Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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ORIGINAL: Nnanji
for who and in what time frame? For instance it took the communists some seventy years to bankrupt the Soviet Union, but certainly the 100's of millions killed or thrown into gulags would wonder at your comment.
Hundreds of millions killed? Don't you think you're exaggerating those numbers a bit? Things did soften up during the 50s and 60s, a period often referred to as "The Thaw," and despite the devastation they suffered in two world wars and a civil war, they still rebuilt and managed to reach parity with the United States by the mid-1960s. In some cases, they even surpassed our technology. I never claimed they were a bunch of choir boys, but seriously, to suggest that they were helpless or incompetent is way, waaay off the mark.
And they didn't go bankrupt at all. The Cold War was a dangerous, wasteful endeavor, but they were holding their own. Many of my generation were frightened at the prospect of nuclear war, and the massive arms build-ups and international tensions were taking the world to the brink. One side would have to give and stand down, and as it so happened, the Soviets were the ones who were gracious enough and magnanimous enough to do so. When I visited there in the 1980s, nearly every person I spoke to said they didn't want war. It was our side that wanted war, as we were being led by mindless war-mongers.
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Cuba had a higher standard of living than Florida under Batista,
Not even close. If things were so great in Cuba, there would have been no revolution. There was widespread squalor and misery in Cuba before the revolution, and its government was owned by US-based organized crime.
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but look at it now and roughly since the Soviet Union died. China still has most of its people in abject poverty while sane democratic countries under a capitalist system have consistently raised the standard of living well out of hand to mouth existence. If you really believe communism made things better you're not looking at what really exists, or existed, on the ground.
I'm looking at what those countries were before they became socialist, and honestly, I know of very few capitalist ideologues who would even argue this point. Most of the smart ones actually concede that point since they know it's untenable, but you and Phydeaux - you insist on digging deeper when your best bet would have been to concede that point and move on.
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Certainly bad and corrected in time in the capitalist system.
Yes, after numerous strikes, uprisings, revolutions. As I pointed out upthread, in some countries (esp. after 1848), such as in France, England, and Germany, their own governments implemented reforms precisely because they had the foresight to not wait until things got so bad that there was massive upheaval. That's when many of the first government social reforms came about, such as social security, old age homes, education. That's what progressivism and liberalism do - they advocate sharing some of the wealth so that they don't fall into revolution and risk losing all of it.
Others might have been more stubborn than that, and they ended up facing harsher consequences. Cause and effect.
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Yet you look at interior China, Cuba, and North Korea today and you find the same sort of thing continuing. In fact it would be much more prevalent in China if it hadn't kept Hong Kong as a capitalist outpost infusing money into the Chinese system.
There are plenty of capitalist countries in the developing world which be said to be even worse. Much of Africa, Latin America, and South Asia has lots of human misery and suffering - and these countries are capitalist. I earlier recounted a story where a guy in Pakistan had to face a choice of selling his kidney or selling his daughter in order to pay money to his landlord. It's this kind of shit that you have to wonder about.
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Again, what you need to realize, like most socialists, it's not 1920 anymore. Americans in a free market feed the world and have the highest obesity rates in the world. Systems that are centrally controlled have fallen away or will as soon as the old dictators die off.
No, it's not 1920 anymore. Thing is, FDR's Administration made a lot of huge reforms and advances in our system to the point that America was a much greater and more powerful nation from the end of WW2 to the Reagan Administration, when he reversed 40 years of progress. As a result, America's economy has been sputtering, while our industrial base and infrastructure are crumbing, and foreign business interests come in and loot the country. Kind of like what happened with Cuba - or with China prior to the Boxer Rebellion.
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You should read some of Chairman Moa's diaries from around the time of his civil war. His response to anything that did not go per his set plan was to just kill them. Oh, farmer has chicken and I need dinner, kill farmer. Oh, landlord had rooms and I need a place to sleep, kill landlord.
Look, I wasn't there; you weren't there. From what I've read, there was a huge, volcanic resentment that had built up for generations under warlord rule and foreign domination of their country, so yes, there was a great deal of hatred and killing. That's oftentimes what revolutions can entail.
If you've ever read Massie's novel "Nicholas and Alexandra," there's a part where the Tsar and his family are being held in Ekaterinburg by revolutionary soldiers. I don't know if the Tsar actually said it, but there's a line where he says "These are our Russians. If there's hate in them now, it's because we put it there."
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So after you've killed off anyone who might have any objection to anything you wish to do, things might go your way for a while. But so far every communist system has failed despite the killing off of opposition. It's certainly succeeded (if you can call it that) much less well than here where we have to compromise with the opposition rather than kill them.
The biggest problem they faced was ideological inflexibility, in my opinion.
That's a quality I notice in both you and Phydeaux in this thread. You're just so heavily committed to the notion that capitalism is the greatest system there is, you're blind to everything else and won't listen to even the slightest compromise or proposal for reform. Indeed, many ideological capitalists ever since the Reagan era have been far too stubborn for their own good.
It's not that we, as a country, can't afford to make things better for working people, but you just don't want to. It somehow offends your sensibilities if workers actually have better lives. It goes against "traditions" of capitalism. It tells me that I'm not dealing with reasonable, practical businessmen, but rather, religious fanatics and rigid ideologues. I believe that this kind of wanton intransigence is what's hurting America and has led to our decline. At least the Chinese have been adaptable and flexible, whereas we have not been. This is harming America.
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I might add, history has shown, that it's guys like you that get killed off first once the communists take control. Your decent would not be tolerated after you'd been used to gain power. Just like Stalins useful idiots.
That's an awfully big assumption.
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Actually, go to a copper mining town.
I have been.
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The entire town, including all housing, is owned by the mine. The only thing not owned by the mine is the building the post office is in. The land under the post office is mine owned land.
It's very clear when you enter a copper mine town that if you aren't working you're not living there. Every store has a sign that says "we do not accept food stamps". The miners know that. I'm sure the mine owners would not have minded the miners striking off their property, as is the law. Look at a strike today. The pickets have to stay off the property. So, the mine owners asked the government to remove the strikers from their property. You may not like the system, but it's not what you're describing. Personally, I'd rather the mine ask the State to enforce the law rather than hire goons, like both the unions and the owners used to do, to enforce the law.
I'd rather that the State just take over all the land owned by the mine and send the mine company executives packing - or put them in jail, which is where they belong. As for their supposed "property rights," no right is absolute. Personally, I believe that property rights only belong to those who live there, and it's a concept which should only be used to protect residents in their homes, not businesses or landlords.
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What an ass.
Is this another example of "civil discourse"?
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Provide me one cite, besides blind prejudice, for anything said above.
I could do that, but honestly, I don't feel like taking the time. If I said the Earth revolved around the Sun, you might ask me to prove it - and I could. But that would mean I'd have to do extra work just to satisfy you. It's something that every educated adult should be aware of and understand.
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In my company I got to become a partner because I got too good at making widgets to let go to someplace else. Also, with that experience I could sell our ideas to both potential clients and regulatory officials. Something a widget maker is not expected to do. Additionally, when times were lean my partners and I cut our salaries in order to be able to afford to continue to pay our key staff and keep them. Your "1920's" projection is fantasy. The problem is you spew it like fact.
Okay, so you moved up the ranks on your merit. Good on you. Mind you, I'm not including the small businessperson in this, where it's a proprietorship or a family-owned business, many of which I know to be honorable and ethical. No, I'm talking about the skinflint, the huckster, the corporate shill - the kind of people who have given capitalism a bad name for generations. As I mentioned in another thread, you'd think that those who consider themselves "good" capitalists would try to police their own and identify and get rid of the "bad" capitalists. But the problem is that even the "good" capitalists run interference for them and protect them. Even if they are caught red-handed, they get obscenely light sentences for their wrongdoing.
It's all part of defending a "system" like a religious fanatic. For much the same reason, it took so long for anyone to recognize and expose the priest abuse scandals, since nobody could ever believe that priests could do any wrong. You're so wrapped up in wanting to defend an abstract system and cling to tradition that it blinds you to whatever wrongdoing there might be out there.
Think of it: You asked me for one cite of a capitalist doing wrong, as if you couldn't think of one yourself. This is what I'm talking about. You even call me an "ass" because I dared to challenge your holy system. This is religious fanaticism, not practical thinking.
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Seriously, your family came after the Revolution. Oh that explains it. One of the brawn brought over to work the shovel. They never really could think. They always did resent "The Man" and thought, "If only I were in charge things would be perfect."
Blabber on all you like; think what you like. It's interesting that both you and Phydeaux have gone out of your way to make this personal, when I've been speaking generally. You don't know me, and I don't know you, so why make it personal? I never said anything against you, but you choose to take offense anyway? I don't get that.
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