# communism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 31, 2002, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770 "2002-10-31T23:58:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/81 "2002-11-05T04:16:30Z")
**Mr. Svinlesha:** You’re arguing the wrong thing. I took exception to this statement: > [@](#): > > While “capitalism” has historically proven to be superior in the first two categories, it is in fact a complete failure at the third, as is generally admitted by virtually all serious economists. Your cites are making a different point: That there is no built-in mechanism in capitalism itself that will ensure social justice. In that sense, it is value neutral. I do not disagree with that. But Capitalism responds to the values of the citizenry. There is nothing per se in capitalism that says it will be efficient at providing shoes, either. Other than that a demand for good shoes reflects the values of the populace, in proportion to their wealth. But we also have real-world results to measure, and Capitalism has proven itself. Because the poor in capitalist countries do far better over time than do the poor in non-capitalist countries. So capitalism has NOT been an ‘utter failure’ at addressing social needs. It has, in fact, been better than any other system of government. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/82 "2002-11-05T04:38:30Z")
Well, capitalism isn’t really a system of “government”, is it? Certainly a king or a dictator or an oligarchy could govern in a way which didn’t interfere with the free market economy. ---
**Author:** ![Chumpsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chumpsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chumpsky)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/83 "2002-11-05T05:40:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Soup\_du\_jour \* > \*\*_Chumpsky_, are you critiquing _capitalism_ or _American imperialism_? Obviously, a country can be a successful capitalist society without being imperialist. Witness Canada! \*\* Good lordy… where to start? Imperialism, as was pointed out by a famous Russian, is the highest form of capitalism. Capitalism, due to its internal contradictions, inevitably leads to imperialism. It is disingenuous to talk about capitalism without addressing imperialism. Of course, Canada **is** an imperialist country. Canadian industry is not all that different from U.S. industry, except in scale. They both operate under the same conditions, and must export pollution and poverty in order to grow, and thus in order to survive. Canada does not go on that many imperialist military adventures, except as the junior partner of the U.S., as it did in Afghanistan. However, Canada is right in the heart of the imperialist system of exploitation that was organized by the western European countries, and carried on by the U.S. after WWII. As a capitalist economy grows, the tension between the classes grows, which is diffused by both reforms and by allowing the working classes to participate in the exploitation of the working classes in foreign countries. The Third World is deliberately kept poor and exploited for very important reasons. First, it serves as a pool of cheap labor and resources for the imperialist countries. It serves to depress wages for the working classes within the imperialist countries, and to create what Alan Greenspan credited the great American economy of the 1990’s with: “greater worker insecurity.” Furthermore, it allows the working classes to participate in the exploitation of the oppressed abroad, which serves to blunt class consciousness in the exploited classes. The effects of imperialism are absolutely horrific for all but a privileged elite in the imperialist countries and their collaborators in the police states they maintain abroad. Approximately 24,000 people die every day from starvation, most of them children under 5, and tens of thousands more die from easily preventable disease. [www.thehungersite.com](http://www.thehungersite.com) This is nothing less than institutional murder, as the conditions that create the situation are created deliberately in order to ensure the privileged position of those in the imperialist countries. Even in the domestic scene, the effects are horrendous. For instance, the infant mortality rate for black children is more than twice that of whites. [cite](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5127a1.htm) This is due not so much to the racism in the U.S., as it is to the fact that race and class are highly correlated here, and the effects of the vicious class war are felt mostly by minorities. What it means, though, is that at least one out of every two black children that die in childbirth are murdered, it is institutionalized murder. ---
**Author:** ![Chumpsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chumpsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chumpsky)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/84 "2002-11-05T05:54:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > **Here’s something you seem to be missing, if I may point out some more “obvious” facts: > [ul] > [li]Extreme capitalism is when corporations have all the power, and government has virtually nil.[/li] > [li]Extreme communism is when governments have all the power, and corporations have virtually nil (and don’t bother countering that under communism, the government is “the people”, or some such nonsense. Administrative control can’t possibly be effectively used by millions of citizens and it is stupid to assume it could).**[/li][/ul] These are neither obvious nor facts. In the actual world, the exact opposite is the case. Perhaps you may have noticed that the power of the U.S. government has not exactly been declining. Corporate power is reaching Orwellian levels, while at the same time state power is also increasing. How can this be? Well, the capitalist state _requires_ a strong state apparatus in order to enforce the will of the ruling class. At this point, the government of the U.S. is little more than the rent-a-cop for multi-national corporations. The most important decisions are made by the corporate elite, mostly in secret, which are then carried out and enforced by the state. Far from the state acting in hostility toward the business class, the two operate in tandem. You even have the elites of both traversing back and forth from the management of one to the other. The managers of the state have for a long time been drawn from the ranks of the corporate elite, and vice versa. Concentration of power is not something that can go either here or there. You either have it or you don’t, and the forms it takes will vary depending on the system. The U.S. system was set up to create concentrated power centers around business interests. In the words of John Jay, “Those who own the country ought to run it.” In the sense of concentrated power, I don’t see all that much difference between the old state capitalist Soviet system and the new corporate capitalist system that exists in the First World today. You will even notice that many of the old Communist party bosses have become the new leaders of industry, and that the old Communist ideologues have switched their ideology to conform to the new theology of neoliberalism. I don’t think this is actually much of a change, other than a recognition of where power lies. ---
**Author:** ![Chumpsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chumpsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chumpsky)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/85 "2002-11-05T06:30:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > **But Capitalism responds to the values of the citizenry.** It doesn’t. It responds to the desires of the rich. > [@](#): > > \*\*But we also have real-world results to measure, and Capitalism has proven itself. Because the poor in capitalist countries do far better over time than do the poor in non-capitalist countries. So capitalism has NOT been an ‘utter failure’ at addressing social needs. It has, in fact, been better than any other system of government. \*\* You keep saying this. But, as I keep pointing out, the poor in many capitalist countries are much worse off than those in more socialistic countries. Although you keep ignoring it, simply compare Guatemala, for example, to Poland before the USSR collapsed, or compare the poor in the U.S. to the more socialistic countries in northern Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/86 "2002-11-05T06:34:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chumpsky \* > Good lordy… where to start? > > Imperialism, as was pointed out by a famous Russian, is the highest form of capitalism. Ah, that would be Ivan the Obscure, I presume. > [@](#): > > Capitalism, due to its internal contradictions, inevitably leads to imperialism. It is disingenuous to talk about capitalism without addressing imperialism. Of course, Canada **is** an imperialist country. We **ARE?!** Wow, I must have missed a few meetings. Would you would be so kind as to point out the Canadian colonies and concentration camps? I know a lot of our people take vacations in Cuba, but I had no idea we were planning an invasion. > [@](#): > > Canadian industry is not all that different from U.S. industry, except in scale. They both operate under the same conditions, and must export pollution and poverty in order to grow, and thus in order to survive. Canada does not go on that many imperialist military adventures, except as the junior partner of the U.S., as it did in Afghanistan. However, Canada is right in the heart of the imperialist system of exploitation that was organized by the western European countries, and carried on by the U.S. after WWII. Well, you’re right, we don’t go on **that** many. I was personally hoping for was with Spain a few years back over the tuna crisis, but the lilly-livered politicians in Ottawa backed down. Speaking seriously, I must point out Canadian involvement in numerous peacekeeping missions, missions in which our financial gain was nil, missions in which our territory was not expanded, missions in which young Canadian men died trying to prevent people from killing each other. > [@](#): > > As a capitalist economy grows, the tension between the classes grows, Actually, as capitalism grows, the lines between the classes blur. The rich are getting richer, but the continuum of wealth greys out. You can easily find people of all economic standing, as opposed to the Soviets, where Party rank meant everything and if you weren’t in the party, you were a prole. If anything, communism is **more** rank-sensitive. The difference between a man earning $35000 and one earning $36000 is pretty trivial, but a man with a high party rank can crush his subordinates at will. In fact, he gains promotion by crushing his subordinates and his equals and superiors when he can. > [@](#): > > The effects of imperialism are absolutely horrific for all but a privileged elite in the imperialist countries and their collaborators in the police states they maintain abroad. Nah, I like being able to purchase inexpensive imported goods and I ain’t no elite. [quote] Approximately 24,000 people die every day from starvation, most of them children under 5, and tens of thousands more die from easily preventable disease. [www.thehungersite.com](http://www.thehungersite.com) This is nothing less than institutional murder, as the conditions that create the situation are created deliberately in order to ensure the privileged position of those in the imperialist countries.[/quite] Bullshit, I say. Your site has no information on the exact causes of hunger (except to say 10% of it is from war and famine) and they certainly aren’t blaming the Americans (though you seem happy doing so). Besides, your logic doesn’t follow. How does it benefit anyone, let alone a corporation, to have 24,000 die every day? Wouldn’t it be more logical to encourage them to develop local industry so they can buy things from the corporations? Your “evil for evil’s sake” position makes no sense. > [@](#): > > Even in the domestic scene, the effects are horrendous. For instance, the infant mortality rate for black children is more than twice that of whites. Horrible, I admit, but certainly better than a century ago, when infant mortality was far greater than it is now. If capitalism was getting **more** uncaring, wouldn’t that rates have stayed the same, if not gotten worse? Your position would make more sense if you didn’t try to make so many dumb, illogical points. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/87 "2002-11-05T06:59:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chumpsky \* > These are neither obvious nor facts. In the actual world, the exact opposite is the case. Perhaps you may have noticed that the power of the U.S. government has not exactly been declining. Corporate power is reaching Orwellian levels, while at the same time state power is also increasing. How can this be? Because it’s not. You should stop using scare words like “Orwellian” since you don’t seem to know what they mean. The world Orwell described in _1984_ was one of perpetual fear. Corporations gather information at an astounding rate, but until the Corp Police start showing up in the middle of the night, your metaphor is misplaced. The Soviets were very good at middle-of-the-night arrests, I mention for the sake of conversation. > [@](#): > > Far from the state acting in hostility toward the business class, the two operate in tandem. You even have the elites of both traversing back and forth from the management of one to the other. The managers of the state have for a long time been drawn from the ranks of the corporate elite, and vice versa. Why should there be hostility between political and business leaders? Would a perfect system have them in active competition? Maybe staging gang rumbles? Rubbing each other out? Business experience does tend to help get a person elected (not “drawn”), but Harry Truman wasn’t a big financial success when he got to the Senate, Vice-Presidency, and Presidency. There are so many counter-examples to your sweeping generalizations, that your argument is worthless. By the way, how are administrative promotions handed out under communism? I’d like to see your plan. > [@](#): > > In the words of John Jay, “Those who own the country ought to run it.” Well, at least you’ve moved away from obscure Russians. The landowning vote requirement was dropped in the U.S. in what, 1824? The 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments extended the franchise, hardly the pattern one would expect in an elite trying to maintain its power. > [@](#): > > In the sense of concentrated power, I don’t see all that much difference between the old state capitalist Soviet system and the new corporate capitalist system that exists in the First World today. You will even notice that many of the old Communist party bosses have become the new leaders of industry, and that the old Communist ideologues have switched their ideology to conform to the new theology of neoliberalism. I don’t think this is actually much of a change, other than a recognition of where power lies. Funny, I thought the new Russian leaders of industry were often ruthless criminals. In any event, recognizing that even the Russians don’t want communism any more makes me wonder why you like it so much. Oh, wait, I understand. It’s because they had to **live** under Communism while you’re only safely theorizing about it from a distance. Of course, if the imperialist system was as ruthless as you say, why haven’t they liquidated you yet? Is your tinfoil hat keeping them from locating you, or something? Capitalism needs a leash, but even the socialist Scandinavian countries know that if they want to keep their comfortable welfare states, they can’t make the leash too short. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/88 "2002-11-05T07:02:52Z")
> [@](#): > > ## quote: > > ## Originally posted by Sam Stone But Capitalism responds to the values of the citizenry. > > It doesn’t. It responds to the desires of the rich. Please explain the phenomenal success of Wal-Mart. A huge corporation that grew like crazy precisely because it met the needs of lower income people in spectacular fashion. Even if corporations were all owned by a wealthy upper class (and they aren’t - check out the rate of stock ownership in the working classes), they would STILL have to meet the needs of the poor, simply because the bulk of the marketplace is made up of middle and lower class people. Like I said, Capitalism responds to the collective needs of society. America is full of two-income middle-aged families, and so corporations are busy setting up big-box retail stores, making SUVs and Minivans, and making family movies. Because in a free country, the marketplace responds to the needs of consumers. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/89 "2002-11-05T07:08:51Z")
Okay, I had to look it up. [_Imperialism - The Highest Stage of Capitalism_](http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/) is a 1916 work by Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, a.k.a. Lenin. I’d feel ashamed for dismissing him as “Ivan the Obscure”, but then I feel smug that Chumpsky apparantly didn’t know it either, or withheld the name because he knew or suspected that people would be appropiately suspicious of a writer who critiques a system primaily so he can build his own empire to replace it. I’m fond of chapter 8, “PARASITISM AND DECAY OF CAPITALISM”, when Vlad shows that capitalism creates monopolies and is therefore bad. Vlad, of course, went on to form numerous state monopolies and kill thousands of people, but that’s why pencils have erasers. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/90 "2002-11-05T07:17:07Z")
I’m still waiting for some insight on that 100-million death count supposedly caused by American Imperialism, by the way. Give us your “honest accounting”. In fact, give us an honest accounting that shows half that number, 50 million, and I’ll be impressed enough to drop all counterarguments. ---
**Author:** ![Chumpsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chumpsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chumpsky)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/91 "2002-11-05T07:30:57Z")
Bryan, I said, “a famous Russian,” as I assumed that anybody who is at all serious about this discussion would already be familiar with Lenin’s essay. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > **Please explain the phenomenal success of Wal-Mart. A huge corporation that grew like crazy precisely because it met the needs of lower income people in spectacular fashion.** :smack: Well, I am glad to debate the issue of capitalism if you are going to hold out Walmart–freakin’ Walmart!–as a _good_ example of capitalism. I mean, this is almost too easy… Walmart succeeded by driving out the smaller competition using cheap, near-slave labor in severely oppressed foreign countries, and by keeping its costs down by oppressing its own workers at home. Walmart is the largest private employer in the U.S., with over 1 million employees. Yet, guess how many of these employees are unionized? 0 Yep, not a single Walmart labor union exists. Anybody who attempts to organize at Walmart is fired. This site is a bit out of date, but the data has not changed all that much since 2000, except in the worse direction: [cite](http://www.laborresearch.org/dis.shtml?walmart.txt) > [@](#): > > Wal-Mart workers average about $7.50 per hour, but the majority of them make less than that. Workers in the retail industry average 30 hours per week. At $7.50 per hour, a Wal-Mart worker makes $11,700 a year–nearly $2,000 below the poverty line for a single mother with two children. In fact, the majority of Wal-Mart employees working year-round, both full and part-time, qualify for federally-funded food stamps. (Source: [www.walmartwatch.org](http://www.walmartwatch.org) ) > > Only 38% of Wal-Mart workers are covered by the company’s health plan. That means that the 60% of Wal-Mart employees who cannot afford the expensive coverage are forced to turn to state and/or federal medical assistance programs-supported by taxpayer dollars–or find overage under a spouse’s plan provided by a responsible employer. Wal-Mart’s meager health care delivery system shifts the burden of its employees’ health care–to the tune of a billion dollars-- to taxpayers and responsible employers. It seems almost redundant to say that Walmart is an evil corporation. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/92 "2002-11-05T07:44:10Z")
What a load of nonsense. Do you have any idea how much of a boon Wal-Mart is to the single moms with two kids who shop there? A big chunk of a low-income earner’s wage goes towards paying for basics like food and clothing. Making that stuff 10% cheaper is like giving poor people a 8% tax cut, pretty much. Wal-Mart may not pay huge salaries, but the benefit of low-cost labor is absorbed by other poor people. Wal-Mart has created a huge market for itself by providing reasonably high-quality merchandise at extremely low prices. Its stores are designed to maximize convenience for parents who have to take their children shopping with them - like we do. Before Wal-Mart and stores like it came along, shopping with kids was an ordeal. Now we can buy everything from groceries to dry goods, electronics, furniture, and clothes for our daughter in one spot. And invariably, we save a bunch of money. The problem with socialists and communists is that they essentially want a free lunch. You think that wages for Wal-Mart workers are too low. But if those wages were higher, then the products Wal-Mart sells would be more expensive, and everyone who shops there would have THEIR disposable income buying power diminished. So the answer is to just raise the minimum wage, and the wealth to support it will magically appear ('cause it ain’t coming from the rich - there just aren’t that many of them). So inevitably what happens in countries that turn socialist is that they tax and spend themselves into massive debt and low economic growth, in an attempt to subvert the laws of reality. Unions run rampant, unemployment increases, and eventually the public gets sick of it and kicks the socialists out and puts some free-market principles back in place to undo the damage. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/93 "2002-11-05T07:59:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chumpsky \* > Bryan, I said, “a famous Russian,” as I assumed that anybody who is at all serious about this discussion would already be familiar with Lenin’s essay. Nah, you just fucked up. Anything Lenin has to say on this subject is suspect, since he used the Russian Revolution to gain power for himself. As a result, I think it’s fair to say he was a touch biased, and he had lots of people killed to consolidate his power, which is not something one can readily claim of Bill Gates. Then again, we could start giving quotes by Henry Ford and J.P. Morgan, if you think that’ll help the discussion. Ford: History is more or less bunk. Not the most trenchant example, I’ll admit, but all I can find in my copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. (side note: I have a sense of humour. Communists don’t) The Walmart issue is a bit murky, in fact. Sure, they pay their employees a pittance, but how does their purchase of inexpensive mported goods add to their over evil-ness? Would **not** spending money on imported goods somehow improve those nations? I can understand your confusion. After all, communism is about satisfying the majority of people, isn’t it? That tidy theory is kinda thrown for a loop when the people show a clear preference for a chain store like Walmart. Maybe the proles need a strong hand to guide them. I notice a lot of people who are pro-communist seem to think they have pretty strong hands. Have you started adding up the 50 million yet? I’ll get you started by conceding, say, 10 million deaths as a result of the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs. I’ll throw in Libya, Grenada, the Phillipines, Panama and that Iranian airbus. Add in Guatemala and El Salvador (though a lot of the killing is stricly local). Ah, heck, make it 15 million. I’m generous. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/94 "2002-11-05T12:43:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chumpsky \* > Well, I am glad to debate the issue of capitalism if you are going to hold out Walmart–freakin’ Walmart!–as a _good_ example of capitalism. I mean, this is almost too easy… > > Walmart succeeded by driving out the smaller competition using cheap, near-slave labor in severely oppressed foreign countries, and by keeping its costs down by oppressing its own workers at home. Walmart is the largest private employer in the U.S., with over 1 million employees. Yet, guess how many of these employees are unionized? I’m going to second Sam Stone. Wal Mart succeeded because they: 1. targeted rural and suburban areas with limited access to consumer goods 2. utiliized huge economies of scale that allowed them take advantage of price breaks, and other organizational efficiencies 3. utilized technology to streamline their supply chain and reduce waste and inventory haandling costs 4. provided one-stop shopping for customer convenience The result of these evil machinations is that the local WalMart store can provide the same goods as a dozen local 5 and dimes at a lower price. So you say that WalMart is evil because they drove poor old Gus the storeclerk out of business and the pay a bunch of high school kids $7.50 an hour? I don’t think so. I say they provide quality products at a price that allows poor folk to actually afford them. That is the benefit of capitalism and this is the area where capitalism shines -consumer goods. Competition drives down prices so that ordinary folk can buy things like rakes and computers. That is why communism fails. Left to “the people”, prices would decrease while wages would increase. Problem is that these prices and wages are not based on reality or market forces but the arbitrary decision of a central planning beureu. The eventual result - soon the communist system is offering to provide more than it can produce and voila!! people waiting in lines for their ration of bread. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chumpsky \* > Yep, not a single Walmart labor union exists. Anybody who attempts to organize at Walmart is fired. \*\* Yes, I agree that WalMart needs a lot more lazy fat guys sitting on their ass doing nothing and requiring three other union members to help change a lightbulb. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/95 "2002-11-05T14:59:20Z")
Svinlesha: Shame on you. That quote of mine does not describe the consequence of Capitalism or any other political theory. It describes the inequities inherent in the human condition. Shame. Shame. Shame. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/96 "2002-11-05T15:27:57Z")
**Scylla** : I admit that I felt a bit guilty lifting your post without asking permission first. Still, even if you disagree with me, I nevertheless argue that your statement does reflect the consequence of Capitalism, since that is the system within which you have made your way. There have always been iequities inherent in the human condition, of course; it’s merely my argument that Capitalism exacerbates them. But, yeah, anyway… I’m going to go over into the corner and hang my head in shame for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/97 "2002-11-05T16:10:40Z")
On Wal-Mart. Enough of this “opressing the workers at home” stuff. Last time I checked, it’s a free country. (Though you would probably contest this.) If the folks don’t like their lot at Wal-Mart, they can quit and find a better job, assuming one exists. If a better job doesn’t exist, than the worker is better off than he/she would have normally been. On unions. I worked at the “National Youth Gathering,” a sort of religious retreat for Lutheran youth, about 3 years ago in St Louis. For something or other, we had to erect a pseudo rock-climbing wall for the young’uns to climb on. We were starting to build this thing, with _volunteers_, no less, and someone from the city came along and stopped us. Why? Because we weren’t using Union labor, and apparently, we were taking jobs away from the local workers by setting this thing up that we brought ourselves. So, because we’re a church, (and no matter what people say, the mainline churches almost never have enough money, especially for events such as this,) we didn’t hire the union because we didn’t have the funds. Unions can be good in some instances. In this case, however, they clearly overstepped their bounds. The result being that the young’uns didn’t have a climbing wall. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/98 "2002-11-05T16:26:36Z")
Svin: > [@](#): > > Still, even if you disagree with me, I nevertheless argue that your statement does reflect the consequence of Capitalism, since that is the system within which you have made your way. You’d have to demonstrate that it’s a function of capitalism. It’s not. It’s a function of the fact that we live in a technologically advanced country with great resources. If we were all a bunch of technologically advanced communists living in a Socialist Utopia, the third world would still be a sucky place to live. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Beaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Grim\_Beaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Beaker)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/99 "2002-11-05T18:45:45Z")
**Chumpsky** has made a number of very broad statements here. Some questions and comments. > [@](#): > > If we were honest, we would account for all the people who starved to death due to the actions of U.S. imperialism. Any honest accounting would put the number around 100 million. Please give us the honest breakdown for the 100 million-started-to-death statistic. > [@](#): > > This is nothing less than institutional murder, as the conditions that create the situation are created deliberately in order to ensure the privileged position of those in the imperialist countries. For this quote I’m assuming that you are equating imperialist with capitalist. A few questions: 1. What actions fit your criteria of imperialistic? 2. Are only capitalist countries imperialistic in your opinion? 3. If not is it your contention that capitalist countries are more imperialistic then their counterparts? > [@](#): > > Not really. The Third World is kept deliberately poor in order to provide a source of cheap labor for the western imperialist countries. Around the world, the western imperialists work to install and maintain fascist governments that smash labor unions, harass or kill activists, and deter the threat of democracy. Is the Third World kept deliberately poor by capitalist governments? Companies? Or the two purposefully cooperating with each other for that purpose? What was the behavior of communist countries in regards to the Third World in your opinion? How do the two compare? **The following quote in relation to stats about nations posted by MEBuckner** > [@](#): > > While I agree that these states are a significant improvement over U.S.-style capitalism, in their priorities, I still think we can do much better. What exactly is your contention here? Is it that the more socialist the country the wealthier? The more socialist the healthier? Something else? Grim ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2002, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770/100 "2002-11-05T19:02:07Z")
**MEB** : > [@](#): > > - What I have been saying is that clearly societies **can** achieve a good quality of life for their citizens without abandoning capitalist economic systems if they establish other social and governmental institutions alongside a free market economy. \*This is where, I think, the problem of definition is making itself felt. When **Chumpsky** and I condemn capitalism as an ”utter failure,” we are specifically referring to a system in which no social or governmental institutions other than a free market economy exist. In other words, we are talking about capitalism with a capital _C_. As a philosophy, ideology, or economic system taken in isolation, capitalism fails to redistribute wealth in a morally acceptable manner; a fact which, as I pointed out earlier, is taken for granted by practically every serious economic theorist, except for a few loony right-wingers (like our former president, Ronald Reagan). As for the claim that social and governmental institutions have been able to modify an essentially amoral capitalist system so as to produce a ”good” society – well, that depends a bit on the perspective of the person making the claim. There is not much poverty here in Sweden, for example, but many of those who are poor do not feel that this society is ”good” for them. On the other hand, by American standards, the Swedish population must be ranked among the most advantaged, and spoiled, on the surface of the planet –even for those who might be regarded as poor by local standards. However, I personally do not feel that the average American lives in a good society. There, the redistributive mechanisms provided by the social and governmental institutions that have been grafted onto a fundamentally capitalist economy don’t even come close to alleviating the needs of the poor – an underclass that is itself a product of the capitalist system. And we see incredible wage and wealth disparities that are a result of the inability of capitalism to acheive an equitable distribution of resources. This is made even more clear when we consider the issue from a global perspective. According to the UN Development Program’s 1998 Human Development Report, for example, the net worth of the world’s three richest people exceeded the combined GDP of the world’s _48_ poorest countries. The same report reveals that the wealth of the 225 richest people on the planet is equal to the income of the world’s 2.5 _billion_ poorest. Returning to inspect the US domestic situation, we find that in 1998 the richest one percent of Americans had a net worth 2.4 times that of the poorest _80 percent_. I am given to understand that the distribution income and wealth in the US is not significantly different from that found in Mexico. I don’t know about y’all, but when I see statistics like this – billions and billions of dollars controlled by a very few wealthy elites, more billions spent of military equipment instead of basic human necessities, and so forth – I think to myself, ”Gee – when it comes to economic equality, capitalism appears to be an utter failure.” I argue that these patterns of distribution are a direct result of way in which a capitalist economy operates. I mean, foreign capital investment in developing countries has been going on for, at the very least, half a century: but the results for the poor of those countries are meager indeed. **msmith 537** sums it up, really, quite unwittingly, when he/she states: > [@](#): > > - …Or did you forget that when wages go up, prices have to increase to cover the additional labor costs? How many people would be able to afford shoes if we paid $40 union wages for someone to stich the Swosh on the side?\* This is apparently his/her justification for third-world slave labor – we need cheap shoes! On a more serious note, however, the dynamic that drives this particular type of resource distribution is also well known by anyone who’s taken a freshman economics class. I mentioned it earlier, but I’ll just take out a moment here to repeat myself: economic actors are constrained by market competition to produce goods as cheaply as possible. This is an obvious truism, isn’t it? So why should it prove to be so difficult for people to grasp that this constraint pressures such actors to keep wages as low as possible? As our Wal-Mart example seems to exemplify, success for actors in the free market is predicated on this principle. Does anyone here seriously doubt that Wal-Mart would gladly cut its employee wages by another dollar, if it could, and pass on a 50 cent savings to the consumer – while pocketing the other 50? Obviously, all other things being equal, investors seek to employ the cheapest workforces available. This principle applies a constant downward pressure on wage levels, and fuels the tendency to export production facilities to countries where labor is cheap, workers rights few, and environmental legislation non-existent. In the terms of World Systems Theory, the sweat-shop conditions originally located in the capitalistic core are simply being exported to its periphery. It would be nice if there was some sort of mechanism built into the capitalist system itself that acted as a counterweight to this dynamic, but as far as I’m aware, there isn’t one. Employers don’t just spontaneously increase the paychecks of workers out of the goodness of their hearts – in fact, they can’t, if they hope to survive cutthroat competition in a global market. Instead, the attitude is more like the one expressed by **soup** : > [@](#): > > - If the folks don’t like their lot at Wal-Mart, they can quit and find a better job, assuming one exists. > > If a better job doesn’t exist, than the worker is better off than he/she would have normally been.\* I.e., America – love it or leave it. The only possible defense for this sort system, then, is the oft-heard argument that even though distribution under capitalism sucks, over-all wealth increases dramatically. This certainly seems to have been the case in Europe and North America, for example. But first off, even a brief perusal of a standard development economics text reveals that these benefits have not been universal. And to judge by [current trends](http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/1/weller-c.html), the situation isn’t improving: > [@](#): > > \*\* For better than two decades, the orthodox recipe for global growth has been embodied in the so-called Washington Consensus. This approach, advocated by the United States and enforced by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), holds that growth is maximized when barriers to the free flow of capital and commerce are dismantled and when individual economies are exposed to the discipline, consumer markets, and entrepreneurs of the world economic system. Proponents of this view have contended that the free-market approach to development will also alleviate poverty, both by raising overall growth rates and by bringing modern capitalism to the world’s poorest. > > Yet the actual experience since 1980 contradicts almost every one of these claims. Indeed, the free-trade/free-capital formula has led to slower growth and more vulnerability for poor countries–and to greater income disparity among individuals. In 1980 median income in the richest 10 percent of countries was 77 times greater than in the poorest 10 percent; by 1999 that gap had grown to 122 times. Progress in poverty reduction has been limited and geographically isolated. The number of poor people rose from 1987 to 1998; in many countries, the share of poor people increased (in 1998 close to half the population in many parts of the world were considered poor). In 1980 the world’s poorest 10 percent, or 400 million people, lived on the equivalent of 72 cents a day or less. The same number of people had 79 cents per day in 1990 and 78 cents in 1999. The income of the world’s poorest did not even keep up with inflation. \*\*Among the reasons for this poor performance, Weller and Hersh point to the following: > [@](#): > > **… the hands-off approach to global development encourages foreign capital to seek regions and countries that offer the cheapest production costs–so even low-income countries must worry that some other, even more desperate workforce will do the same work for a lower wage…. Trade liberalization–the complement to deregulated capital markets in the global deregulation agenda–also plays a significant role in expanding inequality and limiting efforts to reduce poverty. It induces rapid structural change as well as a decline in real wages, working conditions, and living standards. It also gives teeth to employers’ threats to close plants or to relocate or “outsource” production abroad, where labor regulations are less stringent and more difficult to enforce–thus undermining workers’ attempts to organize and bargain for improved wages and working conditions. This trend fuels a race to the bottom in which governments vie for needed international investment by scrambling to offer employers the cheapest body of laborers.** Secondly, I have an issue with the simplistic claim that ”capitalism” has been the unmitigated source of wealth production. I think that folks who make that claim tend to merge capitalism with two closely-related phenomena: _free markets_, and _industrialization_. While closely related, these are _not_ synonymous concepts. Free markets have arguably existed since the dawn of human history, and without doubt pre-date capitalism by thousands of years. _Capitalism_, on the other hand, as I understand it, is a specific social order. Here’s a few excerpts from a definition I found in the ”[_European Enlightenment Glossary_](http://www.bigchalk.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/WOPortal.woa/wa/HWCDA/file?fileid=169685&flt=CAB):” > [@](#): > > \*\* 1) The accumulation of the means of production (materials, land, tools) as property into a few hands; this accumulated property is called “capital” and the property-owners of these means of production are called “capitalists.” > > 1. Productive labor—the human work necessary to produce goods and distribute them—takes the form of wage labor. That is, humans work for wages rather than for product. One of the aspects of wage labor is that the laborer tends not to be invested in the product. > > 2. The means of production and labor is manipulated by the capitalist using rational calculation in order to realize a profit. So that capitalism as an economic activity is fundamentally teleological.\*\* I would also like to suggest that the real source of wealth supposedly produced by “capitalism” is actually a result of industrialization. I submit that without industrialization, capitalism alone, as means of organizing society, would not be significantly different, or better, than any other given system. If anything, it is _industrialization_ that has led to higher levels of production and increasing wealth for societies. Capitalism would, if left unfettered, gradually concentrate that wealth in the hands of a small caste of elites. **soup** : Thanks for the interesting link. I haven’t had a chance to inspect it in depth yet, and it would take a bit of time for me to respond to it properly as well. I’ve never heard of FDI before…do you have a handy definition for me? What makes FDI different from other forms of foreign investment? **Sam** : :rolleyes: Clearly, discussing these issues with you is a waste of time. **Chumpsky** : I am hereby promoting you to my list of alltime SDMB heroes – and after only 78 posts! I’m really glad showed up. You see what I have to deal with here. **Scylla** : There you go. Critical comments welcomed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/communism/134770.md?page=6)