Argument with a capitalist

[Catmatic Leftist]

What do I say when a capitalist argues that communism will make the world over-populated?

[Victus Mortuum]

Why does the communist mode of production make the world over-populated and the capitalist one does not?

[MapOfYourHead]

Regardless of ideology, over-population will have to be dealt with.

[Jose Gracchus]

Ask him to demonstrate a shred of evidence that population is kept in check by starvation and fear of deprivation, which is implicitly he must be claiming. Ask him to justify this highly inhumane principle as the only workable system, which he will not even deign to imagine alternatives. Ask him how capitalism is not to blame for the maldevelopment and disproportionate poverty of Third World farmers, trapped in a model of economy and labor which damns him and his community to breeding slaves that will never rise above his station. Ask him if that's what he supports.

[Sixiang]

If anything, capitalism would probably prolong overpopulation. I imagine that people will be having less children under communism because they don't need to have 12 kids to work on the farm or for the family business.

[Rafiq]

What do I say when a capitalist argues that communism will make the world over-populated?

Under Communism people will have less kids.

Marriage is something that will occur rarely.

Gender will not socially exist.

I once used to ask how we will deal with people not having ANY kids.

So yeah.

Less poverty = Less having kids.

usually familys have a ton of kids to help them with work or make them successful to help them.

The current population will get old and die. new generations ect.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Rebuke:

An "over populated" world where nobody is homeless or starving is better than an already over populated world where millions die from starvation, etc.

It's a cheap way to call him a bad person for being a capitalist.

[S.Artesian]

Tell him/her that the ideology of "overpopulation" is, and has historically been, nothing other than a poorly concealed attack on the existence of poor people rather than an attack on the sources of poverty.

Point out that with communism, sex education, contraception, the ability of women to terminate a pregnancy will not be obstructed by religious cant, political hypocrisy, and just plain old vicious ignorance.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Thank you for all of your replies. I will be speaking with him again in a short while and I will post his counterarguments.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I don't see how overpopulation could exist anytime soon. Currently, we grow enough food to feed the entire world one and a half times (easily feed 10 billion, world is currently 6.8 billion) although a large portion of the world is under-fed and face starvation. The earth is also not aching for space. Cities can be crowded (see: Tokyo, NYC, etc.) but it's not like the actual possible living space is becoming desperate. Plenty of livable places are actually habitable farmlands and plains, not yet touched (it's not like people randomly want to prop up new cities in a day...) If our current cities become a problem, trust me, we have more land to build on.
We have enough food and land. What's the problem? How would a stateless, classless society cause such problems?

[Jose Gracchus]

Tell him/her that the ideology of "overpopulation" is, and has historically been, nothing other than a poorly concealed attack on the existence of poor people rather than an attack on the sources of poverty.

Point out that with communism, sex education, contraception, the ability of women to terminate a pregnancy will not be obstructed by religious cant, political hypocrisy, and just plain old vicious ignorance.

Yes, the roots of poverty and deprivation are social. While they could be reformed now with minimal death, if growth projections and demographic trends continue forward, there will be considerable deprivations. I think it may be difficult to sustain the whole world at decent levels of survival. In the Western consumer societies in particular, it seems likely that much of the population must lose considerable "standards of living" (though human development may not go down much or at all). And we of course mean broader than the top 1%.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't know why a cappie would ask this. Wouldn't they instead ask a question on slow population decline, as what has happened to ethnic Russians since the Brezhnev era?

[#FF0000]

What do I say when a capitalist argues that communism will make the world over-populated?

What the fuck? Why on earth would this happen? Communism aims to improve living conditions for all people, and literally everything we have ever seen suggests pretty strongly that population growth is inversely proportional to quality of life. People who are better off have fewer kids.

[Robocommie]

I don't know why a cappie would ask this. Wouldn't they instead ask a question on slow population decline, as what has happened to ethnic Russians since the Brezhnev era?

It's a funny sort of cappie argument, because it's not the usual, "Socialism can't work" tripe. Instead it's actually arguing it will work too well. I mean, Malthusianism, obviously, but it's an odd logical route.

[Broletariat]

What the fuck? Why on earth would this happen? Communism aims to improve living conditions for all people, and literally everything we have ever seen suggests pretty strongly that population growth is inversely proportional to quality of life. People who are better off have fewer kids.
Perhaps the cappie is taking the route of "Communism = poverty for all" and extending that to mean we'll be over-populated?

[NGNM85]

Well, it depends on what your view of 'communism' is. If it involves raising the standard of living for the poor and impoverished, there is no reason to expect a substantial population boom. Population growth has been slowing down in the West, the areas where populations are exploding, for the most part, is the Third world. If we were to raise the standard of living for those people, based on the evidence, we would expect to see a decline in population growth.

[Rafiq]

Think of it like this.


Compare Fuedalism with Capitailsm. Big change, right?

Well, if you compare Capitalism with Socialism, the change will be just as big.

[ckaihatsu]

We have enough food and land. What's the problem? How would a stateless, classless society cause such problems?


The people of a stateless, classless society would be so excited to share the experience of life in such a society that they'd fuck more than bunnies -- and, at some point the sheer weight of additional tens of billions more would knock the planet out of its orbit around the sun, causing panic and mayhem worse than any post-apocalyptic movie you saw last summer -- wait and see people...!!


x D

[Catmatic Leftist]

So after continuing talking with this capitalist, he eventually starts repeatedly saying something along the lines of this:


All I'm saying is it's nice to have someone set up production schedules. It works for small teams, but you really need someone to coordinate efforts. I don't know if there really is some ruling elite. Obviously there's some people with a great deal more money and influence than they need or they deserve, but there's a reason people have to go to business school.

How do I go about this? It seems there are a lot of misconceptions rooted in his thinking. Is it worth continuing conversation with this capitalist? Or should I stop feeding the troll?

[S.Artesian]

How do I go about this? It seems there are a lot of misconceptions rooted in his thinking. Is it worth continuing conversation with this capitalist? Or should I stop feeding the troll?

Tell him George Bush has an MBA; tell him all those financial geniuses at Lehman Bros., Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Northern Rock, Allied Bank of Ireland, Greece etc-- the whole crowd went to business school. And that's worked out real well, hasn't it?

[ckaihatsu]

All I'm saying is it's nice to have someone set up production schedules. It works for small teams, but you really need someone to coordinate efforts. I don't know if there really is some ruling elite. Obviously there's some people with a great deal more money and influence than they need or they deserve, but there's a reason people have to go to business school.


Here are the *mechanics* of it, below -- no biggie, really, from a procedural standpoint. But of course those in charge of the levers are not merely exercising a *mechanical* function -- their purpose overall is to provide dividends for investors from the company's profits, whatever that may require from the blood, sweat, and tears of the whole workforce. These "coordinators" have vested interests in the company's well-being, often similar to or the same as the stockholders themselves, so they will do whatever they have to in solidarity with their "teams" to make sure the company's financials are in proper order.


Enterprise resource planning

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated computer-based application. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning


Gantt chart

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Some Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e., precedence network) relationships between activities. Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and a vertical "TODAY" line as shown here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Why bother even trying to have a serious discussion with such a tool?
I'd probably just tell them that once we will fill the mass graves with rich people, cops, and their lackeys, the struggle will be repopulating!

[scarletghoul]

You say "that's the most stupid desperate argument I have ever heard."

[sologdin]

will make the world over-populated?

one might dispute the conceptual basis of the question. to assume the existence of overpopulation is to misconceptualize the problem of underdevelopment.

the problem is therefore not enough capitalist development in the regions where alleged "overpopulation" has been acutely felt.

i.e., there's plenty of indigent persons in post-katrina new orleans, but no one complains that there's just too many damned poor people up in here.

one might follow up on this series of interrogatories by placing the burden of production on the proponent of alleged overpopulation to come forward with evidence that foods, housing, energy, water, and other basics of industrialism are insufficient to provide for the non-luxury production required by current lives-in-being.

if no such evidence is forthcoming, the proper response is fuck you fascist.

[S.Artesian]

Gantt chart

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Some Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e., precedence network) relationships between activities. Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and a vertical "TODAY" line as shown here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt

Gantt charts are OK... but they tell you nothing about what decisions need to be made and how they need to be made. It's a piece of paper with different color bars of different lengths marked across it. Big deal. The precedence network was named the "critical path" method around the time of the construction of the WTC in New York. The critical task method linked all the aspects of the project in a sequence that traced every task back to the task that had to precede it to meet the schedule of construction and completion.

But you know what happens-- somebody draws it on paper and then there's real life. The paper is important to know how things were supposed to happen, and what things that were supposed to happen aren't happening. After that, you're on your own.

[ar734]

So after continuing talking with this capitalist, he eventually starts repeatedly saying something along the lines of this:



How do I go about this? It seems there are a lot of misconceptions rooted in his thinking. Is it worth continuing conversation with this capitalist? Or should I stop feeding the troll?

On the population issue I think a communist would say that population will be rationally managed, like they are doing in China (with regulation) and in Western Europe (with propaganda, education, entertainment (what could be more effective birth control than a Bergmann film?))

As far as business school, business management, etc., there is nothing inherently evil about business; what is socialist or communist about a business model is whom it benefits. Under socialism a business model will be rationally managed for the benefit of people. In China (again) there are millions of business school graduates who manage the economy. This is not to say that the Chinese model is perfect or even desirable; it is more rational than capitalism. The problem is to make it intentionally humane and moral.

[Cowboy Killer]

(i didnt read the rest of the posts and im drunk so bare with me) im sorry but the dominant culture that capitalists create and support promotes over population...does anyone recall a book that says go forth and multiply