Communism v. Capitalism

I personally believe in more of the ideas of Communism than those of Capitalism.

oh, and I wrote an essay defending communism, it’s on my webpage .

“Market forces” in a capitalist society is tantamount a government force.
In a capitalist society the state protects the ownership of the means of production by force. If the state did not protect ownership, then folks would simply take what they wanted.
That’s why people clean toilets and dig ditches (for others), because they face starvation or imprisonment otherwise. If they attempted to eat without paying they would be imprisoned.

Maybe we would be better off without McDonalds employees. Do we really need some people to work 40hrs a week at a crappy job? Maybe we should clean our own toilets and cook our own food if we can’t pay people enough for them to consider their jobs worthwhile.

What’s interesting about this is that it sounds similar to socialist arguments.The “means of production” are made by workers, why do the fruits of their labor belong to the capitalist?

The capitalist presumably has the rights to the results of labor due to a contract made between the worker and themselves. But since one person has the means to pay and the other does not, there is an inherent power imbalance. Hence, the worker works and the capitalist reaps the benefits.

If there were no governmental restraints, the capitalist would only be required to pay the worker enough to keep them from starvation. This could still mean of course that the worker might still have to work 12 hours a day seven days a week to keep from starving. And that’s not far from what happened in the US before there were labor laws, or from what happens now in countries that permit it.

What’s so free about the threat of starvation?

I do not know what a capitalist is. I presume you mean boss, owner, entrepreneur?

And if we were all free to do our own thing, we would all starve because who wants to walk around in cow shit for free?

There are a million jobs I would rather be doing. But I wouldn’t do any of them for free.

Apparently, the only valid “me” in a Communist system is an individual who does not own the means of production. I fail to see how seizing and controlling the means of production is any less a violation of civil rights than search and seizure in a home.

Why don’t you try giving a writing assignment to a group of students without providing the incentive of a grade, and the consequences that follow? People will -never- work just because it gives them the warm fuzzies, and expecting anyone to do so is naive and ridiculous.

You should be careful what you assume. The fact that my views differ from yours does not mean that they were blindly passed down to me from my parents, and I very much resent the implication that I’m incapable of forming my own thoughts.

Capitalism is simple - it recognises that people have different motivations and is a system that allows them expression unless they are bad for other people and the state. Hence rich businessmen, rich entertainers (coincidently, among the most vocal critics of capitalism), rich doctors, rich lawyers, etc. as well as poor people with not enough money to live a decent life. We pay taxes to the state to provide protection for the weakest members of society. People are allowed to own things and to acquire new stuff. Supply and demand are self regulating. People are ends, not means.

Communism is simple - it recognises that people have different motivations and is a system that keeps them from being expressed unless they are for the good of the state. Other people don’t count. Hence state censorship, gulags, command economy. The people running the state are rich and are allowed to own things. The rest have to queue for things, like bread. They get what’s given and are told what to think. The weakest go to the wall, taxes are paid to support the state. People are means, not ends.

Claims that the USSR/China/insert communist country of choice aren’t “pure” communist states are garbage. Every time communism has been attmpted as away to run a country, it failed. Communism is the result of two men’s fantasies, with a variety of failed implementations. Capitalism has evolved by allowing people freedom. We all use the Internet to communicate - invented in a capitalist society and a powerful tool for promoting freedom, which is why every government is trying to invent ways to control it. Every major scientific and technical advance, for good or bad, has been made in a capitalist society. As an example, communism gave the USSR Lysenkoism and starved millions.

Nobody claims capitalism is perfect. However, I would say that it is the least worst system.

Ah…no. Market forces are created by supply and demand driving wages up and down.

If the state did not protect ownership, there would be no production of anything.

So your solution is to do away with all menial jobs? It is obvious that you have little or no understanding of economics or business. How would we be better off? The bottom 25% or so workers are now unemployed and the remaining workers are less productive because they are cooking and cleaning instead of doing their job? Sounds like a great plan.

Economics tells us that there is no such thing as a free lunch. I want to form a business. I don’t have enough money so I get some investors. In exchange for giving me money, they expect to be paid their money back later, plus extra to cover the risk of investing in my business, plus some a little extra to cover opportunity costs. So now I use that money to buy capital (your so called means of production) and pay for some labor at the market rate. Within a few months, my business becomes profitable. I continue to make money and pay my workers.

So why do the fruits of their labor belong to me?
-I (and my investors) are taking all the financial risk.
-I am responsible for paying off my investors, my laborers aren’t.
-My laborers have no “fruits”. They have exchanged the fruits of their labor for some of the fruits of my ingenuity and hard work.
-Without my capital, the laborers wouldn’t even have jobs

Replace capitalist with government and you just described communism. In a capitalist society, the management of a company (who may or may not own it) can only pay employees what the market will bear. If he pays them too little, they will go find other work. If he pays them too much, the company can’t compete with its competitors.

In a communist society, there is no such competition. You just get paid whatever the government decides is the wage you get.

In a communist country, unless you work double-plus hard to meet the quotas set by the government, you won’t receive your ration. At least in a capitalist state you have the opportunity to pick your job.

No, if the state did not protect ownership, then there would be a bigger market for ownership protection. You can see it at work now - police can’t be everywhere at once; they’re protection is more reactive than proactive. That’s not good enough for a lot of homes and businesses so people hire private security companies, home security systems, and weapons.

“they’re protection” - imagine my post edited so it says ‘their protection’.

In a perfect world, we would all be able to share whatever we had equally (communism). However, in our world, this is not a viable option. From the time of the nursery (my toy- no, mine!) onward, most humans are incabable of putting the needs of others not related to them above their own. Capitalism allows people to put their needs and desires first, and thus is more suitable to human nature. In theory, I’d be all for communism, but in practice capitalism works much better

And if the demand for labor is down, people starve or work at near starvation due to market forces. We don’t see this too much in the US because we have governmental safeguards (minimum wage,unemployment insurance,etc…).
The vast majority of people are born with little or no capital and must bargain with a few people who control most of it. These people are at a significant disadvantage.

Please support this.

No I didn’t say do away with menial jobs. But paying someone so little that the job is near slavery isn’t necessary. Restaurants are great, but McD’s exists by paying people the absolute minimum allowed by law.

You make this sound so easy, as if I could walk into the library and borrow some money to start a business. We all know “it takes money to make money”
Starting a business with someone elses money is something that very few people can do. Generally these are people with a good education, white collar experience, and contacts with the investment community (they’re already hanging out with rich people). All of this implies having money.

There exists in the US a chance for almost everyone to move “forward” economically at least a little bit. But I think that this chance would be much much smaller without government programs such as public schools, gauranteed low interest loans for college, and micro economic incentives. We’ve lived with them so long we forget how important they are.

In some ideal situation maybe. Or maybe you got all of your money from your daddy and you found some manager to do the work for you. Is it not obvious that rich people have an easier time making money? Is the risk really that large if when the business fails you still get to eat and stay in a nice house?

Yes exactly, some people can eat and hire no one if they want. Most people have to work or starve.

This assumes that there is other work to be found. What guarantee is there of that? If people’s time is merely a commodity like apples, what happens when the folks with capital don’t want anymore apples?

I see a lot of assumptions being made here. Interesting how communism is alternately portrayed as sheer laziness where nothing gets done when it’s convenient, and then as forced labor camp gulags otherwise.
A communist society could arise without government interference if people were just willing to share. This a big “if”, I know, but I still hope for it.
As far as I’m concerned the drive to be filthy rich is a mental illness. I’m really saddened that our culture seems to value this and justify rewarding it.

First off other people’s needs don’t have to be above your own for a communist society, you simply have to recognize that their needs are also important.

The immature neediness of the child is no more necessary than it’s inability to control it’s bowel functions. It can be controlled by themselves not the government. This control could be instilled by the same social pressures that keep us from crapping in someones living room.
If a society values and rewards greediness then I agree, it is very difficult to control.

The aquirement of ostentatious things for their own sake is really a way to impress other people. People obsessed with this are still dependant on other people for their satisfaction but in a way that is highly dysfunctional and dehumanizing.

Actually, in the competitive labor market of the mid-to-late 90s, fast-food restaurants were regularly offering starting wages at $2-$3 more than minimum wage. They had to, because there was no other way to attract people to those jobs. Offer a higher wage, and you attract more of the labor market.

McDonald’s stays in business because they offer a product that literally millions of people want, at thousands of locations, at an inexpensive price. Economies of scale, and whatnot.

Would you open a business if you knew that any schmuck could walk in and take your stuff, and you would have no recourse? I sure wouldn’t.

I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say there would be no production, period. But there would be much less innovation. Look at the major technological innovations of the last two centuries. How many of them arose from communist economies? Do you think there’s a reason for that?

It’s the competition between what communists often call “me-too” products that inspires innovation. If everyone gets the same boots and the same car and the same refrigerator, there’s no impetus to create a better one. And that competition is the inevitable result of a capitalist economy.

I’ll let someone else explain to you how one can gather investors for a business venture without ever stepping foot in a bank or knowing any rich people.

Being only 17, majority of what i say is the result of theory, very little of it is actually based on experience ;), so here goes:

I firmly believe that both systems are good systems and they would both work, even outside a perfect world. How well would depend on the mindset of the people. For example, capitalism works fairly well in the US. So then why doesn’t the same formula of capitalism in a democratic society work in India? Because of the rampant corruption of the people, no one has trust in the system because they realize that they cheat the system when they can just like everybody else, and the vicious cycle continues

If a society has a common set of morals on which there is overall agreement, any form of regulation will work.

But to answer your question, based on what knowledge I have, I think socialism would work better than either. A capitalist society, as Spoofe said, divides the rich and the poor. It gives too much power to a select few and undermines democracy. Communism puts too many restrictions on freedom and doesn’t give the people enough incentive to flourish. I think Socialism is the perfect median between the two. :smiley:

Capitalism doesn’t give power to the rich. Their power comes from their money and human nature. This is true under ANY political system. All communism (in our non-perfect world) does is remove the middle class and make the rich less accountable.

Sure, but again, I ask what happens when there’s a glut in the labor market? Without goverment controls people starve.

My main concern wouldn’t be “could” so much as “would”.
Would I invite someone into my house knowing they “could” crap on my carpet? Yes, because I assume that even if they feel that undeniable basic human need, they will find some way to control it on their own.
We (in the US) live in a society of forced scarcity. We have enough food for everyone, yet people still go hungry. We throw away tons of food everyday. Many fast food restaurants lock their dumpsters to help create a need for their product.
When a few people control most of the wealth, the rest of the populace naturally fights over the crumbs.

Not to be a luddite, but was most of that innovation really necessary? I’d say most of it comes from the need for capitalism to creat a market. Sure microwaves are convenient, but if we weren’t spending 40 plus a week to by “labor saving” devices, maybe we wouldn’t be so pressed for time. Certainly some devices such as clothes washing machines have had a great impact on our capacity to live better, but the vast majority of products are essentially useless.

There’s no gaurantee that the product that is bought is actually a better one. Are Ambercrombie & Fitch products really any better than their competitors? Or do they have a better ad campaign?
What are you buying when you buy a Coca-cola? It doesn’t quench your thirst any better than water (some say it actually makes you thirsty). It doesn’t even hydrate you. If Pepsi suddenly sold more than Coke would that mean that their product was somehow better?

And of course I will repeat what has been said many times, you are confusing revolutionary, centralized, dictatorships with an economic system. The only way I can see communism as being successful is over generations of successive degrees of socialism wherein we slowly become accustomed to the idea that are lives are interconnected and begin to think about how we want to live together instead of how we can fortify our castle walls.

Great and while they’re at it, they should also explain how you can do it without an education (public or private). It’s a theoretically feasible but statistically meaningless possibility. The wealth of someone’s upbringing greatly tips the scales in their favor. I don’t see anyway around that.
Yes there are small business owners out there that have made it by the sweat of their brow, but the vast majority of business is controlled by very few.

So, everyone, what about pure, unadulturated capitolism? Here’s what I think would happen, if we started from scratch (on a new planet, perhaps) with a purely capitolist system – It wouldn’t stay pure.

People would agitate for govt assistance for this, then for that, then for the other. They’d get it. Govt. officials would create a program, then another, then another. Each program, once created, would grow and grow, taking on more tasks, hiring more govt workers. Taxes would go up, then they’d go up more, then they’d increase again. Etc, etc, etc.

Business people and professional people, meanwhile, would be hard at work finding ways to avoid that nasty, dangerous thing, competition. They’d band together in associations and run to govt, saying, “please regulate us, please-please-please!?” Govt would happily regulate them. The real purpose of many of the regulations would be to make it difficult for new competitors to get into the field.

Would monopolies develop? Maybe. Or maybe not. Instead, maybe we’d wind up with a situation where most industries are dominted by a Big Four (or Five or Three) who are pretty much identical, in size, market share, prices, policies, wages paid, etc. Small fry would be tolerated, as long as they remained small. Once in a while, there’d be a shake-up in which the oldest, stoggiest member of the Big Four would fold and one of the small fry would move up and fill its slot.

People say that communism has never really be tried, that the govts called communist never really ARE communist. If any state started out truely communist, it didn’t stay truely communist for long, but was quickly corrupted. I think this is true, and I think the same is true in regard to capitolism.

Actually, in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (which doesn’t mention capitalism or communism at all) the author does a very interesting study concerning grades and class. He found that, by not giving grades, it actually helped the learning experience. Students were now more interested in learning and not attaining good grades. I will try to find page numbers in the book if you are interested.

As for the “parents” reference, I did not mean to direct it towards you personally. I was merely commenting on the proliferation of communist myths that still seem to linger (on this board, in conversations with friends, etc.). I apologize if you took it personally. I did not mean to demean anyone, I only meant to demean the popular American views on Communism that remind me of the 1950’s, the period in which most of our parents grew up.

colin

Wow. Holy loaded words, Batman! First off, I don’t see how communism doesn’t recognize that “people have different motivations”- in fact, it is a crucial element in communist theory. The problem we have with capitalism is that one has to have capital to reap the benefits of of our their own labor. Also that in capitalism the different motivations people have are wasted because they are forced into jobs they don’t enjoy and are thus kept from jobs they can be motivated towards and productive (and lets not forget happy) in. And for me, communism is expression. It is expression not chained by economic necessity. It is expression from a man who has just looked within himself, and pinpointed his place within the universe. For me, communism is complete creative freedom.

You also say that in capitalism “people are ends, not means.” This confuses me, as I feel that I am the one that should be saying this. How are people ends when they are forced into jobs they don’t enjoy? Is it because we can indulge in unfulfilling commercial products with limited (economic) freedom?

And your simplistic explanation of communism (in your own words), you seem to refer only to the Soviet Bloc. In your sweeping review of the theory you confine your subversive pejoratives to words that are essentially USSResque, and only give 2 people credit for the philosophical basis. In reality, there have been hundreds of thousands of communist thinkers, many of them you have probably heard of- Sartre, Fromme, DuBois, (and in a Marxist historical sense) Zinn, and Chomsky. Each has added a new dimension to “Marxist” theory, and has added immensely to the theory as a whole. It is not just two men, it is a school of thought.

You mention having to queue for bread. You are talking about the USSR, and are not taking the vast possibilities (good and bad) of communism into account. How about this? Every citizen over 18 is given a food card, much like a debit card. You are allotted a certain amount of money a month to buy what groceries you need. The amount of money increases with family size, and when someone is pregnant (or with a newborn) more money is allotted for diapers/food/etc. Alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana (which would have to be legal) of course are excluded. This is communist, and it seems feasible. Everybody has food. It is not being put in queue for bread. There are other possibilities.

In your last paragraph, it seems strange that you would mention that virtually every country is trying to limit the internet (because of its capitalist-borne immense freedom). Doesn’t this seem to be a contradiction to you. Capitalism, you aver, allows expression. Why would virtually every country (the great deal of which are capitalist) be limiting the internet if it is such a wonderful free market economy spawned access route?

I am a communist, and there has not been a communist country yet that I agree with. Sure, there have been movements that melt my heart and fill me with a sense of peace, but there hasn’t been a ‘country’ yet that I would be willing to vocally support. And yes, I see those countries that have fallen short as deviating from communist theory. You call my claims garbage, but you fail to recognize that, in the modern era, there has been a tremendous effort (by the US and others) to squash communism before it even gets off the ground, and that only 6 or 7 countries at the most were established communist governments. Surely there are more than 6 ways to interpret communist doctrine.

peace.
colin

Why must you work “double-plus hard” to meet quotas set by the government under communism? I could see how that would be a possibility, but I do not see how it is a prerequisite.

Also, I’d say in a capitalist state you don’t truly have the opportunity to pick your job. Sure you can choose not to work a certain job up to an (economic) extent- that is, you can choose less money for a more suited job if you wish, but if any job is necessary for your survival then you can neither choose nor pass up a job. You can’t exactly choose a job freely, though. A kid in a family that is not in poverty but also cannot afford anything extra in the budget cannot necessarily say “I want to be a doctor” just because he feels motivated towards being a doctor. What if his parents have bad credit and are not able to qualify for a PLUS loan, but they make enough so that the kid only gets 1/2 of his tuition paid in loans/grants. That kid cannot choose to be a doctor, rather he will be forced to choose between a dozen or so equally uninteresting jobs other than being a doctor. The labor is economically forced, but not forced by the state.

My argument has been that in communism you are economically free to pursue the job you are motivated towards. Sure, there might not be the necessity for 10,000 musicians, same as in a capitalist government, but in communism you would ideally have the free time to pursue music as a second job, while in communism 8 hour shifts or longer are necessary for most just to survive, which leaves little time to pursue other interests.

You obviously have a great understanding of economics, I just don’t agree that your conclusions can be attributed to capitalism.

colin