capitalism is better than communism

[nero africanus]

enforcer,

you seem to have abandoned my postulates and launched off in another tangent, i would have thought that the point of the debate is for you to respond point by point to my debate post. but be that as it may

please see mine in bold

The difficulty with debates about capitalism and communism (and every other political and economic “ism”) is definition. Your view on the matter is largely influenced by your understanding of the words stand for.

What is Capitalism?

“Capitalism” is not an ideology. The communists coined the word following civil rights movement of the 17th century. According to Thomas Sowell (The Vision of the Anointed), capitalism is an economy not run by political authorities. The beauty of a capitalist economy is that it gives power to the people. It recognises and values their ability to make the right decisions as to what they want to produce and consume.

if capitalism is not an ideology , what then exactly is it? capitalists tend to believe that before karl marx there was nothing like socialism

Capitalism relies on market forces, price, competition and profit to allocate resources to where it is needed, rather than central government deciding everything for you. Capitalism has a built-in mechanism for rewarding those that provide the right quality of goods and services that the people want.

capitalism does not rely on market forces to allocate anything , capitalism is the control of the means of productin by a select feww while extracting surplus value from the workers.

Capitalism requires three essential institutions in order to function.
1. Private property. This actually means not only your physical possessions (alienable property) but include your life and liberty (inalienable property).
2. Markets: That allows the buyer and the seller to have a mutually beneficial, voluntary, and free trade.
3. Rule of Law: The rules that clearly define and enforce your property rights and your obligations as a citizen. For example, if you perform your contractual obligations there is a remedy for you to enforce your right to payment under that contract.

in saying this , you actually regocnise that is is a system in place

What is communism?

Communism is based on a de-motivating political and economic ideology that states: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” In order words, don’t worry if you are a lazy layabout, the government will take from your hard working fellow citizens to give you.

the worst place to be if you are a lazy layabout is a communist country, enforcer , you will probabely be locked up for being lazy and not willing to work, the best place to be is a capitalist western country , you will be on the dole. like i pointed out absolute communsim is impossible just like absolute capitalism is impossible.

Communism is a “distinct socio-political philosophy that is willing to use violent means to attain its goal of a classless society.” Whereas capitalism is a social system based on individual rights, communism believes in equality through if necessary the use of force by grounding individual rights to build absolute government control.


you dont seem to appreciate that communism is the very antitheisis of capitalism and you seem to be enamoured with the wonderful sides of capitalism, while neglecting the evil sides. you forget about the existence of class and the terrible exploitation of the worker


German economist, Karl Marx, laid the foundation for the modern day communism and published the “The Communist Manifesto” in 1848, highlighting in the Communism agenda the following:
• Abolition of Private Property.
• Heavy Progressive Income Tax.
• Abolition of Rights of Inheritance.
• Confiscation of Property Rights.
• Central Bank.
• Government Ownership of Communication and Transportation.
• Government Ownership of Factories and Agriculture.
• Government Control of Labour.
• Corporate Farms and Regional Planning.
• Government Control of Education.

Democracy is an essential requirement in a capitalist system. The biggest mistake is to believe that there can be a democracy in a communist system. How can that be, if a political system is willing to use violence to achieve its goals of a classless society? How can anyone classify such a political system as democratic?

democracy , please see my last post , what is democracy? assuming that we accept your post that democracy is a requirement of capitalism , have we had any of it in nigeria , china , vietnam or russia or indeed a million other places that capitalism is practiced.

A requirement for a communist system is the need to have one political party that everyone belongs. How absurd is that? How can there be a democracy if there is no choice or opposition party? Just imagine putting all NVS members into one political party and explain to me how you will get consensus on anything without having to resort to bullying tactics to get people to tow the line?

what is opposition? are you talking about that group organised mainly to further interest of the rivals in the competition for power, what is chioce there is opposition in the comminust party but at the individual level , we saw this in china 100 flowers bloom and the opposition to the chinese opening , we also saw it in nikita krushevs destalinisation, we saw opposition in the cultural revolution in china. so which opposition do you speak of

in western countries you call it obeying the law, in socialist countries , you call it bullying and towing the line


While emphasis seem to be on the fall of Soviet Union as communist country and the gradual decline of communism in China, it is easy to forget that Japan was once a communist country, until it realised the power of market forces. The lesson learned report for these countries should read “people know which side of their bread is buttered”!

Which is better?

japan was never a communist country enforcer , it was only a closed and very class based capitalist society . it was closed to foreigners until it was forced to open up by the foreign humiliation by the american commodore perry that led to the meiji restoraton and consequently the pearl harbour attack

At this point, let me remind you that your choice matters a lot. I do not want to influence you, except to say that communism takes away your rights, including your freedom of expression. if you value your rights and freedom of expression then make your choice accordingly.[/QUOTE]

what exactly is choice? define it and i will explain something to you about it.

[NextLevel]

Nero,

Your debate was originally with Vade Mecum, not Enforcer. Maybe Enforcer is replacing Vade Mecum, I dunno. I love capitalism/communism debates - they make me nostalgic and they almost always never answer the harder questions . So please go on so un!

NL.

[Enforcer]

Originally Posted by nero africanus

[B]enforcer,

you seem to have abandoned my postulates and launched off in another tangent, i would have thought that the point of the debate is for you to respond point by point to my debate post. but be that as it may

I wasn't responding to your submission as you were debating with Vade Mecum. I guess I was just a gate crasher! A slap on the wrist is accepted!

if capitalism is not an ideology , what then exactly is it? capitalists tend to believe that before karl marx there was nothing like socialism

Capitalism is not an ideology but an economy, which is a system of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth. it isn't a political ideology in the sense of communism.

I see capitalism as an economic policy reommendation for wealth creation!

capitalism does not rely on market forces to allocate anything , capitalism is the control of the means of productin by a select feww while extracting surplus value from the workers.

That was Karl Marx sound bit. The reality is different. The way capitalism works is aptly explained by Henry Hazlitt (an economist): “It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each other. These otherwise bewildering equations are solved quasi-automatically by the system of prices, profits and costs. They are solved by this system incomparably better than any group of bureaucrats could solve them.”

the worst place to be if you are a lazy layabout is a communist country, enforcer , you will probabely be locked up for being lazy and not willing to work, the best place to be is a capitalist western country , you will be on the dole. like i pointed out absolute communsim is impossible just like absolute capitalism is impossible.

Whether yesterday, today or tomorrow, "Tribalism" retains its meaning - the favouring of persons from one's own tribe, no matter whether they are guilty, no matter if they are not the most qualified to fill a vacancy, etc, etc

There is no doubt that absoluteness of any economic and political system is not what we are talking about here. That only exists in the mind of people like Karl Marx!

A system that prohibits private property is not one that encourages hard work. You don't have to be genius to know that.

The reason why the unemployed in the capitalist societies are better off compared with their communist counterparts is because of the high level of wealth created in a capitalist system. What you have observed is the spill over effect of wealth creation.

you dont seem to appreciate that communism is the very antitheisis of capitalism and you seem to be enamoured with the wonderful sides of capitalism, while neglecting the evil sides. you forget about the existence of class and the terrible exploitation of the worker

Every system has a good and bad side. What we do as rational persons is to put both the choices we have on a scale. I referred to this earlier in my previous post when I use the phrase "the lesser of two evils". I also remember referring to market failure often occasioned by the greedy and selfish nature of human beings.

democracy , please see my last post , what is democracy? assuming that we accept your post that democracy is a requirement of capitalism , have we had any of it in nigeria , china , vietnam or russia or indeed a million other places that capitalism is practiced.

You haven't got absolute democracy which is why you haven't got absolute capitalism.

what is opposition? are you talking about that group organised mainly to further interest of the rivals in the competition for power, what is chioce there is opposition in the comminust party but at the individual level , we saw this in china 100 flowers bloom and the opposition to the chinese opening , we also saw it in nikita krushevs destalinisation, we saw opposition in the cultural revolution in china. so which opposition do you speak of

in western countries you call it obeying the law, in socialist countries , you call it bullying and towing the line

How serious is an opposition at the individual level? True opposition means an alternative party with alternative economic policy agenda.

japan was never a communist country enforcer , it was only a closed and very class based capitalist society . it was closed to foreigners until it was forced to open up by the foreign humiliation by the american commodore perry that led to the meiji restoraton and consequently the pearl harbour attack

Japan communist party was formed in 1922. Japan was once viewed by the proponents of communism as a model. Japan was an adocate of central planning before it saw what the Japanese called an "era of personal responsibility".

what exactly is choice? define it and i will explain something to you about it.

Choice has many definitions depending on the context in which you use the word. In the context that I talking about, choice is the voluntary act of selecting from two or more things that which is preferred.

[nero africanus]

Originally Posted by Enforcer

I wasn't responding to your submission as you were debating with Vade Mecum. I guess I was just a gate crasher! A slap on the wrist is accepted!

my dear enforcer, i dont really mind you taking up the cause of capitalism seeing that the original debater vm seems to be missing in action.

Capitalism is not an ideology but an economy, which is a system of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth. it isn't a political ideology in the sense of communism.

I see capitalism as an economic policy reommendation for wealth creation!

enforcer , i dont understand what you mean by the statement that capitalism is not an ideology but an economy, what then is an ideology? what then is an economy? do you refer to socialism as an ideology because you know of the existence of the works of karl marx and engels. is it an ideology because its prinicples and broad frameworks have been written down like the bible, koran ,and the verdic scriptures?

well i am telling you that a lot of capitalists have written down the priciples of capitalism as they understand it. starting from adam smith's enquiry to the wealth of nations to milton friedman, keynes and hayek. these men presented the various forms and modes that form the framework of modern capitalism.

so you see , the capitalism being the very antithesis of socialism and vice versa is an ideology. it is for this reason that you hear about keynesian this , hayek school of thought, friedmann's monetarists etc

That was Karl Marx sound bit. The reality is different. The way capitalism works is aptly explained by Henry Hazlitt (an economist): “It is only the much vilified price system that solves the enormously complicated problem of deciding precisely how much of tens of thousands of different commodities and services should be produced in relation to each other. These otherwise bewildering equations are solved quasi-automatically by the system of prices, profits and costs. They are solved by this system incomparably better than any group of bureaucrats could solve them.”

the real issue is about CONTROL of the price system not necessarily the price system pe se. there is a price system even in socialist countries and socialism,
. you see everything has a price, if i control the price system , for instance, the price will be the production cost , but if enforcer controls the price system , the price will comprise of the production cost , the extracted surplus value , or profit then of course demand and supply factoring . capitalism is asystem driven fundamentally by greed. this of course we know that no polite language can aptly describe.

i will point out the fundamental contradiction of capitalism , the controllers of means of production in captialism will always want to tell you that , the system should be allowed to be in free flow or free fall, let the price be dictated by demand and supply and surplus value factoring . however they are never willing to allow these animal rules to apply to human relations which necessitates that the strong survive , the strong eat the weak. fundamentally is this a contradiction, if it is acceptable to have capitalism , then it should be equally acceptable not to have policing to rein in inappropriate human behaviour . let the strong eat the weak and then out of chaos let the system find its equilibrium by itself.

Whether yesterday, today or tomorrow, "Tribalism" retains its meaning - the favouring of persons from one's own tribe, no matter whether they are guilty, no matter if they are not the most qualified to fill a vacancy, etc, etc

There is no doubt that absoluteness of any economic and political system is not what we are talking about here. That only exists in the mind of people like Karl Marx!

A system that prohibits private property is not one that encourages hard work. You don't have to be genius to know that.

The reason why the unemployed in the capitalist societies are better off compared with their communist counterparts is because of the high level of wealth created in a capitalist system. What you have observed is the spill over effect of wealth creation.

enforcer , at the height of the socialism in soviet union and eastern european material productivity was higher per head than that of the capitalist countries. note the use of the word material , where we are not talking about the monetary value of the thing produced but rather , the energy expended in production. in most of its history socialist countries buy nothing from the outside, they produce all they need except what they cant produce like crude oil etc. imagine the borders of the united states closed for a week. socialist countries do not have 25% or so of its citizens on the dole or social security , which is common in most capitalist countries.

so you see these rehash of old arguments used to justify capitalism in the west is not very believable now. what you term to be hard work in this instance is energy expended in acquiring the control of the means of production. it is the energy expended in amassing wealth in other to buy objects or the totems of the consumer culture, over time pop culture and mass media has programmed generations of consumers to always consume , here it is important to differentiate between want and need.
the difference between a volkwagen beetle and a landcruiser where both perfom the same function. we are talking about the very thing that capitalism thrives on consumption for its own sake , the capitalist is only interested in profit , it is for this reason that senseless consuption of the capitalist countries must continue in order the capitalist make profit.
this in turn turns into a mind set where we consume without any rational reason to . we evolve into a culture and worship material things as signs of success. so you see the concept and illusion of freedom exists without real freedom.today the inherent evil of capitalism has turned upon itself where , the means of productions to keeping with its sole objective has shifted production to china because the cheaper cost of labour and raw materials guarantees that the owners of the menas of production are guaranteed even greater profit.

the selfishness and greed of capitalism is so much that its surpasses nationalism and patriotism , it strips its industrial capacity in the home country of the capitalist and ships it off to a socialist country where wages have been made artifically low by communism. lies are fabricated to justify this aberation and it is called globalisation . its quite surprising the form marx's revenge on capitalism took.

Every system has a good and bad side. What we do as rational persons is to put both the choices we have on a scale. I referred to this earlier in my previous post when I use the phrase "the lesser of two evils". I also remember referring to market failure often occasioned by the greedy and selfish nature of human beings.

capitalism is essentially evil , it is based on injustice, the system is controlled most most dont realise it. for the benefits of capitalists.

You haven't got absolute democracy which is why you haven't got absolute capitalism.



How serious is an opposition at the individual level? True opposition means an alternative party with alternative economic policy agenda.

like i said before enforcer, political parties can trace its roots to the english civil war betwen the tories and the whigs who groups of noble men jostling for power in 15th and 16th century england. indeed the tory party of today has a 500 year history and is still a party for special interests. same goes for most other political parties no matter what they profess . a case in point is the united states where lobbyists , special interest groups and deal making is part of the so called democracy. another example is the recent election of the mayor of london, the voting public of london which comprises of more than 50 percent ethnic minority somehow got a racist , islamophobic , bumbling buffon in as the mayor of london , it does tell a lot about party politics and the democratic process. for instance how exactly did the three main parties present 3 white men as candidates in a city of ethnic minorities majority.
who for instace are they representing. do you know that london contains 80 percent of all the africans in england and 85 percent of all the afro carribeans in england. do you know that half of the immigrants in uk are in london. so how exactly does these people represent the population they aspire to lead. obviously , london is too important to the special interests for a minority person to win a nomination into any of the major parties. what does this mean? the special interests who control the parties determin what goes on.

look at the democratic party of america for instance , what is more undemocratic than the so called "superdelegates"? if that process were to exist in nigeria the western media will be the first to describe it as a process of king making. the superdelegates are king makers, thats all they are. what if a racial campaign starts against obama even with his so called victories now , is it impossible for the so called superdelegates to go for the white woman as a safe bet rather than a black man?

indeed of recent we have heard in the media where a so called superdelegate asked for money in return for his vote. part politics is just a sham, let us talk about the MDC party in zimbabwe sponsored by the british government. so if the people of zimbabwe actually vote in MDC, they are not voting in aspecial interest group? let us go to italy where , the billionaire silvio berlusconi entirely funded his party and won elections , who or what are people voting for other than an oligarch representing special interests. all political parties in the united states particularly the republicans havebeen beholden to AIPAC, the jewish lobby in washington , and that is why there wil never be peace in the middle east. so when people vote the republicans they are not voting for the reviled jewish lobby?

Japan communist party was formed in 1922. Japan was once viewed by the proponents of communism as a model. Japan was an advocate of central planning before it saw what the Japanese called an "era of personal responsibility".

japan has never been a communist country

Choice has many definitions depending on the context in which you use the word. In the context that I talking about, choice is the voluntary act of selecting from two or more things that which is preferred.

[Sapele Man]

Comrade nero africanus,

It appears some part of your reply is missing as the last five paragraphs are what enforcer wrote without your response to them.

I think enforcer has raised some valid points.

[NextLevel]

Sorry to interrupt once more, but has anyone heard of the mixed market economy?

[Vade Mecum]

Communism or whatever we decide to call it, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism or Maoism etcetera are all about vampire terrorism, deadly purges, lethal gulags and forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions, show trials, and genocide. It is also widely known that as a result millions of innocent people and political enemies have been murdered in cold blood. Communists, probably have murdered something like 110,000,000. The Soviet Union appears the greatest megamurderer of all, apparently killing near 61,000,000 people. Stalin himself is responsible for almost 43,000,000 of these. Most of the deaths, perhaps around 39,000,000 are due to lethal forced labor in gulag and transit thereto. Communist China up to 1987, but mainly from 1949 through the cultural revolution, which alone may have seen over 1,000,000 murdered, is the second worst megamurderer. Then there are the lesser megamurderers, such as North Korea and Tito's
Yugoslavia. Also, in Vietnam and Cambodia, communist rogue regimes killed millions of their
own citizens.

In his attempt to establish communism in Russia and the satellite republics which were forcibly annexed and made part of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin killed 43 million Russians. Today, the Soviet Union is still a third world country. In 1936, Stalin announced that the society of the Soviet Union consisted of two non-antagonistic classes: workers and kolkhoz peasantry. Indeed there was a third class, the ruling communist 'bourgeoisie' party. Members of the communist party were the overlords, in other words, the slave masters. The hypocrisy called communism, has historically proven to be huge agro-economic joke. It is not by chance that the greatest famines have occurred within the Soviet Union (about 5,000,000 dead during 1921-23 and 7,000,000 from 1932-3) and communist China (about 27,000,000 dead from 1959-61). In total almost 55,000,000 people died in various communist famines and associated diseases,

President Ronnie Reagan of the United states, in alliance with His Holiness, Pope John Paul II fought with all their might and God willing, they succeeded, in pulling down the evil empire, a.k.a communist Soviet Union. These great men thoroughly studied every thing about communism and concluded, that communism, unlike the assertion of Nero Africanus on this thread, lacks any political nor economic systems. President Ronnie Reagan continually said it over and over again, that communism was evil. Today, communism is still evil. Pope John Paul, while he was Cardinal Carol Wojtyla and the Archbishop of Krakow Poland, saw first hand, the evil, that is generally known as Communism. Thank God, the Soviet Union, is now history.

The beauty of capitalism in contradinstinction to communism is firstly to be found in the definition of capitalism. According to Ayn Rand "Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." This is unlike communism which has proven to be a failure over and over. It robs people of freedom of choice, takes away personal initiative, leads to rampant poverty and corruption and takes away all personal freedoms.

Capitalism is the one system that leaves everyone free to rise by his own efforts. The rise of Bill Clinton and Barak Obama is an attestation to the inherent revolutionary tendency of capitalism to lunch just any body from peasantry or, from being a nobody to success. The history of capitalism provides countless instances of people who improved their lives through work and ability. There are the millions of immigrants who came to America and worked their way up to the middle class—or higher. One of the great historical examples was Andrew Carnegie, who rose from a penniless sweeper at a steel mill to revolutionize the steel industry and make one of the largest fortunes of his day. It is no coincidence that 19th century America—the most purely capitalist era in the America's history—brought us the phrase "from rags to riches." Stories abound of millions of Americans, who came from Europe with just their portmanteux, but who became millionaires and billionaires, thanks to the capitalist system. We must not forget, the Nigerian American, Kase Lawal, the Houston based billionaire, who came to the United States, just to study.

Capitalism allows people to rise by their own efforts. Capitalism is driven by the fundamental considerations of :Freedom, happiness, dignity and profit for one's labour. But profit can only be earned through an increase in the production of wealth: profit comes from inventing a new product, producing a good more efficiently, promoting it to a wider market, etc. It comes from doing things better, faster, and smarter than before. This means that capitalism offer an open field to anyone who works hard to improve his skills—and it offers riches to anyone who thinks hard and comes up with new and better ideas. It is under capitalism, for example, that a company like Microsoft creates scores of millionaires out of individuals whose qualification is not inherited wealth or social connections, but only the ability to create and sell computer programs.

The rule under communist government regulation, by contrast, is very different. In state-run economies, like communism, where politicians and bureaucrats hold power over the economy, the only hope for success comes from being a member of the communist party. Thus the competition for wealth becomes a competition, not over who can produce the most, but over who can make the most bribes or call in the most favors. It is under communism that family connections, and the "Old Boy's communist party network" becomes the only determinants of success, rather than individual ability.

Again according to Rand "The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man's rights, i.e.., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man's right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control. It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature—the connection between his survival and his use of reason—that capitalism recognizes and protects."

Communist societies now have a new class of oppressors. These persons do not fit into the old technical definition of bourgeoisie. However, they constitute the new oppresor class. These are members of the communist party, who have access to power. Such access could be merely the ability to get a loan so large that it is possible to live off the business connected to such a loan. Access to political information in the military, intelligence or executive branch would make it possible to be rich making a speech or by selling secrets to foreigners. People with such access to information are now part of the new bourgeoisie. The funniest thing about communism, is that while the rich bourgeoisie class are getting richer, they keep blaming capitalism for the failures and ills of communism; while the proletariat are forcibly enslaved in Siberia and Tibet, with a false promise of a future unattainable utopia.

I will be glad, if my good friend Nero Africanus will accept that history is an amazing indicator and those who refuse to learn from it are doomed to repeat it. It's always "the former communist leaders in the Soviet Union, didnt do it the right way, China can do it right"; but then, it will come down to the same result- oppressed people left with no freedoms, rights or individuality. No communist nation has ever succeeded in building a succesful economy in which all the people participated and shared the common wealth, despite the promise, I mean propaganda of communism. Communism survives only in a state of tyranny. The people have no say about the way their lives are ruled by iron fisted tyrants, blood hounds, autocrats and despots.