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Communism destroys development of the society
For-
Communism general idea is equality to all the people farmer or a scientist, no one is special every one is equal. thus when i see that i am a farmer i work hard the scientist also works hard. but they to earn the same. i am a kid i see this and decide freak i m gonna be a farmer why the fuck do i need to study.I am basically from a poor family the reason i study is a wanted a job through which i can fulfill my dreams of luxury. and people like me would sooner or latter end up contributing to the society.
Against-
i don't know much about communism my father is a supporter he would donate money to CRY rather than buy me a toy.i have come to despise communism ( din mean to hurt people ). i loathed my life, pathetic life and worked my ass off to get into the best institute in India. Would the same happen if i where under communist government.
Sidharth Hariharan
David Irvine
In all cases there are winners and losers if we learn balance and to never hurt others we will improve. It can be argued enforced communism Hurts, but does so openly, likewise capitalism hurts but does so in a manner that's more invisible and allows several degrees of separation. That's a shame.
As we evolve we hurt each other less and the faster we stop banging from left to right with such extremes the faster we will learn to live together and appreciate all our amazing differences, but do so without starving people we cannot see.
Mr. Anony mouse
Yes, people flourish in conditions of freedom and free personal interaction, but question is how long can it really last in socioeconomic systems like ours? Armed conflicts, financial breakdowns, power struggles... The way I see modern politics and power, it's like throwing a boomerang, one side has it for limited ammount of time, does some changes and quickly throws it again, if it's lucky it will get it again and could preform more changes, if not another party will catch it, make some small changes - possibly contradictory and inconsistent with another's and throw it back,... It's too much about maintaining status quo, and too little about preforming perspective/major changes. I think long term goals and thinking are imperative if we want to get anywhere.
Seeing you are economist, aren't you trained to model how "cancer" you call society will grow, presented in fictionally monetary terms? Money itself is system based on trust... Individual himself really cannot do much for himself, that's why intrapersonal interaction and collaboration are needed - it worked pretty well for hunter-gatherers I don't see why it couldn't preform so now. Or, you are suggesting we should denounce all structuralised systems and go back to hunting animals and living in caves?
I suggest you to unbiasedly look at accurate definition of word "society", compare it to facts from real world and critically evaluate if they coincide. Also economic growth can be at times a simple artifact, "true growth" comes in terms of resources and/or energy.
"reality"-breaker for some:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/
James Walker 30+
I find this a strange question.
The very word "Society" implies a kind of collectivist view of the World.
Does Communism slow down economic growth, diminish creative endeavour and turn lives to grey? Yes.
Society doesn't exist, it's really just a socialist/collectivist construct.
As for the word "development", that's even worse. Kind of implies you want to create a society, you want the cancer to grow? We, the people, flourish in conditions of freedom and free personal interaction.
Mr. Anony mouse
Take a look on China - what has it achieved/where it's going in last few years, it is solving great social/economic problems - of course there comes some price for that that being - freedom of information. But I think it would be hard for China to function efficiently if it would have any other social system. That authoritan system is glue that is keeping large country like China united - it would be easy for it to succumb to internal conflicts due to it's enormous population and size. I respect China, mainly because it's so good at setting and following long term goals. By the way China is planning on erradicating poverty by 2050 (and according to some projections it's economy is prone to surpass US's by around 2031 +- few years).
I'm sure you would have good chances to succeed, even under communist/socialist regime, intelligence, hard work and determination will get you very far almost anywhere. Maybe you should have asked your dad for a book instead :)
Luxury and social status, in my opinion should be at most secondary reason to pursue knowledge, and it's unlikely many of persons searching for that, are able to contribute greatly to society. Curiosity and willingness to learn are the main driving force behind great discoveries.
That's obviously my subjective opinion, and it does not neccessarily represent reality.
Ajay Ramanathan Chettiar
Cheyenne Lin
Ajay Ramanathan Chettiar
Cheyenne Lin
Ajay Ramanathan Chettiar
dingle mcringleberry
Communism will work in a utopia. IN a society in which everyone is secular, free thinkers who do not accept god, or other theistic beliefs, in a society where everyone puts their trust in science, where we have developed and become prosperous, we will live in a communist state.
Communism has worked, but one time. Buddhism, is a form of communism.
Other than that, it has never worked well and it's very hard for it to do so considering the type of people who populate this planet.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
i also don't think that buddhism and communism have anything to do with each other. i happen to know both concepts pretty well, and buddhism in no way talks about the factors of production, nor ownership at all.
dingle mcringleberry
Buddhism is a form of communism, all members have rules such as releasing themselves of consumerism, it is pretty well known that buddhists live a life of restrictions.
Wikipedia isn't the all knowing. It is run by human beings just like you and me.
You are letting what wikipedia says dictate your beliefs.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
you have never said it, but you said it? cool.
communism is not even similar to what you are describing. nor buddhism for that matter, but it is at least close.
letting? wikipedia? dicate? my beliefs?? you oppose facts? good god!
thomas duker
Ajay Ramanathan Chettiar
people would end up thinking why have to do any think when i have a life of peace, no competition). In a communist system If existed Bill Gates would have thought what is the use of writing a os (it would be free and profitless) of more than 10000 lines of program in asembly languague rather just do the same job he used to do earlier and live the same life. We would'nt have windows, microsoft. so this my point
the world basically works on windows ( leaving the ones who like linux (like me) (GUI are for wimps) ) , So would this have happened
thomas duker
Ajay Ramanathan Chettiar
Jeremy Gibson
Ajay Ramanathan Chettiar
Krisztián Pintér 200+
1. limits freedom, thus immoral
2. stops the trial and error process of the free market, thus stops economic development, thus impractical
dingle mcringleberry
Who says you're free?
Look at socialist countries and tell me how they're doing. It works.
Communism not so much, because people are unwilling.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
however if i look at countries with high level of socialism incorporated into their otherwise capitalist societies, like greece or france, i see no reasons to cheer. these countries face bankruptcy.
dingle mcringleberry
Your examples, literally strengthen my argument. The people in those countries are not willing.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
also you failed to look up what communism means, because if you did, you would see that it is an utopia with no state, no government, people cooperating in every aspect, etc. it was never ever tried in large scale. so whether it works or not is an open question, but the theory i believe in suggests that it is not.
Debra Smith 200+
In my moral system- life trumps profit.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
hoarding food is, on the other hand, not a crime in my eyes. you paid for it, it is yours, you do whatever you pleas with it. stating that this is a danger needs some backing up though. i personally don't believe that today you can hoard so much food to cause any harm.
it is the first case i heard the word "addict" as a verb. you can do that? you can make another person addict to something?
what profit is, in your book? i think it would be handy to define it.
Debra Smith 200+
Yes, drug dealers and slave traders routinely and actively addict people to sustances as a means of control. Please read about the Opium Wars to see the most heinous example of 'free trade' imaginable. When Britian wanted Chinese goods and the Chinese wanted nothing that they produced and would take nothing but silver for their products the British found a vicious and scandelous way to get what they wanted- they forcibly addicted whole segments of Chinese cities and provinces.
stephen dalton
Debra Smith 200+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
how would forcible "addicting" work? either i lock up the person, and administer drug for extended period of time, then release. it is a long and costly process, and the success is rather questionable, since the subject might get rid of the addiction. or i could secretly add drug to someone's drink or food, again for long period of time, without him noticing or acting upon it? these seem to be highly unlikely.
i assume you probably mean kids, who are introduced to the drug before they can develop the maturity to deal with it. it is certainly something we should not allow, very much like we are not handing out medicines or beer to children either. other than this, i see no problem selling any kind of drugs to people.
anthony bruni 30+
You bring up an interesting point about introducing a drug to children before they have the maturity to deal with it.
Right now it is all to common to promote a diet enriched with processed sugars and high fructose corn which is all but slow poison. Of course when the effects of this diet reaches the classroom we just give them some ritalin or aderal. seems like a repeat of history to me.
Debra Smith 200+
many substances are so addictive that even one administration can cause addiction in some people. Heroin is one opium dirivative that can have this effect. This is how many drug dealers ensure their market. They give away the first or the first few doses until the craving clicks in. It is the way biker gangs even in Canada ensnare young girls for prostitution. A drugged victim has no ability to defend herself.
The Chinese population was so immorally subjugated that they lost the power over their cities and governance and the ramifications echo to today. Hong Kong became a British colony through this immoral contamination of a population. The trade deals the were effected by both British and American trading entities are the height of immoral business which made many in the West rich.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
kidnapping, and having drugged for extended periods of time obviously does not constitute as "addicting". it constitutes as assault, kidnapping and unlawful detention. these activities never were and never will be accepted in any society. it has nothing to do with drugs, not more than the gun or the lock involved in the act.
if your plan is to limit the number of unethical detentions, you should not support socialism or communism, because these philosophies tend to result in human rights violations and murder on massive scale.
Debra Smith 200+
I am careful in my assertions. I note that you have not taken up my suggestion that you read about the opium wars and I believe that if you did you might realize how far these actual historical events would go in reshaping your economic assertions and theories. While I deeply respect that you have made a strong study in economics, I have also worked to guess how we could see things so differently. One possibiiity is that you may have formed your opinions in reaction to life experiences (which is entirely valid) but that they are not open to new information (which leaves you in a time warp). I admit to both of the above as sources of error in my own thinking. Have you taken the time to considre Nowak's new evolutionary work in regards to economic theory? I also think the Opium wars are a strong set of clues to the extent of moral corruption that is possilbe when capitalism is unrestrained and where strength and power and moral bankruptcy prevail.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Debra Smith 200+
Mark Meyer 10+
Robert Nozick's famous Wilt Chamberlain thought experiment comes to mind. Nozick allows any starting economic distribution, including perfect equality, called D1. The great basketball player, Wilt Chamberlain, asks that anyone who wants to see him play pay 25 cents. People do so willingly and a million quarters later we have a new distribution D2 where Chamberlain is substantially wealthier than everyone else. Since there have been no injustices in the process, can you call D2 an unjust distribution? In other words, is justice found in having and adhering to the same rules among free people, or by judging the end result?
Nozick's argument is compelling so long as we don't consider the real world with messy problems of incomplete knowledge and corruption where wealth allows people to change rules and buy guns. Even then I think it's hard to make a compelling argument against it because we should concentrate on fixing the injustices and inefficiencies in the system rather than trying to micromanage the distribution.
Here's a fun discussion and challenge to Nozick from Slate earlier this summer:
http://www.slate.com/id/2297019/
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Debra Smith 200+
Demanding sources is valid and I am sorry that I cannot provide it immediately but it can also be used as a tactic which always puts the onous on the other just so it can be knocked down. When another is forced to provide the definition- you get to pick holes in it.
I am not big on picking at other people's spelling either- I work to understand their point.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
a person with more resources can do nothing with a person with fewer resources. let us start with the observation that people are not starving to death in a working, but poor economy. when a rich man comes along and offers to buy a land, people there are living a life already, and they are in no way compelled to make any change to their current dealings. if they do so, they do it with the hope of a better future. and indeed, it does happen. when a big corporation appears to buy land, usually people are eager to make a deal, as their life gets better. and yes, errors are made. but it is hard to imagine that people on massive scale give up their wealth, and exchange it for something worthless.
i urge you to give a specific example in which people through voluntary exchange got worse on massive scale. i'm not aware of any such event.
Debra Smith 200+
I do believe in capitalism as it happens but I believe that it has, especially in American society, been given too much power based on unchallenged and erroneous assumptions. The very fact that corporations are 'persons' under the law when women only became that in the same time frame gives us a clue.
In order for the capitalism as we know it to continue it requires every expanding markets. Is that even possible? Corporations have no purpose other than to gain shareholder wealth. Without a heart or conscience there is thus no restraint on human 'ingenuity' or greed for prying profit out of those who are less educated, less strong or less powerful. I see it in your comments that assert that a child is fair game for corporate profit and PR. This frightens me.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
alas, our history knowledge is full of half truths and blatant lies. we all know that richard the 3rd was a monster, don't we? but he was not. we all know that the celts where barbarians, don't we? but they had a culture in many ways more advanced than the romans. we all know how monstrous the spanish inquisition was, don't we? but in fact during their 350 years existence, they killed like 3000 people, that is, around than 10 per year. the king's courts killed way way more than that. and while the church maintained due process (based on bullshit, though), the king's courts don't.
that's why it is very dangerous to rely on what we are certain of, but we cannot really source. we need to be doubtful. i personally can't imagine how do you forcibly addict thousands of people in a foreign empire. and i find it especially hard to believe seeing that nobody of the editors of wikipedia felt like mentioning such an important event after tweaking the article for almost ten years, and citing 32 sources.
also, what is your recommendation? should i acquire and read all the 32 articles and books in order to validate your claims?
Debra Smith 200+
"The British seizure of Hongkong was an aspect of one of the most ugly crimes of the British Empire: the takeover and destruction of India, and the use of India to flood China with opium. The British twice sent the Royal Navy to enforce opium addiction on China, in order to open up China for looting."
"In the treaty ending the second Opium War, the Chinese were forced to accept the legalization of opium. With Chinese resistance broken, large scale opium production in China was begun, supposedly to stop the drain on silver caused by opium imports. Both imports and domestic production soared, with imports reaching 105,508 chests by 1880. It is conservatively estimated, that China's opium-addicts numbered between 30 and 40 million, at that time.
Parallel to this, the British gained a stranglehold on the Chinese economy and government finances. In 1853, the British were able to grab control of Chinese Customs in Shanghai, because of the Taiping revolt. Twenty years later, all Chinese customs were managed by the British, with all Customs Houses of China within reach of British shells. For 40 years after 1860, Britain dominated China's commerce. By 1895, China's trade with Britain's represented two-thirds of all China trade, which then totalled 53.2 million pounds sterling."
It took me two seconds to find the first article. All it took was the desire to know.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
"unfettered capitalism" spawned great slave trade? slave trade is older than history. and guess what, when it was finally abolished in the united states, it was done in a capitalist society. the opium wars were wages by state. the state is by definition not capitalistic, but actually limits capitalism. i believe i told that like a dozen of times, and i don't really know what barrier makes you ignore that.
how much power you want to give to capitalism? because as it is now, it has about 55-60% economic power, and much much less poltiical. be careful! i'm NOT talking about government spawned and/or financed giants. that is not capitalism.
the fact that corporations are 'persons' is a stupid act done by the state! for long, big power groups compete for more influence and benefits. and politicians long since try to empower them while looking nice in the eyes of the public. but this is not capitalism. this is corporatism, etatism, interventionism and malthusianism. these are the exact opposite of capitalism.
capitalism does not require expanding. capitalism does not require anything basically, because its nature is adaptation. it is very, very good at that.
do you believe a socialist state has heart? do you believe that communists do what they do out of love? or rather, a mad quest for power or other people?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
"sent the Royal Navy to enforce opium addiction on China"
what does that mean? becomes clear from the following paragraph, i believe:
"the Chinese were forced to accept the legalization of opium"
this is not what you've claimed. this means forcefully clearing the way to introduce the drug to a large population that is willing to take it.
dikshita nahar
Ajay Ramanathan Chettiar
anthony bruni 30+
C. Lewis
http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism It will answer some of your questions...
If you look at the history of Soviet Union, you will see that they had many scientists and technologists with astonishing inventions which got them many Nobel Prizes.. None of them did what they did for a better life and luxury though... They did it because they loved it and they did It for the "people" Science must not be done for money nor the title, it is just wrong. However, today, everybody is doing masters and doctorate level education in order to get a couple more letters in front of their name which will make them a better candidate for better paying job. This is what Einstein argues about in that article...
Also, competition is the most important building block of capitalism. Companies are always trying to come up with new and better ideas in order to make their products sell. It may seem good for the development of technology but the companies are also trying to obstruct each other's business. The strongest one dominates the market but it doesn't mean that their technology is the best.
If America was ruled with true socialism rather than today's corrupted capitalism; Bill Gates wouldn't come up with windows and he wouldn't be allowed to dominate everywhere with his "average" operating system. In fact, instead of competing and trying to destroy each other; Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and the others would be able to gather, share their ideas and build the ultimate operating system and we would be using it for free...
I recommend you to read some Karl Marx...You can learn a lot about how the real socialism works and the way it is supposed to be built. What we saw so far were just cheap attempts of socialism which didn't work well, due to being ruled by greedy socialist dictators and capitalist powers trying to collapse their system. So, these can't be shown as a proof that Socialism isn't good.