.

    Abundance, saturation, reduces profit.

    How disgusting is this system where we have enough rice to feed the world, but to keep from driving the price of rice down, rice companies in Britain for example find it profitable instead to dump their reserves into the sea.
    Source? Does this really happen? Companies dump their own product into the sea rather than sell it? I doubt that is true. Please post where you get this information.

    Quote Originally Posted by power to the people
    How disgusting is this system where we have clothing companies like H&M and American Apparel that produce more clothes than they can sell, and instead of giving to those who needed it in the communities they have businesses, they deliberately cut up all the clothes before throwing it in the dumpster.
    That is funny, I didn't notice a shortage of clothing in America. Are there people freezing to death because they don't have clothes? Even poor people in this country have clothes. Man you can go to the salvation army and walk out with an entire wardrobe for less than $20. No capitalist country is going to just toss their own inventory if it is still in a good enough condition to sell. That doesn't make any sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by power to the people
    How disgusting is this system where we have bookstores that have too many books and rather than giving it away, they fill a dumpster of it and set it ablaze so as to not saturate the market and drive the price of their own profit down.
    Every single city I've ever lived in in the United States of America has free library access. Free PUBLIC libraries. I can go check out up to 10 books, including movies, magazines, etc. for FREE! FREE!! And I can also get a free public education for free. Nobody in America destroys their own inventory in order to drive up prices!!! What is the point of driving up prices if you destroyed your own inventory!?!?!? LOL

    Part of the reason I am laughing is that book burning is something that Communists are notorious for!! In America, we are allowed to have whatever kind of books we want. Freedom of speech. I can buy books on how to shoot guns and I can buy books filled with smut porn if I want. FREEDOM! However, the soviet Union banned LOTS of books.

    Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.
    Censorship was performed in two main directions:

    And communists are so stupid that they entrust their government to be in charge of the PRESS and to be in charge of all television and radio channels. Communists censor poetry, art, music, movies, etc. etc. You have no freedom of press. You do not have freedom of speech.
    All media in the Soviet Union were controlled by the state including television and radio broadcasting, newspaper, magazine and book publishing. This was achieved by state ownership of all production facilities, thus making all those employed in media state employees. This extended to the fine arts including the theater, opera and ballet. Art and music was controlled by ownership of distribution and performance venues.
    Censorship was backed in cases where performances did not meet with the favor of the Soviet leadership with newspaper campaigns against offending material and sanctions applied though party controlled professional organizations.
    I already pointed out the ironies in that cuban revolution thread about how HIP HOP is censored in Cuba, yet so many American hip hop artists wear che guevara shirts and praise Castro. The Cuban government controls the radio station, and they control the record companies.

    In America, I am not censored. I can have opposing political viewpoints and express them. I can burn the American flag and not get arrested. You go burn a Cuban flag in the street outside of Castro's house and see what happens. If you burned the soviet flag in front of the 1950s Soviet KGB, you'd mysteriously disappear.
    Last edited by Sense-A; 06-16-2010 at 09:42 PM.

  4. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by WUnded Fox View Post
    you're delusional.
    and this is coming from a wealthy person who owns his own business.

    most whores love their pimp.
    Then why are you wealthy? And why do you own a business?

    Communists redistribute their wealth. Yet you keep yours. Are you arguing for or against communism? You preach communism but live the life of a capitalist. Why be a hypocrite?

    And Communists forfeit their business to the government. Why have you not dissolved your's or else handed your business over to your neighbors and your community? You are welcome to share the excess profits of your business. Go ahead, write everyone in your community an equal check. Or are you greedy? Or do you feel that you should be allowed to keep the fruits of your own labor?

    If whores love their pimp, then why are you arguing against capitalism? Are you the one doing the whoring, or the pimping?

  5. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by power to the people View Post
    You have far too elementary an understanding of communism for me to consider writing a long-winded reply to your snot-nosed retort.

    Read State and Revolution[PDF]/[HTML]/[TXT] by Lenin and then talk to me about communism and the state.

    It's short and sweet. You'll enjoy it. Definitely a foundation of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.
    You have far too elementary an understanding of capitalism for me to consider writing a long-winded reply to your snot-nosed retort.

    Read ECONOMIC POLICY: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow by Ludwig Von Mises and then talk to me about capitalism and the state.

    It's short and sweet. You'll enjoy it. Definitely a foundation for Communists to stop putting faith in ideals that do not work in the real world.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sense-A View Post
    This is why we have the EPA, the FDA, health department, business licensing, OSHA, and all the many other USA federal and statge government regulatory agencies.

    The thing is, the free market possesses the power to punish immoral businesses. For example, pretend I am an environmentalist. So I am mad at BP for the gulf oil spill. I can simply protest and punish BP by no longer purchasing their gasoline or oil products with my hard earned money. This is the beauty of free market capitalism. My money talks. If I don't like a company's product or service, i punish them by going to a competitor instead. Our freedom of press allows us to compile consumer reports and rate our satisfaction with companies in our free market. I can read about other consumers' pleasant or unpleasant experiences with a particular company. So in this respect, many argue that the free market does a fair job of regulating itself.
    I don't agree with communism as an answer but I'm far from happy with capitalism as we know it. The Corporation matters far too much and the people not nearly enough. Special Interest and Corporate dollars run this country, not the people, and you're lying to yourself if you think its any different. I can point to a thousand examples but what's the point?

    It all boils down that the inherent greed of human nature is left unchecked in capitalist systems and that this only becomes more and more of a problem as time goes on.

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  7. #22
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    case in point


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  8. #23
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    Actually the the part about farmers dumping their crop to keep prices competitive is very, very true.

  9. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by power to the people View Post
    The worker is not only alienated from other workers and members of her community, but also against the labour process. Whereas the labour process once involved real production with an end commodity, today it is boiled down into a simple, repetitive, mechanical and menial task that no labourer is capable of taking pride in.

    In terms of her economic relation to her employer, it is immediately obvious that she does not receive the true value of her labour. Say she constructs a boot at $8hr, spent a haf-hour on it, she receives $4 while the company sells the book for $80. This we as communists view as a criminal robbing of what should be entitled to her.
    No. Because in capitalism, I put on a modest capital investment to startup my own printing press and print my own books and sell them for $80 if that is what FREE people in the FREE market with THEIR money CHOOSE to pay for it. No one is FORCED to pay $80 for that book. If someone else sells it cheaper, the consumer will go to the competitor. And if the worker wants to make more than $8 she can go work for another book company or else take her knowledge of her labor and become an entrepreneur.

    There has never in the history of the world EVER existed a communist country in which the citizens and populace in general enjoyed a higher standard of living than what is commonly afforded in Capitalist America. You guys having been DREAMING since the communist manifesto. Philosophy, ideas, textbooks mumbo jumbo. But as soon as you try to put communism to work in REAL LIFE, it fails every single time and time and time again yet you guys still praise and worship failed communist dictators and hail and salute fallen communist governments that suffered a HUGE EXODUS of the population to FLEE from the conditions of communism. People RUN AWAY AND LEAVE COMMUNIST COUNTRIES! THEY ESCAPE!!

    Yet the very communists that live here in America have no desire or motivation to leave because, well, capitalism is working out pretty fucking good for them. Communists in America bitch about how terrible and oppressive and evil capitalism is while they're counting their money in their McMansions. It's hilarious.

    Quote Originally Posted by power to the people View Post
    Marxism consists of a million truths, but they all boil down to one sentence: It is right to rebel.

    All power to the people.
    Yeah yeah. I went through my little rebelliousness phase in my life. But then I realized how good I have it and how fortunate I am to live in America. Anyways, capitalism lets me rebel. I can quit a job. I can choose to buy or to not buy any specific product or service from any specific company. Money talks. Boycotts work. Capitalism works. Communism doesn't. I'm still waiting for someone to explain how successfully communism has worked in any specific country in the history of the entire world. Or are we still just idealizing the communist manifesto written by a fat lazy big bearded man who lived most of his life in CAPITALIST London....oh yeah Karl Marx is his name.

    And can you please explain how Communists think they can artificially replace the natural forces of supply and demand that exist in a free market? Because government controlling supply and deciding what the demand is doesn't seem like a good idea to me at all. The Soviets didn't do a very good job supplying the essential demand for food in their communist paradise now did they?

  10. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Visionz View Post
    I don't agree with communism as an answer but I'm far from happy with capitalism as we know it. The Corporation matters far too much and the people not nearly enough. Special Interest and Corporate dollars run this country, not the people, and you're lying to yourself if you think its any different. I can point to a thousand examples but what's the point?

    It all boils down that the inherent greed of human nature is left unchecked in capitalist systems and that this only becomes more and more of a problem as time goes on.
    Do you buy products or services from these corporations? If so, why? Are you the one funding the corporations by consuming their products? Because, personally, I don't buy shit from companies that I don't like.

    And have you considered buying stock in the corporations that sell the products and/or services that you do like? You can buy just one share of stock and get to vote for the directors that sit on the board that run the corporation! I get stuff in the mail almost everyday asking me to vote on an infinite number of issues and corporate decisions just from the dozen or so different stocks I'm invested in.

    Can you name a system that works better than capitalism? Look, lets be realistic. Capitalism isn't perfect. Nothing in life is perfect. There is no perfect form of government. But ours is pretty damned good. Would you like to fix what is wrong with it through the democratic process? Or would you like to pick up a gun and sacrifice your life to rebel and revolutionize? Or would you like to just passively complain and just go on with life as it is because its not perfect but not that bad either?

    What more are you expecting? Besides the average 2-3 bedroom house and car and computer and television and cell phone and clothes electricity water etc. etc. that Americans all have, what more would you have if we lived under communism? How much would your life be improved? Would you work less than 40 hours a week? Would your car be better? Would you have 2 or 3 cars? Would your house be bigger? I mean what the fuck do you expect out of all this? Is communism going to afford everyone a higher standard of living so that everyone has their own personal jet and helicopter and chauffeur? Get real!

  11. #26
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    I could do youtube searches and post examples all day long, Greed left unchecked will eventually fuck us all.

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  12. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Visionz View Post
    case in point
    Those videos you posted about EWG are about subsidies. Free market capitalism does not provide subsidies!!! Subsidies are a form of intervention from the government! Free market capitalists are against subsidization. If you oppose the $20 billion the USA spends to subsidize farmers, then join our side!

    But in all reality, $20B is really a drop in the bucket when it comes to managing our annual budget. A lot of that money goes toward subsidizing corn for the production of ethanol. Not necessarily a bad thing. We want to become less dependent on foreign oil, then these are the sacrifices we must make!

    Our annual budget is $3.5 trillion (way to go Obama! Run up that deficit GWB style!) $20B is 0.57% of our budget. It is something I'm willing to sacrifice for the few farmers that supply enough food for over 300 million American citizens.

    dumping inventory in return for subsidizations is not a CAPITALIST idea. Subsidization is closer to state socialism. When you interfere with the natural forces of the Free Market system, you create irrationality.

  13. #28

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    Greed is ingrained in the nature of mankind. Greed existed before capitalism and exists without capitalism. Trust me there is greed in communism too. You cannot post random instances of corporate greed and claim that this is an effect directly related to capitalism. I, too, am astonished at how rich some Americans are. but the rich are few. And many of the rich people in this country become good philanthropists. What is even more astonishing is the high standard of living for even the most poor in this country. Even the poor people in this country still have apartments and cars and cell phones and a new pair of sneakers.

    A capitalist system allows for the most successful to become very rich. If there was not a possibility of great success, why would anyone take the enormous risks associated with going into business for themselves? Often entrepreneurs face bankruptcy and losing everything they own. But with a solid business plan they can become millionaires. With high risk comes high reward. In communist countries, there is no possibility of ever becoming rich. You will always be a peasant comrade working for the communist good.

    I get tired of hearing about EVIL corporate America. What about all the millions and millions of Americans who have jobs thanks to these corporations? Or the millions of Americans who receive dividends from the stocks that they own in these American corporations. You do realize that CORPORATIONS are owned by AMERICAN CITIZENS right? WE own the corporations. Also, these corporations provide billions and billions of dollars worth of products and services that we willingly consume. If you don't like Corporations, don't buy their products!!! If you don't like banks, withdraw your money! Go deposit your money somewhere else!! Banks can't make loans without your deposit money!!! I mean really, this isn't rocket science. Use the free market to your advantage.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sense-A View Post
    Do you buy products or services from these corporations? If so, why? Are you the one funding the corporations by consuming their products? Because, personally, I don't buy shit from companies that I don't like.

    And have you considered buying stock in the corporations that sell the products and/or services that you do like? You can buy just one share of stock and get to vote for the directors that sit on the board that run the corporation! I get stuff in the mail almost everyday asking me to vote on an infinite number of issues and corporate decisions just from the dozen or so different stocks I'm invested in.

    Can you name a system that works better than capitalism? Look, lets be realistic. Capitalism isn't perfect. Nothing in life is perfect. There is no perfect form of government. But ours is pretty damned good. Would you like to fix what is wrong with it through the democratic process? Or would you like to pick up a gun and sacrifice your life to rebel and revolutionize? Or would you like to just passively complain and just go on with life as it is because its not perfect but not that bad either?

    What more are you expecting? Besides the average 2-3 bedroom house and car and computer and television and cell phone and clothes electricity water etc. etc. that Americans all have, what more would you have if we lived under communism? How much would your life be improved? Would you work less than 40 hours a week? Would your car be better? Would you have 2 or 3 cars? Would your house be bigger? I mean what the fuck do you expect out of all this? Is communism going to afford everyone a higher standard of living so that everyone has their own personal jet and helicopter and chauffeur? Get real!
    why are you mentioning communism? As a system its retarded and on that we are in agreement but it seems we've reached a point in history where we're comfortable enough because of the house, the car, the running water etc that as a whole we no longer have a vested interest in moving things forward. I'm focused on progress of all humans everywhere, my ideologies aren't concerned with myself as me personally I'm doing fairly good but I know that's not the case for everyone and as long as that's the case than I can never be satisfied.

    But let's just start with this, what are some corporations that you don't buy from because you don't like them?

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  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sense-A View Post
    Then why are you wealthy? And why do you own a business?

    Communists redistribute their wealth. Yet you keep yours. Are you arguing for or against communism? You preach communism but live the life of a capitalist. Why be a hypocrite?

    And Communists forfeit their business to the government. Why have you not dissolved your's or else handed your business over to your neighbors and your community? You are welcome to share the excess profits of your business. Go ahead, write everyone in your community an equal check. Or are you greedy? Or do you feel that you should be allowed to keep the fruits of your own labor?

    If whores love their pimp, then why are you arguing against capitalism? Are you the one doing the whoring, or the pimping?


    i ain't even in the 5%.
    i ain't a communist either.
    i play the rules of the game until i can change the game.
    money talks but neither your money or my money is loud enough.
    i do what i can for my community and i do not support exploitative companies when and where i can. for now this is all i can do.

    but i don't cheer this system on. nor do i feed it if possible.





    you wanna support this system hey thats your choice but atleast be aware of the consequences of your lifestyle. i think your position is uneducated.

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