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"Sometimes I sits and thinks, but most times I justs sits." - Me.

The problem is the implementation of such a form of government.

Also, Chrissy could you pls elaborate on the differences between communism and socialism. My major is physics. Sociology is a bit out of my field.

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vegemite rocks!!!

Remember, its all your fault.

I keep finding myself reverting back to nature when I need to find examples of balance and form in society or other structures.

The best 'system' I can think of in nature is a symbiosis, where one or more organisms feed off and provide nutition for one another. eg: Tickbirds: Buffalo and others have these birds sit on them, the birds clean ticks and other parasites off them and thus get food from the beasts. Beasts remain parasite free.
A company like microsoft would get a lot less flak if, after paying shareholders from profits, they turned excess money back into circulation in helping develop other companies. Giving such companies support and access to MS tech would invariably cause these companies to develop for MS (possibly even improving MS's product), and MS would get more benefit through increased reliance and popularity and maintain it's monopoly without using agresive or harmful tactics as evinced in the trial.
Financial fundis may complain about that scenario and say that MS do return to the economy by investing in the stock market, but face it, the stock market only really helps people that invest in it and have money to begin with. Face it, what percentage of the total population DO actuall have savings in ISA's (yes, I'm in the UK don't know the US equivalent) Plus, I don't know the fiancial science enough to argue with you, but see my point that there is more to this story than making money. If you can make money and be a service to people, it inspires similar acts and is the cheapest PR you will EVER get.

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"Sometimes I sits and thinks, but most times I justs sits." - Me.

however, the value of things is merely how valuable they are to humans. IE, with no power this computer instantly becomes a doorstop, worth about £5.

There are qualities in humans that are deemed as good. Intelligence, strength, physical fitness. We admire these things, and judge with them to an extent. People are not all equal, because people do not have equal helpings of the things that other people judge them by.

I like capitalism. It's the way the natural world works, only slightly abstracted. You want to eat something you go and get it, if you're a rabbit, for example, you just eat the grass under you. When we start forming societies we specialise. One person will be better than another at growing food while another will build better buildings etc. We introcude money, to represent worth, which is a necessary thing, it enables objects/work to be traded in a more fluid manner.. You still have to do something to get the money to feed yourself. That is good. It's the logical way to run a complex society.

Current implementations have it faults, benefits, namely. Giving people money while they are unemployed clearly does not fit the system. Money represents the worth of their work/goods to other people. Does your doing nothing have any worth to anyone else? No, so you should get no money for it. Does being disabled mean that the goods you create are somehow better than those a non-disabled person makes? no, so you shouldn't get disability benefits, as no-one wants to pay you to be disabled, as no one is amused by your disability.

You see my point...

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"Sometimes I sits and thinks, but most times I justs sits." - Me.

First of all let me clear up a few things. I am a sociology major (this is my last semester) and I know an awful lot about Marxist Communism (since I am one). Oh don't look so surprised we didn't all die after McCarthism. I know a lot of you think that Democracy and Capitalism are the greatest things since sliced bread and Im not going to tell you they arent. But what I am going to tell you is that you have been fed in your life a whole heap of crap related to communism.
When Marx wrote "Capital" and the "Communist Manifesto" (yes with Engles) he was writing during a period of history we know as the industrial revolution. During this time he saw many of the workers (thats you and I) being exploited by the owners of the larger industries. Since we as workers only have our labour to sell it is a valued commodity for those who are in business. However that being said the owners were not interested in doing anything for these workers. In marx analysis he predicted that there would be a violent over throw of the government (violent being the key term here) and that all the nations of the world would partake in such violent measures. He also said that there are steps to communism. First being Feudilism (serfs, nobles etc) which existed in Europe prior to industrialisation then CAPTITALISM and then finally Socialism (Communism)--
Fast forward to Russia circa the Russian Revolution...in power was a Tzar (sounds like a monarchy to me) who kept his people poor and hungry. The "underclass" banned together to over throw the government. Put in place at the time of overthrow was a kind of "dummy government" lead by..give you one guess...OH VERY GOOD Lenin...no one expected this to last. In fact Russia was waiting for the rest of the world to "jump on the bandwagon" but it never happened. Not only did that not happen but the steps weren't followed. Russia went from Monarchy straight to Communism (Do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars) Something got fucked along the way.
Fast foward again to the latter part of the 20th Century- 1950's Red Scare- Kill the commie bastards. Late 1960's hundreds of thousands of men died in a pointless war to stop an IDEA from spreading (how stupid is that?)Communism/Socialism are actually great forms of government- look at canada (almost completely socialist) and they didn't fall apart. The ideas that everyone has about communism aren't true in any sense...what you think was communism wasn't and it still isn't. In theory it works and in practice it will too...we just have to wait for the rest of the world to come around to it.
So next time someone tells you "Communism works in theory but not in practice-look at Russia" tell them to shove it up their ass cause now you KNOW BETTER.

Well Ive said what i had to say ...and whether or not any of you have something to say I could careless at this point. I know at least you guys read it and that makes me happy to know at least 5 of you won't make the same mistake next time.

Of course feel free to debate me on it- but I am warning you.

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"The causes we know everything about depend on the causes we know nothing about, which depend on the causes we know absolutely nothing about."- Tom Stoppard

quote:

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Originally posted by Chrissy:
You have been taught that capitalism mimics the way the "natural" world works. But we are not animals in the same sense that squirles and rabbits are, on the contrary we are quite different. It is easy to see why you feel that capitalism is the best system because for all your life that is all you have known. Its hard to except change when you don't know what the outcome will be.

Just some things to think about. =)

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I do not believe that the idea of capitalism working has been taught to me, i simply think that it is the closest abstraction of the natural "you want it, you take it" system that is actually usable by a society of size.

I would like to argue that we are not so different to squirrels and rabbits as most people like to think (THIS is elitist!)

We're apes with bigger brains and less fur. That's all. True, we can communicate better and form larger, more successful economies, but i attribute this to our increased brainpower.

A group of chimpanzees were recently taught a modest amount of american sign language. They seemed to like it (they actually began conversing simply with other chimps in sign language.) When the young chimps were fighting, the mother chimps told them to love each other in sign language. You think the concept of morality is only human? Are we really so different to those chimps?

We are not sacred. We only think of ourselves that way. Why should we be above using a natural system where people can die and life isn't always great? Yes, it's regrettable some people won't be able to afford food, and will die, but why should we give money, and therefore food to those people that do not do good enough work for us? If he wants to be able to eat, he'd better be good enough at his job that people would be glad to pay him enough to eat.

Thats just ONE problem, do you have any idea what the tax rates are over here? Income Tax is over 55\% in upper tax brackets! That means to earn a buck you need to work for Ū.10 . Even lower tax brackets are in the 30 percentile.. plus a 7\% Goverment sales tax and 7\% provincial sales tax.. Then theres landtax, there are TAxes on nearly everything here and we still fall short. We on a average are far behind the states in overall medical technology and whatnot simply because we can't afford it, so sure it all sounds nice in theroy.. it doesn't quite work.

Communisim would end up the same way, because no matter what you do.. there will be people who will screw everyone else over just to get ahead.. its human nature.